‘Mean girl’

[backinthebox]

I got called a mean girl today. DS was taking part in a team endurance event. He did not get to choose his teammates, the organisers did, and he was teamed up with another boy and 2 girls, we suspect because they wanted his good navigation and teamwork skills to balance out the refusal of the girls to learn or practice.

One of the girl’s mothers was convinced her DD would not finish. She repeatedly said in front of her daughter she did not expect her to finish. I said she would finish - it was a team event and there was no part even starting if you were expecting to bring your whole team down, it was not fair on the others.

They were making good progress and based on the speed they were keeping up we headed down to the finish line to cheer them in. They were only about 10 minutes from the finish line, but did not appear. Find Friends showed them not moving, just out of sight of the finish line, and they stayed there for about 40 minutes. Eventually they appeared over the brow of the hill, in a much bigger group than they had set off in, and sat down. All the members of this group were girls, except for DS and one other boy, and they did not sit down. The organisers and assembled parents were wondering what was going on. They stayed sat down for another 10 minutes, in sight of the finish line, with DS and the other boy standing some way apart from the.

Eventually they got up and crossed the finish. DS had said that they had been going fine until they had caught up with another team made up of all girls, and then they had slowed to the other team’s speed. When they had asked the girls in their team to keep walking, the other team had said they were bullying the girls and would be reported and disqualified. The boys were desperately keen to finish, so they backed off. The girls then started throwing food at them. They had sat down and refused to move in direct response to the pleas from the boys to keep moving - it was a power play move to show they could control whether they crossed the finish line or not.

The mother who thought her daughter wouldn’t finish was delighted with her DD’s performance, and was amazed she had finished at all. Happily telling anyone in earshot that just finishing was more than she had hoped for and that her DD normally refuses to finish any physical activity and has never walked more than a couple of miles before. I replied that perhaps it would do her good to get out and walk a bit more - if she was going to take part in team hiking events knowingly setting out to scupper the team is unfair to the other team members. For this, I was called a mean girl.

AIBU to think that 1. telling your child repeatedly that they are going to fail is probably setting them up to fail, and 2. you don’t put your child onto a team of enthusiastic participants if you know your child is likely to sabotage the other kids’ efforts, and 3. you don’t praise your child when you’ve stood and watched her actively sabotaging her team?

It made me really quite cross, and quite sad for DS and the other boy. I’ve told DS that sometimes you get stuck with team members that you just can’t motivate, and he did well to keep his enthusiasm to the end. I will be making sure he isn’t stuck with the known difficult members next year though.

@followmyflow ”you only got one side of the story. none of the children behaved exemplary but your son was nasty enough to the girls…” I apparently only got one side of the story and I was actually there and heard the things both kids (and other parents, and the course stewards) said, then how the heck have you got the full story?

Just putting your mind at rest that I don’t need a younger child or to find a job, as you kindly suggested.

It’s a lesson to listen to your teen. Dd2 and I went to the Duke of Edinburgh award info meeting. On the way home Dd said there was no way she was doing it - she hated hiking and the teachers were adamant you would be split up from your friends. Was frustrating as she was already doing the other stuff anyway so it was just the hike. I had to get over myself and respect her decision not force her to do it for my own ego!

That’s about the other mum pushing her child to do the activity against her will

perhaps there's something valuable your son could take from the experience?

Sometimes, things really are just a bit shit, rather than a valuable learning opportunity. It's a shame that the learning opportunity is to avoid being shat on next time - ideally people would be cooperative in the first place.

I wonder which is most likely?

A team almost completed an endurance race but stopped within minutes of the finish line because they were lazy and wanted to thwart their teammates. Whilst stopped, for no reason, they threw their food at op's son.

A team slowed down to the pace of another team, possibly because some members were struggling. When berated for it, they staged a sit-in. When op's ds was an arse about it, someone chucked a biscuit at him.

If D of E or similar - and I can't think of anything else that requires you to take food - then it's not a race. You get your award regardless. I've volunteered for this and we took a dim view of the over-bearing parents and the kids who couldn't operate as a team. It's part of it. Supporting friends who are struggling. You could pick your team but got put in one if nobody wanted you. So rather than your boy being saddled with unfit girls, I wonder whether a team of nice girls were saddled with your boy.

Why wouldn't it have been a race? They're too young for it to be Duke of Edinburgh

I agree and the OP’s total lack of concern as to why her son has been called a bully is exactly why bullies get away with it time and time again.

The OP sounds very much like a mean girl, making snarky comments to a woman who is just chuffed her DD is just making the effort - that’s the words of a mum who is seeing struggles with her DD and stuff like this is hugely positive even if they don’t win.

Honestly these Uber competitive people are absolutely the worst. No empathy, no understanding that everyone is different and a totally inflated view of themselves or their kids and they think they’re better than others because they go to the gym.

OMG yes!!

Inonyl started going to the gym 2 years ago and have doh d a lovely community of supportive and kind women. I always associated exercise with stress, pain and unkindness and that’s because of shitty PE teacher attitude and the total hate they had for kids who just couldn’t be the natural superstars

a woman who is just chuffed her DD is just making the effort

But a woman who has never encouraged her daughter to walk more than a couple of miles. A couple of miles, by the age of 12/13!

That’s not the attitude to enter a physical competition.

Why not? Why must everyone have the same attitude of ‘win at all costs’?

Or they were naturally slower, the boys were being dicks about it so they staged a sit in

It was a competition and team event.
Two team members deliberately sabotaged their team's chances with unsporting behaviour.

It wasn't anything to do with physical capability.

And if they are so unmotivated to complete such an event, why bother going in the first place?

By 12/13y these two children knew what they were doing and they spoilt the event for the rest of their team with their poor behaviour.

