Two adults cornered and scolded my 7yo

[Rosie5832]

At a classmate’s birthday party, my child was cornered by the parents of another classmate. They accused him of bullying their son and told him to stop it. He said he wasn’t doing that and they kept on shouting at him that he was.
After this, he was very upset and was crying inconsolably.
Another parent - the mum of the birthday child - went to his assistance and messaged me telling me to return to the party as my son needed me, and that she couldn’t settle him at all (I had left for an hour). While she was messaging me, these two parents came over to her and told her my son was a bully - he was right there and still crying. She told them to back off. When I arrived, they rushed straight over to me and told me that my son was bullying their son etc. No acknowledgment from them that they had cornered him alone and shouted at him. It was only later at home that he told me what had happened, I called the other mum and she confirmed it, describing the way they approached me as an ‘ambush’. She said the whole party turned into a ‘sh*tshow’ because of the way these parents were behaving, and all the other parents - and probably some of the kids - could see what had happened.
I’m in shock over this. I’m meeting with the school teacher today to alert her to this incident and to make sure my son is kept safe in school.
I want to say something to these parents about their behaviour. Imo they were completely out of line, and all the other mums I’ve spoken to since agree that you never confront a child alone like that, regardless of what issue you have with them.
On the way in to school this morning, my son stopped dead just before the door and said, “why didn’t you stay at the party?”. He was clearly thinking about the whole incident and probably concerned that he would encounter these parents at the school.
Has anyone any experience of this kind of behaviour from other parents?

Has your son been bullying the other boy?

They bullied a 7 year old. That's not OK no matter what he had done, if he had done anything.

Start by talking to the school and see if they hsve any idea what might have happened.

I would also be asking the school whether your son is in fact a bully. This has to have come out of somewhere.

I’d tell the school and honestly speaking- report it to the police. They can’t do that again.

Gosh, I wonder what made them overreact in such a way and in front of everyone too?

Do you think it might've been the last straw by desperate parents?

Or do you think the bullying is made up?

While their approach to your child was not a way to deal with their child being bullied. I would have approached you as the child’s parent if your child was being a bully. I think you have that issue to deal with too and don’t get distracted by their ill advised approach to your child. Just because he started to cry on being scolded doesn’t mean he’s not a bully. Those parents must have a reason to have done that. Again I totally agree with you that they shouldn’t have approached and scolded your son but neither would I lose sight of the fact that your child may be bullying another and perhaps it would have been best to address this situation with the parents of the other child and found out all the details so that you could support your son to apologise and learn to behave better if he was indeed behaving in a bullying manner. There’s no way parents would do that unless super distressed at the child’s treatment.

I’m meeting with the school teacher today to alert her to this incident and to make sure my son is kept safe in school.
50% of that meeting needs to be getting to the bottom of why they think your son has been bullying.

Even if your son had been bullying the boy the approach by these adults was inappropriate especially given the setting.

If the alleged bullying took place at school they should have gone to the school.

Is it possible he did something at the party which they addressed immediately? If so, whilst an inappropriate way to address it perhaps it was them being protective to their child especially if it wasn't a first occasion.

Have you actually asked him how he treated the other child/ren in question to see whether his behaviour was in any way unacceptable?

Their approach was wrong whether he did or didn't do anything but do be aware they may have frightened children themselves.

You need to find out what's been going on between the 2 kids. That's your first priority.

What absolute cowards those adults are.

If your son was bullying the boy or they thought so they should have spoken to you or the other parent.

Now they are bullies - shouting at a 7 year old. I think you're right to be angry.

Oh aren’t these threads great?

Two grown adults bully a small child, and the reasons why at this point are entirely irrelevant, cornering a small child and shouting at them is bullying, and the response is “your child is a bully.”

IME when parents behave like this it’s usually because their own child is a little shit who has a habit of bullying other children and when they get called on it turn on someone else and claim to be a victim.

I’ve seen it more than once where the alleged bullying victim is actually the bully. And these parents sound like just the type.

