to go mental at school mum?

[Whattadopikachu]

My primary age daughter has a friend at school, her mother clearly doesn’t like me. Hasn’t since they started. She also doesn’t like my daughter.

Today my daughter comes out of school in a fit of tears, traumatised, saying “XXX told me her mum is saying that you and daddy don’t love me and don’t feed me anything”

What do I do with this? This kind of accusation has clearly come from an adult and isn’t just “kids being kids”.

What kind of mother says this to their young child about their friend?!? But also this is an extremely serious allegation and must be nipped in the bud. My instinct is to message her and just lay it all out and I’m trying very hard to remain composed.

How would you handle this?

Or just say, Don't be silly, of course we love you and feed you, now what's for tea tonight?? Come on home.

Oh my goodness, this made me laugh!

Oh God, how can people live like that. That gave me adrenaline rush even watching it, terrible 🙈

I think OP really needs to work on regulating herself and if she suspects she's ASD then learn more about it for herself as it really helps

Waaaaaay before I knew I was autistic, I had CBT to overcome anorexia and it really helped me change the way I thought, I realised -

I don't have to believe everything my brain tells me, just because I think it and feel it, doesn't mean it's true, somtimes our brain isn't our friend and it lies to us

Once learning I had autism I realised I used to have very rigid thinking and have RSD which makes me even more sensitive. Throw in a deep sense of justice and it's just a whole mess unless you know how to stop your brain from doing it

I could well be wrong, but it looks like OP is currently stuck in a deep sense of justice, rigid thinking on a loop about this woman and RSD due to the woman not liking her, she can't separate her feelings from actual facts and right now isn't capable of separating them.

I do get it, but I hope OP learns these skills sooner rather than later

Some people could find drama in an empty teacup.

It's terrible behaviour. In front of children as well.

And I completely agree - lack of regulation is the underlying problem. However, while often common to, I don't think that it is specific to ND. There are lots of adults who simply think 'going mental', 'kicking off', or otherwise being aggressive is abosolutely acceptable.

I agree - I see so many similarities with my autistic Ex. The dramatic, overblown language was typical of his hyperbolic language. But its not just language - it does both reflect and grow the real feelings.

The rigid fixation on the lack of justice on this issue and inability to think differently about the issue.

The finding external explanations for why she has not made friends ( its because she is younger than them). In reality, lots of mums don't really make friends at the school gates.

Ex also got paranoid when he was unhappy and thought others were acting against him and I do wonder if OP is behaving like this, with her belief that the other mother is stalking her online and then using that to be unpleasant about her. I guess we don't know, its possible but its highly unusual behaviour if it is true, from two people who don't appear to really know each other much (unless there is a massive back story).

Maybe speak to the school about it and see what they say? If this woman doesn't like you, you probably won't get any resolution by speaking to her directly

So you admit you’re dramatic and attention seeking then. So why can you not see any error in how you’re handling this when you’re predisposed to being dramatic? You obviously have a biased lens.

How weird that you're trying to make the OP the bad guy in this situation. As if most people wouldn't be upset and angry to hear another parent say that about them and it being relayed to their 8 year child.

I think its more about:

1. not being able to be clear about what happened, ' my child said your child said that you said' type situations are not very reliable.
2. what is the reasonable and constructive way to handle the situation and OP's opening gambit was neither of those things.

I am if the opinion it’s more weird you didn’t read even the op; the op never heard the woman say it and then it was relayed. That’s backward. She never heard anyone say it other than her daughter say the other kid said her mum said it,

if I’d heard another mum say it, and then relay it, yes as you say we would all be upset and angry, but that’s not what happened. If my kid said another kid said their mum had said it, I would at least be open to the idea this was two kids falling out and the mother never said anything so immature, but I would speak to the other mum, in a non accusatory way, to inform her,

lets face it, it’s a very childish thing to say, something you’d imagine a child saying not an adult, your mum and dad don’t love you or feed you, I mean cmon,

To make this really, really clear to you, you cannot say anything to the other mother without looking like a nutcase!
Also, the apple hasnt fallen far from the tree has it? Your dd is like you turning into a drama queen! When i read this i thought your dd must be 4 or 5. Your 8 year old shouldn't be traumatised by this! A scathing 'what on earth are you talking about, you absolute muppet' would be the way an average 8 year old would respond.

OP has said her daughter is autistic and autistic children often are developmentally behind their peers socially and emotionally, and may also take things literally which can heighten distress.

I agree with this. Be polite, padding on information - ie your daughter said the strangest thing to mine the other day, that you think we don’t feed her enough. I’ve told DD that she must have misunderstood what you had said, but isn’t it strange how children misinterpret things? Just letting you know, in case she’s misunderstood anything else you’ve said’.
that way; you’re letting her know that you know, but not causing a scene. Either her daughter has misunderstood or she’s said the wrong thing - but she will be much more careful in the future. Say it with some other parents around in ear shot so she is suitably embarrassed.
this woman won’t be your friend OP, and you won’t integrate with the other mothers in her clique. Whether you address this or not, that won’t change - so id also accept that. But that doesn’t mean they get to bully you. I’m a big advocate of confronting it right on, not causing a scene but making it clear that this isn’t ok and you don’t expect such carelessness from an adult again.
you can’t stop her gossiping about you, but you absolutely can take steps to ensure it doesn’t impact your DD.

