Competitive mother

[abitofpeace]

My ds has a friend who is what I’d call a bit of a bragger. He’s tells my ds better than my him at swimming, football, reading, maths, etc. Ds really likes this boy but has started to think of himself as not being good at things any more. The boy’s mother is very competitive and this week sent me photos of his school work (she’s a keyworker) and the teacher praise written on it. This was out of the blue and I didn’t really need to know! In the past she has also tried to find out about ds reading levels, etc.

My ds likes this boy (they are both 7) and regularly FaceTimes him, it’s its usually just silly chat and mucking about. Tonight though the boy’s mother was in the background (I could hear her voice) and the boy started quizzing my ds on Maths. He was holding up a workbook to the camera and asking ds questions! This went on for some time. Ds had no interest in it and kept saying let’s talk about something else but the boy was persistent. Ds eventually hung up but seemed upset at being put on the spot.

AIBU to think this is really weird behaviour?

This exchange was what opened my dc's eyes to this sort of child..
My first DC was a natural at skiing, but the 2nd really had to work at it and had just gotten a tenuous grip on not falling over constantly..

Other boy "I'm brilliant at skiing"
Me "I didn't think you had been skiing? Have you learned to ski?"
Other boy "No, but if I had I'd be brilliant at it"

We all laughed (thinking he was being funny.. he wasn't) and the other boy stormed home in a huff.
It's good for children to learn to take what other kids say with a grain of salt.

So many of these freaks!

I'd be holding up placards with the answers on from behind the camera for my kid.......I'm a huge knobhead though 😂😂😂

We've had very similar with a friend of DS. They are still friends in High School but DS keeps him very much at arms length.

The Mum started off in the first few weeks in Reception by taking her son's reading book out of his bag at home time and waving it about in front of the other parents and saying things like "oh you've gone up another level, you clever boy".

We really have gone down the route of boosting confidence quietly, pursuing other interests and ignoring the really rather silly behaviour from the other parent.

@Marchitectmummy
Your dad sounds wonderful and shows how you can build your own children up without tearing other children down

Mother is a nightmare. But if son likes the boy then encourage him to feel good about himself regardless of what friend says. Doing your best and not comparing yourself to others are great skills to learn.

However if your son finds he spends more time feeling bad than good with this boy then he should distance himself. Also make sure your son has other options for friends so doesn't feel he needs this other child.

I grew up beside a mother like this. Always comparing, always competing. Her children were the same. Always belittled me.

My mum is very proud of how she handled it, never engaging but as a child I felt she didn’t stand up for us. And this woman was constantly putting us down.

I remember winning a competition - it was a big deal and was in the local press. A grown woman couldn’t say congratulations to an eight year old. She just said I won and beat her daughter because I was one of the oldest in that age category.

I believed her for years and was ashamed - felt like I had cheated.

This woman is toxic - don’t let your son spend time with her.

My eldest is in in high school now and over the years I've noticed that these hyper competitive mums either feel they are not fulfilling their professional potential so they might be intelligent and might have good degrees but they haven't been able to develop well-paying professional careers or they are women who are high up on the career ladder and have had nannies look after the kids while they climbed up the corporate ladder.

The irony is that bragging like that has the opposite effect, it never comes across as impressive but rather as super desperate and attention seeking. Also while the bragger is busy bragging the really smart kids just get on with it and often end up doing very well indeed. I know a bragger from miles away and can never respect these types.

My mum is very proud of how she handled it, never engaging but as a child I felt she didn’t stand up for us. And this woman was constantly putting us down

So sorry you went through this. There is obviously a big difference between ignoring the behaviour and ignoring the behaviour and keeping your child out of harms way.

I think the OP really needs to encourage other friendships and interests and keep this boy (and his mother) away from her DS as much as possible.

Agreed bunny.

As an adult I can laugh and see how pathetic this lady was, but when I was a child she made me feel dreadful. I remember every little childhood triumph was picked apart.

We shared lifts to school so I had to see her every day.

Because my mum didn’t say anything in return I thought she was scared of her. She put my mum down loads.

These types of adults need to be kept as far away from children as possible.

On a funny note my dad (who totally stayed out of it all) recently took great delight in telling her about my promotion. He did a great impression of how she reacted🤣

Who is she in compertition with? Herself if nobody takes any notice! I have met many mums like this and it screams insecurity to me.She needs validation through her child thsat she is doing it right and thats sad to me.I parent and do it my way rise or fall as i think most parents do ,she obviously cant feel as confident in herself. She wants desperatly your approval OP which says far more about the good job you are doing than what he rmind is telling her. Its hard work to be friends with insecure people like her though I would step back and let the relationship drift away really.Real mums dont need that kind of validation,we dont need to put people down we are far too busy just getting on with it!

