Children apologising: who IBU in this situation?

[FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop]

Disclaimer: I’m neither family in this but my friend is.

A year 2 (age 7) girl gets shoved in the playground by a boy when they were playing cops and robbers. This really upsets her but she's not forthcoming with standing up for herself. When she gets home, because she knows the boy lives around the corner, she gets her (6ft tall and stocky - this is relevant) dad to take her to his house so she can knock on the door and ask him to apologise. The boy’s mum is a widow, an older mum (early 50’s) and it’s just the two of them living there. The dad/family of the girl know this.

When the girl and her dad arrive and say Thomas shoved her today and they’d like him to come to the door and apologise, Thomas’ mum says no because “it’s just what happens when children play sometimes they get shoved” and that the dad was out of order to come round as it’s intimidating for her living on her own to have an unexpected and ‘burly’ man knock on her door making demands.

The family of the girl say they think this is out of order and an apology should have been given, they’re trying to teach their daughter to stand up for herself especially when it comes to boys being rough and crossing physical boundaries.

Who is in the right?

But also, no parent of any size should be going round there in high dudgeon.

God for one shove in the playground I don't think I'd embarrass myself to do anything!!

It defo should have been dealt with by the school but I don't think a bloke going would be necessarily intimidating. My DH has sometimes gone along to sort out issues with the kids in the street but he's the friendliest bloke and is firm but fair and reasonable. Comp depends on the situation

You seem a lovely person, so I'm really not having a go at you, but you were incredibly offensive with that remark. Could you come to the door and apologise please? Or I'll come round with my dad...

🤣🤣🤣

I apologise if I offended anyone, I worded it badly...but to me, a recently grieving middle aged (is that ok to use?) woman is not the type of person a random dad should be confronting.

What I would tell my daughter who is the same age is yes stand up for your at the time or if her friends are playing a rough game then not to play and find someone else to play witg. The dad should have said to her it happened in school she should have asked there and then not after school no way should he have taken her round to the mums house ..

Yes, sounds like the Mum of the boy gave the DD a great lesson in female assertiveness in the face of a larger male bully.

And if the size of her Dad isn't important why did the daughter specify she wanted her Dad with her not her Mum? It's obvious. Men are more intimidating due to size and strength (in general) this is just biological fact and is why the DD in question wanted her Dad not her Mum.

Inappropriate behaviour no matter which parent goes around. Things like this need to be dealt with in school by teachers who have more insight into normal playground dynamics and a more impartial view of the (probably conflicting) children's accounts of what happened.

BTW if her parents are running around to peoples houses at this age, they're going to need roller skates when she starts secondary school!

@LondonJax

Absolutely!

The defensive parenting and blindly believing children doesn't end at primary school. The amount of parents who've come raging - and I mean raging, some have even come in to reception and demanded I be pulled out my classroom - because "Alice told my daughter to fuck off". 20 minutes later and a chat with Alice..."well it appears that your daughter has been telling Alice she's a fat ugly bitch since the beginning of term and it's just that on Tuesday she decided to snap back" 🙄
There's definitely a kind of child who pushes and pushes and as soon as the other person sticks up for themselves they play the victim.

Not saying this happened in the case of these 7yo's, I really do think it was just rough play being rough play and my friend's DD is very sensitive about it, but it is definitely a thing!

I think what disgusts me most is your friend and her husband bursting with pride about intimidating a woman .
There was no bursting with pride because their dd stood up for herself given she got her father to do the talking.

I think it is abhorrent that they thought this was a great idea to do this to a recently widowed woman on her own.

I would be seriously considering my friendship with someone like this

Fuss about nothing. Dad was in the wrong but I would have called son to apologise - son would then know to avoid the little telltale in future.

If I were the mum, I would have called the police. What he did was so innapropriate.

@SaturdayRocks

I can’t believe a grown man went around to a boy who’s recently lost his father, and demanded an apology from him.

That is lower than low. And his wife - your friend, OP - crowing about.

What awful people. So what now @FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop?

Are you going to stay friends with this thuggish family?

I won't lie, my face was like this last night as it was all teetering on a knife edge. I was very honest, she said she saw how it could be intimidating but they like to take any opportunity to help their DD stand up for herself because she's extremely over sensitive. I did say getting your dad to fight your battles isn't really a great lesson.

I've often used the "as a teacher" caveat giving advice because their DD is SO demanding and always complaining about people picking on her. Often my own DD, but then we find there's more to it, but my friend immediately believes everything her DD says and is convinced she's being bullied by several people at school. Eg I'll say "as a teacher it's really important to listen to both sides, kids harmlessly embellish and leave important parts out, not for nefarious reasons, it's just how they communicate sometimes". It mostly falls on deaf ears. They aren't like this at all with their youngest who's a polar opposite child and would probably have shoved the boy back twice as hard

Other than the way they parent their eldest they're lovely people. Their DD seems to be their anomaly - they are utterly, utterly blind when it comes to her. I don't actually think she's a manipulative child, she's just a product of parents who've pandered to her every whim.

I certainly wouldn't be trotting my child out to apologise on demand for a playground spat. I think forced apologies are worthless in any case, I never made my children apologise. They generally did so spontaneously anyway. I taught them WHY showing remorse and an understanding of the impact on the other person matters, so when they apologised it was because they meant it, not something to be recited on demand.

Dad sounds like a cockwomble.

@MintyMabel

dad was out of order to come round as it’s intimidating for her living on her own to have an unexpected and ‘burly’ man knock on her door making demands.

If she said this to him, she clearly wasn’t intimidated.

