Friend grabbed my child

[friends345]

I’ve been friends with let’s say ‘Louise’ for as long as I can remember.
I have a DC aged 3 and hers is 4.
we were out today and my DC had a toy Louise’s DC wanted.
Louise's DC was crying saying she wanted the toy. Mine wouldn’t give it.
I said to my DC ‘share the toy and take turns’ or something like that.

as my DC was walking passed Louise, she grabbed DC by the arm and pulled her back saying “no, you’re not having that toy’ and snatched it off her.
DC obviously got upset. I was shocked. I took DC to one side and comforted her.

I then went back to Louise. The kids went to play and Louise was saying “your DC needs to learn to share. If she’s upset my kid then I’m going to do something”.

so I replied that my DC is 3. A whole year younger than hers and she’s learning to share but she still shouldn’t have grabbed her. I let her know that wasn’t ok.

louise then backtracked and said she felt awful and that she only did that because that’s what she’d do with her own kids etc. she said she wanted to apologise to DC and she did apologise.

it was a bit awkward after that. She said to me “as soon as I did it, I couldn’t believe I’d done it and when you walked away with your DC I thought you might not want to see me again or be friends”.

i feel conflicted. My DC absolutely loves Louise’s DC and would be truly devastated if they couldn’t play together anymore. What would you do??

I had a friend like this! She’s bullying you and dc. I regret not ending the friendship sooner. She’s showing you who she is over and over again so why are you not listening? Normal people don’t grab other peoples kids.

@Moonnstars
louise has several mum friends. To be honest, she’s probably my only mum friend. We see each other almost every week with the kids. Prior to this we did have a rocky friendship, she treated me badly and I spoke to her about this and said unless she changed and became a better friend, I wouldn’t continue a friendship with her. And she did actually change quite a bit once she had a child. Then I had one a year later and now we regularly meet up with the kids.

I don’t have friends who have kids. And I have thought lately that I might join an app to meet more mum friends. The classes I go to with my DC, the parents don’t really speak to each other.

It seems to me that Louise is struggling a bit with parenting - the shouting, the inability to let her child wait, the giving in to stop the child making noise.

If it was a one off, it would be easy to let it go imo. (please don't forget that on AIBU there are a number of people who absolutely get off on making any situation worse - make your own mind up here, keeping in mind Louise is a friend).

But it's apparently not a one off. So if you enjoy Louise's company then I'd say carry on but keep in mind that you are going to have to consciously keep her areas of struggle in mind and you're going to have to keep calm and handle giving both her, and the children, boundaries.

"Can my child have a biscuit because she'll just wail otherwise?"

"It's a phase, if you hold strong she'll learn that No means No once the extinction burst is out of the way, so I think it's better if we pass on the biscuit this time".

Grabbing your child generally is a real no-no. The only circumstance I could see are either if there's danger. That needs to not happen again.

So it's up to you. You're going to have to be a little bit alert to counteract where Louise doesn't know or is struggling with calm, consistent, well-boundaried parenting. Or you can quietly reduce the number of playdates with her.

She sounds like an entitled, fake as fuck person. She is used to getting away with making nasty comments and making sure her child gets whatever she wants but realised when you confronted her this time that she had gone too far by actually grabbing your child and panicked. She knew that there could be serious consequences to touching someone else's child and was saving her skin. I probably would have stopped seeing her a long time ago.

I would be distancing myself from Louise and her ‘don’t upset my kid at any cost but I don’t give a shit about yours’ parenting.

This ‘got to learn to share’ crap is nonsense. What it actually means is they must develop empathy but they do that by example “let’s let Connie have the toy now as she’s been a good girl waiting her turn” (so adults modelling) and they learn as they grow with emotional intelligence and cognitive ability (reading books etc.)

It sounds like Louise needs to develop some empathy and emotional intelligence herself. This giving into her child wailing every time is pathetic. I’d be quite cool with her from now on. You say your dd enjoys playing with her kid but it sounds like a ball ache to me.

You urgently need more friends, you’re too reliant on her and it does not sound like a healthy friendship. Those groups are difficult to make connections in sometimes so just keep trying, be friendly, say hello to people. The time and energy you are pouring into his friendship could be better spent elsewhere in my opinion.

@Ratafia
i do say “well they have one each” but my DC will say “it’s ok, she can have it”

I have told her that she doesn’t have to give to Louise’s child each time.
but when she sees her child getting upset, my DC will often do something to help her and this sometimes means giving her the thing she’s crying about. And on this occasion she didn’t. Which is why Louise’s child was screaming her head off

I wouldn’t base your decision on your child adoring her child and being devastated if you stopped playing. At that age I found that between people moving elsewhere for a larger home, moving nurseries, childcare arrangements changing and then going to different schools, friends did move on and it was fine. Base it on how you feel about your friend.

This situation has brought back memories. One of my DCs was the same age as a relatives’ DC. The DM was like Louise and their DC was exactly like Louise’s child. I kept the peace because it was ‘family’. Looking back I wish so much that I had not said ‘be kind and share your toys’ but had instead pushed back and been more assertive. If you want to maintain the friendship, then @Ocelotfeet27 made a good suggestion about saying something explicitly now and actively watching to see if that makes a difference. If there’s no change, then pull back. It’s something that I wish that I’d done years ago.