Completely batshit behaviour. I can't believe 3% think YABU!

Without fail, genuinely exceptional children I know of have very modest parents who will not be forthcoming with news of any success of their children, but will be happy to share if you ask them. Never in a braggy way though and if it's just one of their kids they're always really balanced about the qualities of all the others.

It's a bit sad this mum is like this and it will be doing her DS more harm than good, most likely.

She sounds like a twat. I'd reply with "I think you've sent this to the wrong person. I send my braggy posts to my MIL!"

Concentrate on keeping your sons confidence up. He'll meet people like this all his life and he'll cope if he's resilient.

My kids are home educated, and a certain type of parent ALWAYS feels compelled to 'test' them when they find out, presumably in the hope that my kids won't 'pass' and it will validate their choices. Luckily, my kids don't give a shit, but I do wonder how happy a person can be if they are seeking satisfaction from an 8 year old!

I have experience of something similar with m a dad of DS’s friend - messaging me when friend beats DS in a Kahoot! Quiz or gets a better mark in something. It is totally weird, but I console myself that DS is actually a bit smarter than this kid and the dad must have an inferiority complex. I did kick myself once when I responded to his message though - felt I’d dragged myself down to that level.

I’d advise rising above it, point out to DS how odd it is and help him deal directly with his friend. No good ever comes from parents getting involved in this stuff.

Difficult, given their ages, but I'd be talking to my child about what it means to be a friend and how actions can make other feel inside. Whenever reading a story (if appropriate) I'd take the cues from the plot to discuss the same and, hopefully, build up my child's confidence in themselves about the kind of person they want to be.

I had this recently after parents evening,
The mum was telling me her DD was top of all her classes, the teachers were in awe of her abilities.

The child looked embarrassed!!

The daughter obviously knows what her mother was say was incorrect, because my DD is in her class at school.

I felt sorry for the daughter

I think I'd mention it to the teacher, to see if she could separate them a bit so the boy has fewer opportunities to put your ds down.

Lovely post @Wearywithteens.

On second thought, if the boy was holding up maths questions during Facetime, is there any chance that he could be on the autistic spectrum and therefore not understand social cues instead following his own interests only? What stands out as much as the bragging is the lack of emotional intelligence. I feel a bit sorry for your ds's friend op, with behaviour like that he is bound to be bullied when he gets older, I don't think kids take kindly to other kids bragging about school work.

There was one mum in my dc class like this, v competitive & nosey about everyone's progress. She spends a lot of time coaching her kids & naturally their grades are high as a result. Next year is 11+ year and I'm dreading the constant bragging on Facebook.

The boy is not on the autistic spectrum, I think he was asked to do the Maths questions by his mum. She’s always tried to find out how my ds is doing, in Reception she asked my ds what colour reading book he was on.

My ds got a special swimming certificate one week and took it into school for assembly. The day after the mother marched into school with her ds with a heap of badges and certificates making sure I saw them.

I’m proud of my ds and love him just the way he is, I now am ignoring this competitive mother. I don’t want to be drawn into more of her weirdness.

DD1 was sadly friends with someone similar all the way through primary. We had the usual reading level and SATS boasting. The girl was nice enough but the mum was relentless and by the time we got to the junior end of the school other parents were avoiding her.

She once heard DD talk about swimming club and promptly joined up her dd. According to the coach she phoned and said that her dd was better than mine so the next group up would be perfect. DD is an amazing swimmer and reached regional level competitions. Her poor dd couldn’t manage a length and gave up on the warm up. The mum sat and glared at dd for the session. It was quite unnerving actually. The next day she told me there was an issue with the goggles.

I encouraged dd to do something different without the friend. She joined beavers which was amazing confidence building (and luckily the waiting list was too big for the friend to join)

At the start of year 7 I had a message asking what sets dd had been put into. Then at year 9 parents evening I was quizzed about what subjects dd was taking for gcse. The next day she messaged to say dd wouldn’t be able to take computer science as it was open to top set math only. My reply that dd was too set didn’t receive a response.

There's something abnormal about that woman @pippapotamus and the way you've handled her shows you're a class act.

I had the misfortune of working with the grown up 'child' in this circumstances. By her own admission, her mum had done everything to 'boost her confidence'. Which translated to treating everyone else like shit to make herself feel better.

She threw a massive hissy fit when another woman younger than her started who then didn't want to be her little protégé. She fucked off when she got her eventual promotion, but was not happy when she found out the other woman also got a promotion about the same time.

Mine are teens now anecdotally the only parents who boast to others about their child’s intelligence are themselves quite thick. Every time. My lovely smart friends would never mention their child’s abilities but I have had parents I barely know tell me how”bright” their dc are. Utter cringe.