The implication is if he were a small guy or a woman, he’d have been in the right to do what he did. He can’t help his height or build, his daughter shouldn’t be penalised because he is a big guy. OH is 6ft 3 and well built. He should be allowed to stand up for DD in that situation, just as I would be at 5ft.

The problem is, here’s a parent taking the “boys will be boys” stance. The father is quite right to push back on that.

@MintyMabel would you send him round to a widowed mother's house to demand an apology?

Big burly blokes, IMO, no matter how nice they should be aware of how they come across especially to women. It may not be their fault they're tall but they should maybe think twice about how it looks when they go to gang up on someone

I would hate to have a lot of posters on a jury because they seem to have made up their minds before hearing both sides of the story... I work in a school and I can tell you that there is always 2 sides/versions of what happened. Any adult should hear both children out. The child who runs and cries first is not always the innocent party. And by the way, sometimes it reall is just an accidental collision!

Children like adults are going to give their slant on events.

If an adult told you someone had done something mean would you just go up to that person and start demanding they apologise without first hearing their side of the story?

Oh dear op. I'm in my fifties and in spite of what you might think, I'm very far from fragile it vulnerable so you do need to be a bit careful when relating age in that way.

Her age isn't really relevant here. But I've experienced similar (girl's mum accosted me as I was getting in my car when I collected dd)

I told her if she didn't back the fuck off I'd be calling the police and if she did it again id pursue a claim of harassment. It is intimidating and very confrontational. Unnecessarily so.

If stuff happened in school, it gets dealt with in school.

Going round to someone's house is absolutely inappropriate and your friend and her dh need to wind their necks in!

I have rather a shrill tone of voice (I'm told ) so even though it's not my fault, I have to be super careful not to sound arsey when I speak to people. This is especially hard when I'm teaching and have to raise my voice to try and be heard. I've apologised to pupils before and said "don't mind my bark" when I've raised my voice to say "Sarah - care to answer that question?" and poor Sarah has shit herself thinking I'm being gruff

The dad is a weirdo. By all means he could go through the school but he also is setting a bad example to the daughter!

@FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop

I have rather a shrill tone of voice (I'm told ) so even though it's not my fault, I have to be super careful not to sound arsey when I speak to people. This is especially hard when I'm teaching and have to raise my voice to try and be heard. I've apologised to pupils before and said "don't mind my bark" when I've raised my voice to say "Sarah - care to answer that question?" and poor Sarah has shit herself thinking I'm being gruff

It's ok. I have a terrible resting bitch face and everyone assumes I'm in a foul mood!!

@Nogoodusername

Goodness, if I was the mum I would be informing the school that a parent came around to my house about an incident that happened in school time and I found this intimidating. I am genuinely wtf. My husband wouldn’t do this in a million years but I would be beyond enraged with him if he did!

Totally agree with this. Also, where was the compassion for the little boy in this situation? It can't be easy being 7 and your father has died.

@CandyLeBonBon my exH has a horrendous resting bitch face - like Kanye West! Everyone used to whisper to me "is Dave ok?" And I'd always say "Yes, that's just his face"

It doesn’t make any difference to the situation that the mum is widowed or that the dad is burly. This sort of thing should be dealt with by going through the school. You don’t go around to other people’s houses. Some people just make very poor parents.

I told her if she didn't back the fuck off I'd be calling the police and if she did it again id pursue a claim of harassment.

Fucking right. When on MN did it become Ok to go to another child's house to pursue a claim of a shove in the playground. No matter what gender anyone is - how is that an excuse?! If a child had been viciously bullied and a parent snapped and went round there, even that would be a pretty shit idea but for a SHOVE in a primary school playground? How fucking entitled is that entire family?

I think the father is very lucky not to have found himself being interviewed by the police and the mum who was confronted should notify the school that she was threatened in this way. This family sound like they are encouraging bullying by their behaviour and its about time someone stood up to THEM.

Unfortunately the girls parents really aren’t teaching her to be assertive and stand up for herself at all.
The child could have been told to shout out at the time or tell a teacher straight away afterwards and it could have got dealt with. Teaching the child that it is OK to stand up for herself and ask for help.

Getting her Dad to go around and have a word doesn’t teach her that. What if she is in a situation where her dad isn’t around.

Goodness, if I was the mum I would be informing the school that a parent came around to my house about an incident that happened in school time and I found this intimidating. I am genuinely wtf.

This.

I remember a couple of occasions when the primary school my kids went to requested, on the newsletter, that parents didn’t approach other parents in the playground to sort out incidents that had happened at school between their kids. They said to go through the teachers to sort it out. I can imagine they would have been even more against parents going to other parents houses to sort things out.

@FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop

BTW if her parents are running around to peoples houses at this age, they're going to need roller skates when she starts secondary school!

@LondonJax

Absolutely!

The defensive parenting and blindly believing children doesn't end at primary school. The amount of parents who've come raging - and I mean raging, some have even come in to reception and demanded I be pulled out my classroom - because "Alice told my daughter to fuck off". 20 minutes later and a chat with Alice..."well it appears that your daughter has been telling Alice she's a fat ugly bitch since the beginning of term and it's just that on Tuesday she decided to snap back" 🙄
There's definitely a kind of child who pushes and pushes and as soon as the other person sticks up for themselves they play the victim.

Not saying this happened in the case of these 7yo's, I really do think it was just rough play being rough play and my friend's DD is very sensitive about it, but it is definitely a thing!

I remember when I was in primary school maybe 11ish, this girl that I had been friends but had kind of drifted from told our teacher that me and another girl were following her home from school everyday and bullying her, we didn't even live in the same direction, it was such a massive lie and she could have gotten us into real trouble but thankfully our teacher knew her form and knew she lied a lot (and knew where we all lived) This is why it should be handled within the school