So while obviously if the child had bullied their child he needs to be disciplined for it, that doesn’t make what these parents did any less wrong. They’re cunts regardless of their reasons.

It’s very strange. Normally a parents’ first complaint is to the school. Are you sure that nothing has been said before?

If Ops son was bullying theirs to the point this was the "last straw of desperate parents" then
a) whyon earth would you invite the bully to your child's birthday party
B) why have they or the school not tried to contact op about the bullying before now?
c) surely if you felt you had to invite then you'd ask the parent to stay at the party to keep an eye/so you could use the opportunity to discuss said bullying?

OPs child is SEVEN ffs. In no way is "never mention it to anyone just wait until you can get the kid alone and then gang up on them" an appropriate strategy, no matter how "desperate" the parents (i.e. FULLY GROWN ADULTS) might be.

They feel their child is being bullied so they decide to bully another child.
The first port of call should have been to the school and then if OP’s child is a bully the school should be dealing with it in school and OP informed.
I could understand if parents had tried to approach OP if they got no resolution in school but should not have approached the child.
Try to get to bottom of what is going on. If it was me I would tell my child to steer clear of that child from now on.

Is your son a bully though??? Would you believe the school if they told you he was?

The OP has no idea if there is any truth whatsoever to that accusation at this stage though.

So you assume because one kids angry parents say he's 'the bully' he is. I hope they don't call you up for jury service.

Totally agree with this. Keep the moral high ground in trying to understand why they reached that conclusion. Ultimately whether he’s bullied their children or not, how they tackled this was completely inappropriate. To be honest I also feel sorry for birthday child and party mum. As if it’s not stressful enough without their random behaviour.

We had a similar situation. And of course, as it turns out, in fact, the other parent's child was the bully and trouble maker.

Interestingly, when DS and this child went to high school, the child attempted the same behaviours. He'd got away with it at primary school of course, and in fact, his mum had come out screaming and yellig and calling my DS names, so he clearly thought this was a strategy that worked.....

..... hahahahahahahahaha. Let's just say it didn't end well for this child.

Bizarrely, even after this, on another occassion, this woman cornered my DS again. There had been an issue and this other child had come up to DS to try and incite him into doing somthing stupid. DS did NOT do something stupid, and the other child and his friend landed up being the ones who did. It was all caught on camera and the school investigated thoroughly. And yet she STILL tried to corner DS. So weird. That didn't go well for her either.

A parent had a go at my daughter in the playground. School dealt with it swiftly.

There are other lot of things going on.

In our case, the other girl was Queen Bee. Always had been but her shine was slipping. And her mum had just had a baby

She deduced to feed her mother all this stuff anout this girl who was bullying her ie my daughter. My daughter had only joined in year 3 - the other girls and mums were a much more cohesive group and this girl wouldn't have dared try it with one of them.

So we were more isolated and easier to pick off. Also my daughter is on the autistic spectrum. She was an easy target.

It was coming up to the end of year 6 and emotions were running high. The school assured me there was no bullying and were very supportive.

I think you’ve got muddled as to who’s party this was.

They shouldn’t have told off your child, not beyond telling him to stop the behaviour that they didn’t like , and that should have been one adult not two.

My first reaction however would be to want to know what they thought my son had done. You seem to be all about protecting your son with no curiosity at all about what he’d been doing? That seems odd.

Did you even ask the two parents to explain what your child had done? Or did you just go straight into defensive mode?

You aren’t doing your son any favours by putting all the blame on the other parents (even if their behaviour was OTT) and ignoring whether your son was behaving badly.

That is irrelevant. Whatever the circumstances the parents were wrong to bully a 7 year old child!

Also, to those people who are saying that OP's child was the bully and she should question that - my view is that if a supposedly bullied child's parent think the appropriate response is to have a conversation with a 7 year old, that's a clear sign that these are not parents who know how to behave appropriately, and they're very ilkely to have children who are the problem.