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?

I think if the dad was trying to teach his dd to stand up for herself, he should have told her to speak up at school when it happened. If she did, school could have dealt with efficiently, either if it was deliberate or accidental shove by speaking to both of them.

Absolutely should have been dealt with at school
Girls father absolutely shouldn’t have done what he did

@poptartsarefood

The dad has done a good job, the little boy won't push his daughter again. He wasn't violent and as far as we've read he wasn't rude when he went over. It's so easy for school bullies as nothing comes back to them and they're rarely confronted. The boy's mum should get over herself and raise her child better.

You're making up quite the story there.

You have no idea what happened on the playground, no idea what the mum will say to the son and no idea how any of the parties will behave in the future

No one can know for sure what the truth of the situation was but the main takeaway is that it would have been best to let the school sort it out

I'm surprised that no one has picked up on the ageism in the OP, the mum is early 50s, that's hardly old and has no bearing on the tale. Are you a teen in this situation OP?

Dad and girl are out of order. She needs to learn to stand up for herself and learn a bit of, what's the MN word? Resiliance.
Dad needs to get over himself, that is completely out of order.

Yep, this.

So girl is so sheepish she couldn't confront boy at school or a teacher but had no problem going round to boy house for a confrontation with dad. Sounds like she is a bully in the making. Boys mum did right , if nothing else there is two sides to the story and she had only heard one. Definately should have been dealt with in school.

What Brefugee said (love your name Brefugee btw)

This thread has a lot of assumptions here. Who knows what happened? a game of "cops & robbers" though - how fantastic to hear kids still play games like that!

To be fair to the dad in one respect he did the right thing: he heard his daughter's complaint and took it seriously. It all went downhill from there.
(thanks theworldisfullofgs

The dad is massively out of order, what he did was very wrong, and nutty.

Yes there’s definitely the thing about an adult man going over and intimidating a woman IN HER OWN HOME.

But also, this absolutely should have been dealt with at school, what a stupid over-reaction on his part.

And, no one should be assuming this is a clear cut case of sweet innocent scared little girl getting shoved by big mean boy. Kids exaggerate, and they lie. There is the girl’s POV, there’s the boy’s POV, and somewhere in between is the truth. Possibly the school could have worked it out but dad wanted to wear his superhero cape .

Considering dad didn’t even witness it, is the kid an only child and does he have no parenting experience of he said she said with her siblings? He’s an idiot.

At least the boy’s mum did the right thing by not condemning her child just because a big bully of a man told her so.

@Milkshake7489

So the dad tried to teach his daughter to stand up to boys by intimidating a women?

Completely unreasonable to turn up at her home unannounced like that. He should have spoken to the school.

Completely agree. The dad is being a bully.

The problem here is the girl didn’t tell anyone. The school can’t sort anything out if they don’t know about it in the first place.

Pathetic of the man to go round with his daughter. It's something that happened in school and it should be dealt with in school.

Weak bullying man.

Good on the mother for tell them to buzz off.

Going to the door of another parent over a one off school issue between 7yos is nonsense.

School gets dealt with at school because they know how the bigger picture went generally.

The dad shouldn't have done that. Very intimidating. If it were bullying and he wanted to discuss, different matter. This was just an accidental shove!!! Anything that happens in school, should stay at school. The girl needs to learn to tell the teacher straight away when stuff happens so its nipped.in the bud. The dad can phone school to inform them of anything serious but not an accidental shove!!!

For a one off shove, the Dad was being unreasonable. He's not teaching her to stand up for herself either. He should have spoken to the school, this will be something the deal with all the time.

All I've read is boy shoved girl, no apology given. That "burly" man knocked on door seems to be getting more attention is pathetic and explains why some boys don't keep their hands to themselves when they get older. The only physically violent action here is a shove, knocking on someone's door and talking to them is not intimidating, it used to be how adults interacted and sorted things out.

He shouldn't have gone round to the house and I can see why this would be intimidating for the older single mother.

This happened in school and should have been dealt with in school.

The dad is definitely BU! He needs to teach his daughter to report things at the relevant time at school. He's using his size against a single mother ..... that boils down to bullying!

If the aim is to teach the girl to stand up for herself, then she needs to be encouraged to tell the teachers at school at the time it happens.

Getting daddy to go round and talk to them isn't standing up for herself, it's teaching her that her dad will sort her problems out for her.

@nancywhitehead

If the aim is to teach the girl to stand up for herself, then she needs to be encouraged to tell the teachers at school at the time it happens.

Getting daddy to go round and talk to them isn't standing up for herself, it's teaching her that her dad will sort her problems out for her.

It's actually a form of very insidious bullying itself. Child A can't deal with Child B themselves so ropes in child C. Except in this case, child C is Dad.

Our worst bullies at school have done this since time immemorial. Get someone bigger to fight for you. Draco Malfoy syndrome.

@SmokedDuck

The mum. The dad should have asked the daughter why she didn't ask for an apology at the time.

This.

They are not teaching the girl to stand up for herself, but rather to use her burly dad to bully others for her.

The dad is totally out of order. This should have been dealt with at school not by dad marching round to this lady’s house to bully her and her child into behaving how he demands them to.

The father is 100% in the wrong. Why the hell didn’t he take the issue to the class teacher. What a dick.

This is solely a school issue, not a big issue at that and one very easily sorted out by school.

I feel really sorry for the widow mother having to put up with an intimidating unexpected visit. She should go see the class teacher and explain what happened and how it made her feel and ask the teacher to talk to the dad about proper processes to be followed when a child is pushed.

100% the dad is being unreasonable.

The daughter and dad need to learn to report these things to the school.

The dad was way out of order. What a bully. He should have asked the school to deal with it, not gone round to intimidate a widow. Most schools have very strict rules on parents not approaching other parents on this kind of thing.