Nobody said that. The OP herself said that she didn’t expect her son to “win”. The attitude required is to “try your best” which is obviously not what the girl and her mother had in mind.

Nothing wrong with being competitive
An annual kiddies fun run probably not the ideal event to channel that competitiveness.
Have you thought about maybe a swimming club, running club. Karate, judo, tennis, golf?

It really doesn't appear to be a 'kiddies fun run' though.

It is a team endurance event including spending lunch of the day hiking, lasting long enough to need some food and drink being carried with them.

And the 'kiddies' were 12-13 year olds - so not small 'kiddies' at all.

A couple of answers - it was not a kiddies’ fun run. The shortest ‘fun’ category was 20km, with distance classes over double that. DS was not in the fun category, his distance was longer. You’ve really got to want to hike for hours to give it a go.

Food was carried because they were expected to be out for between 7-9 hours. (As it was, they were out for longer than our upper estimate.) They were going to get hungry.

DS has joined another sports club. Three actually. Not swimming or judo, but sports with very similar profiles to the event he was in. Similar skill sets needed, (outdoors, endurance, navigation, problem solving) and he is extremely good at one of them. He wanted to do this event because it was up his street.

Last year’s winners of the category DS was in were an all girls team. It’s something that girls can excel in. I don't expect to make allowances for girls being worse than boys, as has been implied earlier, in fact I would have responded the same whether this situation involved my DS or DD. I think too many people do girls a disservice by playing down girls’ abilities. I had spent time with the girl here before the event, and the mother spent far too much time telling me the daughter would not finish, could not do it, didn’t have the skill, but that she’d asked to be put in a team that would tow her along.

So you support the big group of girls controlling and bullying the boys ? Throwing things at them and stopping them from progressing. This doesn't sound fun at all and the organisers should have been up there kicking the girls up the bum

❄️ Snowflakes having a bit of Wobbly's yet again,🙄

It's not even some young people who can be like this

even people my age too,

It's interesting they are quick to be speak up and be straight blunt about things and other person got to take it on the chin,

and yet if someone is straight blunt tell it as it is in exactly the same way 🤔

they act as if they have a good case to say they are a victim of bullying or

How is it different then for them?

People can be so hypocritical when it suits them
Hypocritical nonsense and bullshit 💩 and boringy too..🥱

None of us were there were we, so mostly pointless speculating.

Maybe girls were wrong to slow down to the pace of the slower group, stop altogether as a protest, throw a sandwich at ds. Maybe they didn't have the competitive spirit and let the team down as opposed to says.

Maybe there was a good reason why they slowed down and ultimately stopped. Maybe op's ds didn't cover himself in glory but hasn't admitted it.

We don't know. But the only thing we can comment on, because op quoted herself, is that she said something unkind about another child to that child's mother. 'Mean girl' sounds about right based on that comment alone. And since we're hearing op's pov, not unreasonable to assume it might have been delivered in an even more unkind way.

Whatever happened, ds has got at least ten years of education and group tasks ahead of him so maybe needs to get to grips with the fact that he can't control other people.

I have a DD and a DS and at this age, 12-13, this scenario would have been completely plausible. Something happens to girls when there are enough of them, and just a few docile boys, where the girls just become bullies to theirs poor
boys. I’ve seen it with my own eyes and it’s shameful.

My DS was just that type of boy. Excelled at every sport he tried his hand at (social anxiety meant he killed himself to always be a winner). Also a little small for his age, and at that age the girls towered over him. He quickly learned to give mixed sports a swerve. Being good at them he was always picked for the team; he only ever chose boys’ teams (and was branded all sorts of things by the girls for doing so). Once puberty hit and he went through his growth spurt, everything started evening out, and anyway they started focusing more on academics than sports.

My DD was never interested in or played sports, but she was well aware of this dynamic and used to regularly report back about gymnastics and volleyball. Some terrible antics.

It’s a very British thing to sneer at competition. People should be winners accidentally and modestly. No brash celebration of ambition is appreciated.

You do you OP. The mean girl comment was 100% born of insecurity.

We don't know. But the only thing we can comment on, because op quoted herself, is that she said something unkind about another child to that child's mother.

The OP asked if she was unreasonable to think that the other mother should be more encouraging, and also avoid team events where the daughter is either unable or unwilling to play her part. Not unreasonable - it's community-minded.

It sounds like a case of the parent putting her daughter's self-discovery needs over the needs of the other children, which is unfair - because there are other ways that the daughter could have learned to overcome her fears of a long walk.

The soft bigotry of low expectations is a real thing and damaging, though of course it might sting to have it pointed out. But I would take the OP's comment as 'a little bit straightforward' rather than 'mean'. Most people would have been reasonably irritated.

@zoomfamilylife - you and many others seem to be ignoring the fact that the mixed team was winning, yet staged a protest within sight of the finish line.

This doesn't suggest a girl who couldn't handle the event. If anything, it implies a co-ordinated effort to stop the boys claiming victory, the two girls sacrificing their own team win to make a point.

It's not unreasonable to wonder what prompted them to do so.

I have to correct you here. At no point did I say they were winning at this point. Nor have I said I expected them to win. I did say I expected them to do their best, and that they were making very good time initially. I am not sure where you have gathered the information you are using to construct your version of the story from!

You're not unreasonable at all.
Why parents sign their children up to events and competitions that they think their children will be useless at or not finish is beyond me. I'm all for trying new things, but choosing a team event where someone's poor motivation and attitude could ruin it for other people seems foolish to me.
We used to see this on activities such as Duke of Edinburgh or outdoor weekends where the parents signed their child up and then half a dozen teens had to slow down all the time or stop for moaning from the child who didn't really want to be there in the first place.