to think that parents shouldn't get involved in their childrens' friendships?

[wannaBe]

My ds has a best friend who he has been friends with now for about two years. They are fairly inseparable but they do play nicely with other children as well, and of course, like all kids, they do go through the stages of ?I?m not your friend any more? one minute and back to playing together the next.

But this friend?s mother has taken a real dislike to my ds, and to me, because of her dislike of my ds.

There have never been any issues between the boys, but whenever they fall out she takes it to heart and gets it into her head that her ds is the victim of bullying, even if it?s just been a general falling out over who should go up the slide first/who should hold open the park gate etc.

So she does her best to exclude my ds, by not inviting him to her ds? birthday party/not disciplining her ds if he is ever nasty to my ds, despite the fact she is extremely hard on him in all other circumstances, shouts, screams, rants and raves at him if he so much as puts a foot wrong.

So today they were at the park and my ds came over and said that ?x said he?s never going to play with me ever again?, to which I asked why, and when he said hedidn?t know I said ?never mind, go and play with someone else for now then? knowing full well that they would be playing together two minutes later. And then this child?s mum suddenly shouted across at my ds ?he said it because he wanted to go up the slide and you went up before him!?

Now don?t get me wrong, if one child is bullying another or if two children are constantly getting into trouble and one is the instigator then I can see where a parent might want to get involved and discourage a friendship, but I think that children need to learn to form their own friendships and to decide for themselves who they are/aren?t friends with, otherwise how will they ever learn?

Ibu?

Hard to say - if a parent feels their child is being bullied by a 'friend' or that the friendship is not a positive one then they are correct intervene - at least, I know that I would.

Of course this mother may have it wrong and if so should possibly have looked a little further into the friendship before putting a block on it.

correct to intervene

She sounds a nutter wannabe.

I'm sorry but kids this age argue about who is going up a slide first- ds2 and ds3 get competitive about everything. Who's getting in the bath first, who will be first up the stairs, who gets dry first, who gets dressed first. It's entirely normal stuff. If the mother intervenes in that she's an utter loon.

one thing I was taught fairly early on when dd1 was little... never, ever fall out with a mum because the children have fallen out. The kids will be best mates again within a day or two and you're stuck with a feud that you're going to have to carry on because you started it.

Sounds like that's what this woman has done.

YANBU.

JV there?s absolutely no way my child is bullying this child. I know I?m the parent and am therefore biased but they are best friends, they look out for each other in the playground, play together in the park, if one falls over and is crying the other will come over and tell me/the other boy?s mum, any squabbling is normal 5 year old stuff, the same as I witness among all of the other children playing in the same park.

Yurt she is a bit of a strange one. She has made alagations of bullying of her child on three different occasions against three different children. The first was when he was three, she insisted he was being bullied, and then went belistic when he and the ?bully? were playing together nice as pie in the park, the second was about a year ago, when he started having accidents at preschool she insisted there must be something going on, then she quizzed him and after weeks of asking if this child and that child was being nasty to him he had a falling out with another child one day at preschool and came home and said that this child had hit him, and this of course was then escalated to a sustained bullying campaign . And more recently he went through a stage of crying when left at school (which a lot of other children, mine included, have been through) and again there was obviously some psychological reason behind it and she swore then that she was going to take him home and teach him how to hit other children that were being horrible to him .

She is very, very hard on him, if he puts a finger out of place she goes completely off on one, shouting, screaming, threatening. At preschool she made him sit down and write out his name and every time he got it wrong she ripped it up and made him start again, and yet now that he?s at school she feels that because he?s not interested she doesn?t need to bother any more .

I am absolutely certain that this is her issue and not mine.

Poor kid.

I would avoid her.

She sounds like a control freak with a bad case of PFBitis

Wow, I think there are 101 issues going on here and this situation with your ds is merely the tip of the iceberg!!

It is very rare for children of 5 or under to be bullies. She is over reacting badly.

Regular squabbling at this age is frequent.

In my opinion it is very healthy to learn with your peers mutual respect for other people's opinions/ rights, and if you do it over minor issues such as who goes on the slide first etc it sets you up well for adulthood.

I also agree with with the poster who advised not to fall out with parents as its unlikely you will reapair the relationship but the children will be friends 5 minutes later.

repair even

Very odd to wade in like that.

If I thought a child I was looking after (am not a parent so I appreciate it's a different viewpoint) was being picked on I would suggest to the child to avoid the other kid. Shouting my reasoning to another adult would be the last way I'd embarrass myself tbh.

wannaBe, I can really empathise with what you are saying.

I also have twin 5 year olds, and they squabble with different friends and then are playing happily a few minutes later. I think that at their age it is generally just typical 5 year old stuff, and nothing to worry about. Certainly any of the little arguments I have witnessed at the school between children have not been sustained by the children and are usually about issues of sharing, or competitiveness, i.e "I'm bigger then you", "I have a better hat" etc.etc.

I can even remember having similar arguments myself at that age.

Of course there have been times when my two have complained about kids, and I have said "If somebody upsets you, then don't play with them, play with somebody else".

Unfortunately there are these certain parents who seem to attribute the slightest little incident to "bullying". What the mum doesn't probably realise is that as a grown woman she is actually being vindictive towards your son by shouting things out infront of him.

the other mum does sound really stressed about life/parenting etc but i don't think you can change that

but, it is very sad that your son does not get invited to his friend's parties etc - that is quite extreme

i think in all honesty if i were you i would be trying to encourage other friendships because soon your son will start to pick up on all this - if not now. I do feel sorry for the other little boy, but it does sound a bit out of hand

do all five year old boys squabble? i have a 5 year old girl and she doesn't fight at all with her two or three close friends. She does fall out with others that we know and i jsut assume that they aren't that close - maybe your son might prefer other children to this boy?

When I was little my best friend and I were always falling out and I used to come out of school crying regularly because she'd told me she didn't want us to be friends any more.

20 years later, my parents are best of friends with hers, even though we're no longer in touch.

There's no point getting invovled in petty kids' fueds.