I posted a couple months ago on the parenting forum and people were really helpful and supportive.
My 8 year old DD attends a very small primary school. She had a close group of friends (I wasn’t totally keen on them after witnessing some of their behaviour) and she was pretty happy until last Jan when she told them we were considering moving. For a year they ganged up on her leading to physical bullying (and she’s very small for her age so was terrified). We spoke to the school a few times and pushed them to speak to one of the children’s parents ( the school are reluctant to acknowledge bullying) but we were called in a few months ago because a teacher had witnessed some of it and had to step in. They didn’t speak to the children’s parents, just us. My partner spoke to one of the girls dads and told him what had been going on. He said he was concerned with her behaviour but then did nothing. For context, it wouldn’t be exaggerating to say one of the mothers worships her daughter. She’s told me before that she suspects her daughter is a bully but if anyone tells her this she denies it all and goes in to full DARVO mode, going on about distraught her daughter would be to be accused of that (even accusing my child of “bitchiness” and “mind games” in the past after asking me directly if her child was bullying my DD- it’s bizarre).
Anyway, the mum of one of the other girls messaged me before Xmas to say my DD had destroyed the spirit of Christmas by discussing with her DD whether FC was real (note my DD wasn’t sure). She sent me a monologue she insisted I should read to my DD about learning to “be kind”! Her daughter has repeatedly told mine she wished she was dead or she should kill herself so this was taking the biscuit. I said I would discuss it with her when she got home to get her side of the story.
in the meantime she went to the class chat group and posted that a child has ruined Christmas and instructed the parent (me) of their responsibilities teaching their child to be kind. The other mother then chimed in about how awful it all was and reminded “the parent” of their responsibilities. It turned they’d been discussing this together the night before and had decided to do this.
I decided to take control and informed the group it was me and my child they were discussing, it was inappropriate to discuss it on a parent group after I had already confirmed I would deal with it. I also said my child had been bullied for the last year (I didn’t say by who) and that I’m sure we were all doing our best to teach kindness. Obviously mortified that I’d done this they both ranted about me calling their daughters bullies and left the group. One even went so far as to say I was bullying them and their DD by doing this. This one blocked me on social media which means I’m now also blocked from PTA posts on FB (yes, she’s PTA!). We were told by the dad that he’s now addressed it with his child and the bullying has died down, so well worth the ostracising I’ve been experiencing (including lots of glaring at me at the school gate). Note other parents came to me afterwards to say their kids have also been bullied by them (one was threatened with being stabbed!) and they were disgusted by these parents behaviour.
I would have thought they would stay away from my kids after this (online bullying of a child) but a number of times I’ve seen them trying to interact with them. My DD has now received a party invite (a drop off) to one of these children’s birthdays. This would mean leaving her in that parent’s care for the afternoon. My instinct is to say no. Is that unreasonable or just sensible? To make matters worse my child didn’t tell me about the invite she received a month ago so this mum has just messaged me chasing me for an answer. How would you respond?