Other parents complaining about your child

[Sparkalinda]

I wondered just how many parents challenge the parents of children who they feel have upset their child? I have never done this as I feel that children are children and need to.negotiate their frienships themselves. I have messaged a.parent in the past to ask if their child is ok when.theyve upset.my child, but nothing challenging or confrontational. I feel that my friend has been very out of.order, she has insulted my parenting skills in response.to her child being upset about something my child.said. For context, my child.is 5 and hers is 7 and.it was something about my child saying their Daddy was a liar. Any friendship we had is over now and.there are wider implications meaning things are even more difficult for me.now.in life. This was all in text message and she woukdnt answer when I rang to try and sort this amicably. I really can't believe she has gotten so upset about.sonething so trivial and common place..any advice gratefully received....x

Hell - but what was the lie about? Something pretty serious?

OPs child called someone a liar over a bit of harmless imaginary play, she needs to learn that calling someone a liar will get a reaction and is only really used for serious things.

It is hard to say from your OP. However, I would avoid getting involved in long arguments over text or with other people anyway.
In your situation, I would have just said I am sorry your dd is upset. I will talk about it with dd. Then you can do what you want and she feels heard. I would then not mention it again and leave it.

You say your life will now be more difficult and this is why you don't get involved in an argument with people. You can also bet that the girls will be friends again soon. The other parent is very foolish for starting this, but as a teacher I see this kind of stuff from parents all the time. The kids move on and the parents can't because they have made such a fuss and been really OTT.

Perhaps the kids dad is Boris Johnson? In which case yes he definitely is a bloody liar!!

Sweet belly - so all the parents who go along with Father Christmas/ Easter bunny / tooth fairy / god / peppy pig are liars then?

And her mummy is a massive dick.

@Sittininafield

Sweet belly - so all the parents who go along with Father Christmas/ Easter bunny / tooth fairy / god / peppy pig are liars then?

Well yea they are. Did you think they were real?

@SilverTotoro

She’s BU. You apologised her dd was upset and she has overreacted to a comment a 5 yo made in an argument about an imaginary friend. I do wonder if the comment about her DH being a liar touched a nerve, or she thinks you’ve said something similar about him and your dd has picked up on it. Regardless I’d be civil from now on and if she brings it up again just rinse and repeat - sorry her dd was upset - you’ve spoken to childminder and your dd - children sometimes have arguments about imaginary friends.

This. My first thought was that the other child's mum thought that your child had heard you gossiping about her marriage which was why she was so concerned about your dd calling her dh a liar.

@steff13

I said I cant control what my daughter says

This sort of makes it sound like you've just washed your hands of responsibility for your daughter's behavior.

No it doesn't. How are you meant to control what your child does at childcare or school? You can only react to it afterwards but I don't agree with double punishment unless it's particular egregious behaviour. While at school/childminder, it's for the teacher/childminder to deal with.

As for "insulted my parenting skills" LOL.

And if someone IS a liar you're allowed to call them one, I would have thought. Not sure that is actually the case in this context but saying "oh no how rude to call someone a liar" seems to play right into the hands of abusers, or at the lesser end of the scale, people who just talk nonsense.

as a teacher I see this kind of stuff from parents all the time. The kids move on and the parents can't because they have made such a fuss and been really OTT

one of the reasons I couldn't be a teacher - having to deal with fussy parents who are still in the playground themselves

Sweet belly - so would it be ok for one the kids in year 1 to announce to the class that all their parents were liars?

Yes it sounds like your friend thought you've been talking about the husband. Kids tend to repeat what they've heard from parents. I actually think you're in the wrong saying that you've no control over what you're child says. You could really make a point of explaining that it's unkind to say these things, offensive too. At least your friend would know you've not just washed your hands of the matter.

This sounds like childish squabbles. Does she know the context in which your dd called her dh a liar?

Cognitively a 5 year old is way different from a 7 year old. Developmentally her dd if anything has the ability to understand your dd’s pov when your dd will still struggle due to her age.

Your former friend is making this sound like your dd is bullying her dd when if anything your dd was being purely factual and not seeing any nuances in the world... because 5 year olds struggle with nuance.

As for how you handled the situation, perhaps you could have done it differently. But at the end of the day, it is how the girl’s mum handled it that is the main issue here.

We had something blown out of all proportion by parents when my dd was your dd’s age; it was actually silliness from both girls. She told all of their mutual friends not to play with dd and stopped speaking to her. I had to ask the school to intervene as dd suddenly had zero friends to play with.

Do be aware that your ex friend may have told her dd not to play with your dd or said things to her dd, which could result in her trying to exclude your dd. Being two years older, she is far more sophisticated and probably more influential. It is therefore important that you let the childminder know what is going on so that the situation can be managed.

As other posters have pointed out children chat shit. In this scenario, a 7 year old girl tells a 5 year old girl about their imaginary friend.

5 year old - who is probably more literal in her thinking - observes she can’t see the imaginary unicorn.
7 year old uses “the my Dad said so” line.
5 year old still doesn’t believe in imaginary friend so says well your Dad is a liar then.

