Subtle bullying of my teen by school mum - how to handle?

[ESGdance]

My DD 13 and friend were at a school production last night (without us) and when I picked her up she said that one of the mums was giving her sneery/dirty looks throughout which were obvious to her accompanying friend and made her feel really bad.

There is a backstory where 6 months ago I calmly addressed this mum’s background meddling / sabotage attempt around arrangements for a day out that my DD had arranged for their wider friendship group including her DD (her DD and mine are still v good friends). She has form for this and it’s why on that occasion I called her up to discuss it - she slammed the phone down.

I have seen her out and about since and I give her a courteous smile - she doesn’t really respond either way.

She hasn’t given my DD sneery / dirty looks in the past and know that she wouldn’t have done this with another adult present.

I am glad that my DD was able to talk to me about it and the only advice I could give her is that an adult treating a child like this is highly irregular and was deliberately meant to intimidate.

Is there anything else that I can do to support my DD? Encourage her to kill her with kindness - be deliberately and directly proactively cheerful to her to disarm her.

Or do I put in another calm call to her - or ask the school to deal with it as it happened in their time on their premises and there were witnesses. I don’t want my DD to endure this bullying treatment by an adult (especially as it’s me the mum has an issue with) but equally don’t want to escalate as it’s now clear this mum is more than tricky.

I really don't think you can ask the school to tell off a parent for giving dirty looks to your DD. Just advise her to give a cheery smile and wave if she meets her again, it won't be what she's expecting and will give the message that your DD is not bothered by her.

And tell school what though?
Dirty Sherry looks are really hard to define or independently assess as attempts at bullying

So really the other mum would have to be approaching DD unwanted at school and saying bullying obviously hasty things that couldn't be misinterpreted I would think, for school to act.

"Dirty Sherry looks" !!?
My phone is having a Laff
"Dirty sneery looks" Is what I meant

The woman is a tit. I'd tell my daughter to completely blank her, she just wants attention. Normally I'd say something but in this case I wouldn't even acknowledge her
Other people will notice, silly cow

Most mothers are going to "meddle" if a 13 year old is organizing a day out.
You'd embarrass yourself if you went to school and said your daughter says the mother is giving her a dirty look.
Though if she is, you might find out why I suppose. And it might not be quite what your daughter is telling you.
Btw, please don't use the word bullying for what you're describing. It does a great disservice to the victims of it.

Post the mother some wind-eze tablets with a note about her trapped wind causing her so obvious facial grimaces clearly in such pain

Sneery looks are v much a matter of interpretation. You would be ridiculous to do anything about this.

Yes I would give her a call.

Killing with kindness doesn't work with some people.

It sounds a bit daft on all sides tbh. It’s not unusual or nasty if a parent wants to get involved in something that their 13 yo is attending if this has been organised by another 13yo. Why did you fell you had to phone her up to tell her to stop meddling? That seems OTT but then so does her hanging up on you. Honestly, you can’t report someone for giving dirty looks at one event. Just tell your daughter to give her a wide berth and to be polite to her if/ when they are in each other’s company.

Something tells me you're a bit of a drama queen if you are seriously thinking of talking to the school or putting in a 'calm' call based on the words of a 13 year old about the way someone allegedly looked at her but you didn't witness. No one in their right mind would think anything more of this than telling the DC to ignore it. So, I am hazarding a guess your calm talk earlier in the year was anything but.

What did the meddling/sabotage involve, op?

Dirty Sherry looks made me laugh

I think you need to back off a bit tbh. Every time you get het up about this woman you're just confirming and feeding a whole negative thing. It limits you. Ignore it. Smile and wave and get on with your life - sounds like your respective kids are! I bet they roll their eyes at the pair of you.

Maybe advise your dd to look at her less? You cant tell that someone is giving you dirty looks unless you are looking at them.

.. and it's not bullying....

I don’t understand how this is bullying?

Escalating this further is not the answer. Contacting the school about ‘dirty looks’ would be ridiculous. And you’ve already seen that ‘calm phone calls’ do not resolve anything.

What was her issue over the trip?

Dirty looks is defined as insidious bullying by bullying charities, under indirect / social bullying.

www.beyondbullying.com/aboutbullying

www2.hse.ie/wellbeing/mental-health/bullying-and-harassment.html

www.verywellfamily.com/types-of-bullying-parents-should-know-about-4153882

Yes I agree that contacting the school is OTT in this incident and putting in another calm call will likely have the same impact as the last.

The meddling / sabotage was around the girls camping out in my garden for my DD birthday. This mum wasn’t comfortable about it (that’s totally fine) but chose to call two other mums in an attempt to undermine it / get it called off (weather related - though it was July) because she had decided her DD wasn’t attending and didn’t want her to miss out.

That’s really mean about the camping, what happened, did the others still go to it?

Tell your daughter to give her an exaggerated piss-taking cheery wave next time. But stay out of it yourself unless it escalates.

Yes they all had a lovely time - the other mums just told me that she had called them when she had already declined the invite.

I think you are making a lot of drama about not very much. The summer thing is annoying, but hardly a big deal. She phoned some other parents of children, they decided to send their children anyway, the party happened. I think calling that either meddling or sabotage is very overdramatic. This time "sneery looks" could be anything at all. She might have been thinking about something at work or something she was angry or worried about. You really can't tell what people are thinking that easily.

If this woman annoys you that much, just ignore her in so far as you can. Tell your daughter to stop looking at her.

I wouldn’t do anything. Maybe she doesn’t like your daughter but your daughter probably doesn’t like her. Ignore it and move on.

It would be very unusual for an adult parent of another child to spend an evening giving a child evils. How much time are you spending giving your daughter the impression that there's some kind of blood war between your families now? It's all a bit dramatic, this talk of sabotage etc.

I wouldn't get involved in this at all, it's all school playground stuff. I'd trust other adults to do whatever they wanted regardless of her calling them and dirty looks are dirty looks, no big deal. Ignore it, I wouldn't give it headspace or encourage your daughter to either. Sometimes people are rubbish.