I did read the OP, that's not what I meant. When I said "to hear" I didn't mean she actually heard the mother say it, obviously I just meant she heard that from her daughter telling her. Obviously if she literally heard the mother say that she would have said something as it was happening fgs

I would look at this situation in the light of "What do you want to achieve here?" And I can tell you that my priority would be to help my child be more resilient towards crappy comments that other people/kids make, because you know that shit never ends. People have been horrible to each other in words and actions since forever, and that's not going to stop, is it? It would be lovely to think that all humankind will have an epiphany and decide just to be nice to each other, but realistically, it's never going to happen. So you need to prepare your child for more unkind words along the way. Teach her ways to shrug off comments, especially ones that she actually knows are not true.

If she continues to get hassle from this kid, I would speak to the teacher and ask that they are separated where possible.

For you, if you suspect you all have ASD, you could look for resources around developing social skills and strategies for coping with emotional regulation and the like. My son's school ran groups for kids with social communication difficulties, obviously no idea if your school does but it would be beneficial for your DD as well other kids who are struggling with this.

ETA: Forget that mum, she's not worthy of your headspace. Focus on helping your DD as much as you can, and ignore ignore ignore! You can't change anything and probably just make the situation worse by reacting to her.

The problem is this is assuming the mother did say it, and we don't know that.

The other problem is that it will be blatantly obvious to the Mother that OP is accusing her, and it will also be obvious to all the other parents you want OP to keep within earshot.

And going around accusing parents on the basis of 8 year old hearsay risks making you look a bit bonkers. Who will be facilitating friendships between OP's daughter and their kid, once they know OP behaves like this? Who wants to volunteer to be the next parent OP publicly accuses on the basis of children's hearsay?

Thinking anything good will come for OP from her being seen to be the type of parent who seeks to publicly embarrass, as you are advising her too, other parents is madness. Life is not a Hollywood movie where you ' win' by saying something devastating and then walk off whilst everyone else smirks in agreement with you. In real life, OP will just have made herself look like a spiteful and slightly unhinged person that people will avoid. Which will mean not facilitating any outside of school friendships with her daughter.

Keep the bigger picture in mind.

You can’t control what people say, you can only control what you do. I’d ignore it and talk to your daughter and make sure she isn’t hungry.

And if she's not a decent person? If she does actually really have it in for the OP? What will this achieve?

She's hardly going to say 'actually ilI did say that, oops you've got me bang to rights' is she?

If she's a total cow, she might say it again to her face "yes, I did say x, so what? "
<cue massive row>

I can't see it ending well. OP will come across, at best, as highly strung and prone to drama. Why care so much what some random who you don't even like did or didn't say?

Edit for clarity

i would simply say to DD well you know mummy and daddy love you and feed you so i would just ignore it and lead by example- ignore it, you know its not true so why let her get a rise out of you.

My niece told her mother her teacher died during class and there was lots of blood.

For me it’s always about asking what I’m hoping will happen. What outcome do you want and what is the best way to get it?

It may be that the outcome you want is for this woman to stop saying negative things via her kids. But I’m not sure you can achieve this. Assuming she’s pretty awful, then you saying something to her will only egg her on. I’ve been trying to think of a way you could talk to her without it escalating but I’m not sure there is one to be honest.

So another outcome you might be able to achieve is for your daughter not to be hurt by words like this. And you’ve already taken steps for this by talking to her about it the way you have.

so personally I would rant about it to my friends and then just leave it…because I don’t think saying something to her will get you what you want! X

I have always had friends in different age groups. I'm 60 and have friends from mid twenties to mid eighties.

OP take a breath. This isn't a serious offense. This is a teaching moment. Tell your daughter that people can say what they like but it doesn't make it true. I used to say to my kids, someone can say the sky is pink with rainbows but when you look at it you know it isn't true. It teaches reasoning and critical thinking.

Your first thought shouldn't be to go 'mental' on the other mum but to teach your child about the above and building resilience. You are in for a world of shock as your daughter grows up when she goes to senior school if you see this so seriously. Yeah it's mean and isn't nice but it also isn't true.

Nothing needs to 'happen' to this other parent. Leave it alone.

And please don't message the other mum. It will only escalate and you really don't want that and then the school getting involved. I have seen this happen and the only result were the mums being banned from school grounds.

Since this has happened more than once maybe have a word with the teacher about the relationship between the girls. Keep it general rather than going in with guns blazing. The teacher may be able to shed some more light on what's happening and keep an eye on things. Keep in mind though that the fault could lie with something your daughter is doing, such as trying to force an unwanted orvexpired friendship.