Look up church play groups. They tend to have mums that know each other and seem more welcoming. I've made friends that way.

Exactly - or having to share unfinished food as the other already stuffed theirs??

Beggars belief - if it’s a communal toy in a sandpit for example then yeah ok , 10/15 mins each - not two minutes which is always what the mum of the brat who wants your child to share suggests and then invariably brat won’t return after their go.

This is awful. For your child to ask if she has gone to jail and that she broke her arm is an appalling situation and so traumatic for her. Has she bruised her?
I wouldn’t want her near my child again. She is volatile and she assaulted your child. It sounds that she has no boundaries and is a very emotionally reactive individual.

she treated me badly

this changes my answer. I think she’s a user and the lack of respect she has for you also applies to your dd. Step away, be unavailable. Does your dd want to do ballet or anything where the kids are being guided by another adult and the parents have to wait? More time than to meet the others. Or nursery? Make friends/ spend time with your dd’s friends’ mums.

Let it go. She was shocked at herself and apologised. She realised she endangered her friendship with you. End of.

I suspect that Louise has ‘learnt’ that by screaming and shouting she’ll get what she wants, and she is subconsciously passing this message onto her child. Doesn’t make it right though.

@PersephonePomegranate
she grabbed her upper arm firmly and pulled her back and it did seem a bit aggressive. My mum was there as it was an event we were at and my mum looked at me really shocked. As I took my DC away my mum followed me and said “what the hell did she do that for? She could have pulled her bloody arm out of her socket!”

when I started reading this I was going to say "if its only once then let it go and keep an eye so its not repeated" BUT its not only once is it? Sorry but I think you need to protect your child and step back from this woman and (sorry) her child. The final straw for me would be blaming her child's behaviour on your child. You both need to find better friends.

@ReleaseTheDucksOfWar
i have said this to her several times. For example, Louise’s DC will have as many sweets as she wants. Mine always wants them but can’t always have them. So when they’re together, they might have some sweets but then Louise will give her DC more and more because she will cry otherwise. I said to her “if you keep eventually giving in, then she knows how far she needs to push you next time to get what it is that she wants”

and she replied “I know. I know it’s really bad but she just cries and cries and it does my head in”. So she’ll give her loads of sweets or sweet pouches etc because otherwise she’ll get upset.

Yeah I dunno if I’d do play dates any more. Clearly from your updates her kid is spoiled.

The toy incident you describe has brought the issue of different parenting styles, or rather ‘habits’ to a head.
Your friend has fallen into bad habits of giving in instead of taking the time and effort to parent properly and fairly. From what she said, she realises it has become a bad habit but maybe she is stuck and can’t get out if it for some deeper reason without extra support and coaching in how to handle her DD’s behaviour.
I think you handled the incident very well in the moment.

I would explain to her that your DD is still feeling the injustice of being roughly grabbed and forced and having the toy snatched from her, and you would like to give her time to process things properly with your help. Therfore you will be giving her that time and support until you feel she is ready to have a play date again, maybe in a few weeks time or maybe earlier. Explain it’s not that you want to make it into a big issue but at the same time you also feel it’s important to let your dd have her feelings fully acknowledged and when she is ready to see Louise again, you will know.
If you want to, you could also say that in the meantime, you are willing to meet up with Louise, without the children in tow, if she feels the need to talk about it a bit more over a coffee.

Wow that's worse that I imagined. For your mum to see it and say that means it was too far. I wouldn't see her again. Your poor child talking about her "broken arm" means it really hurts still. That's terrible behaviour from an ADULT, all because your friend wanted something for HER child. You cannot continue to be friends with her. Your child comes first.

Expecting a child to give her child their food is not sharing.

She's encouraging spoilt entitled behaviour.

Louise thinks her dcs are more important than anyone else's, and it's only going to get worse.

So you either have a talk with her about boundaries and what sharing is, and see if she learns from it, or skip to the end and stop seeing her.

I've stopped play dates with a friend like this whose child was constantly snatching and upsetting my child, and my child was forced into a people-pleaser role with her mum telling her vaguely to stop and be kind - just not worth it.

Your friend has apologised and seen where she's done wrong but seems like her child is also not great with yours?

In my opinion, she only apologised and seemed regretful because you pulled her up on it. I can almost guarantee that if you hadn't have mentioned it, she would've said nothing at all.

Stop being friends with her. Even if none of the incidents happened (taking your child's biscuit off of them to give to their daughter, for example) this incident alone would be enough for me to cut someone off entirely.

It sounds like she grabbed your DC and pulled her arm hard. She will know she’s way out of order for getting physical and initially wasn’t sorry, I think that’s why she had the change of stance from the initial ‘I’m going to do it if it upsets my child’ pov to being apologetic.
Ditch her, protect your DC. The friend has shown a pattern of behaviour which has now turned physical and what your DD said about her arm being broken is really quite sad.