Apart from being totally ridiculous, there is some displacement here. 7 year old knows she is lying. And also knows her younger playmate knows she is lying. She deflects this by pretending to be upset about her Dad being called a liar and her silly DM reacts to this.

If you don’t want to be called a liar, don’t lie. If you don’t want your family members to be called liars, don’t lie about them.

Cuckoo - but there is a difference between imaginary play and lying!

There is, but 5 year olds don’t always see nuance.

Sounds so petty and your friend went way over the top. If it continued happening I’d suck it up and speak to a friend but certainly wouldn’t be banging out aggressive texts like that. YANBU op

Exactly, and they learn with our guidance. Eg the OP could have started a convo about when the word liar is / isn’t appropriate, about playing imaginary games, about telling a grown up if dd thinks someone is lying or making them lie. Ie use it as an opportunity rather than just get defensive.

It's not the fact that your child said this that suggests you don't teach her right from wrong, it's you saying kids should sort things out amongst themselves and you won't control what she says, which you've reiterated many times. You keep asking people why they've made the assumption that you don't talk to her, but you've literally said you're not going to over and over again.

Your friends reaction is way over the top. It suggests to me that she's assuming this is something you've said about the child's dad and she's copying you, and she's offended that you've said this kind of thing to your daughter. I'm assuming that's not the case because you haven't said as much.

But regardless of how she's responded, I think 5 is too young for the "sort it out amongst themselves" approach. This makes sense with older children but at 5, however petty, I would expect to talk to my child about the wrongs and rights about disputes, they're still very much teachable moments as they learn about navigating social situations.

It would depend on what happened. If they had a silly fall out over something then no I wouldn't get involved. If there was targeted bullying or harassment of my child then yes I would be speaking to the parents. In your case it does sound a bit of an OTT reaction from her.

@BellePeppa I have 3. And am in the throws of primary school drama. Unless it is an actual real issue. I am not going to get involved. As more info has come out about this incident I would have replied once to this woman.

"Don't be so ridiculous" and then grey rocked her over the incident until she learned to stop talking about it.

@Sittininafield

Magenta - yes calling someone a liar is strong language! It’s a serious accusation. If a child doesn’t hand in their homework and says they forgot it when we all know they just haven’t bothered would i (teacher) call them a liar? Of course not. Why do you think that is? Have you called any adults a liar to their face? How did that discussion go?

People don't like being called liars, I hate it, which is why I don't lie.

Yes I think a teacher should manage bad behaviour and if that involves calling out lying then they should.

It seams that some people think naming the bad behaviour is worse than the actual behaviour itself. Some people get more offended by someone being called a liar than the lie, or think that calling someone a racist is worse than racist behaviour.

Euphemisms are far more offensive than the word they are covering up. "Fibbing" instead of lying "foo foo" instead of vulva, "passed" instead of died, it is the sort of Hyacinth Bucket pretentiousness that just makes people look insecure and like an anxious snob. I won't teach that to my child.

Around 30 years ago whe my children were small, I was given a very good piece of advice; never fall out with the Mums
Let the kids sort out their own disagreements
(Unless serious violence or assault is involved , of course)
Your friend sounds very petty if the argument was about a invisible friend !!if the mother carries on in this vein she will have no friends left and neither will her daughter!!

I would have said "ill have a chat with dd" .
Have said chat, explain to dd that friend has a very good imagination and enjoys using it. Maybe next time let her get on and enjoy her game.
Report back to mum that they girls enjoy different games and move on.
Tbf if a parent called me on a one off basis, I would listen and take some sort of action

I think (from experience) it can get complicated and upsetting when parents wade into an argument. Especially as, like you say, the children generally sort things out quickly. This happened to me too, and I found it shocking and upsetting at the time. Things did resolve between me and my friend (took years though!) I turned to other friends at the time and actually feel I have more of a small circle of good friends now which is healthier. I tended to rely quite a lot on this friend at the time. We're pretty good friends again these days but I've never really forgotten it. And actually whenever the children have fallen out subsequently I've been really clear and explicit to my child if I think hers has been unkind (as well as being clear about my child's own behaviour and what is and isn't acceptable). Before there was sort of an unspoken agreement that my child was always the problem, and conversations seemed to centre around that, but of course it's rarely so straightforward. I think it really helped my child's confidence to realise that his friend isn't always quite the angel being portrayed, in a strange way! And of course their friendship is pretty solid these days without (or inspite of!) any interference from us.

She sounds unhinged. 5 is very little. 5 year olds are going to say silly and hurtful things sometimes (though it doesn't sound as if what your DD said was silly, since to her it was literally true). It is for the adult who is with them at the time to correct them and encourage them to be kinder. How are you meant to discuss it with your DD/tell her off when she's probably forgotten about it altogether, seeing how she is a small child and things like that don't tend to stick in their minds.

I would ditch her as a friend as she clearly has no idea of what is appropriate behaviour around small children. She sounds like one of those parents who would happily watch her child playfight with another child but, the minute her child gets hurt, she's in there shouting at the other child.