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?

I can understand your distress at what youR child has reported her friend has said.
Other than this incident ,why do you think it clear the mother doesn't like you and your child ?
Talk to you child again about what happened and find out what lead up to this,what actually was said and how your daughter feels about it.
Then discuss with your child's teacher ,the teacher may have more information /perspective on what happened that could be helpful.
Then, consider if you want to address it with the mother (consider what the repercusions may be). My guess is the mother will deny,deny,deny and hearsay between children is really hard to prove.
Don't go mental whatever you do, that will just poor oil on the flames and make you look as mad as the mother and her child have accused you of being!
Cool,calm head is needed here.....
Good luck.

Just ask the class teacher to speak to the children about what they're saying and how they're saying it. No need to speak to the mother, you're just giving her more ammunition. My ds is now 24, primary school was utter hell as one particular child kept telling DS that his dad was dead or was going to be murdered etc (we seperated when ds was 2 and whilst he had every other weekend contact etc this child really got under his skin)

"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?"

Firstly, you don't assume that a conversation between two eight year olds is solid evidence enough to go mental at someone. I understand the wanting to but seriously, you'll just make yourself seem unhinged. Kids say all sorts of misconstrued nonsense.
Even if the woman did say it, she'll deny and dismiss it and tell other people you're a bam.

You've got to be more mature and discerning about this, if you want to do anything at all. Personally I'd take it with a huge pinch of salt and encourage dd to do the same.

Is it though? It’s not very adult if you ask me. I used to say some dumb stuff as a child.

No, don't communicate with the mother about this. It will end up a thousand times worse for you and your DD. You don't know if those words came from the mum, someone else, or if they were even talking about your DD... Children get mixed up with adult conversations and often get the wrong end of the stick... I know mine do.

Speak to the teacher. Tell them what your DD said and let the teacher take control and monitor the situation.

Exactly this. It's a dumb, basic, childish claim. Probably either made up or misinterpreted. Adults generally don't speak like that.

I wouldn’t suggest to my child that the other child is joking, because I would want my child to know that saying something like this about somebody is serious and not an appropriate joke

Been there. One day DD got in the car and said “mummy what’s a chav?” So I explained it and asked why and apparently one of her little friends mums had said I’m a chav and so is DH. I was enraged because DH is well posh, he’s not even from a council estate.

Honestly I would just ignore it because it’s not worth the hassle. It’s hard though because part of me wanted to tell DD “yes well her mum is a classist twat and I could absolutely take her in a fight if she wants a go”.

She's upset your DD wherever she got the bizarre accusation from, so let her teacher know. It's never a good idea to deal directly with parents yourself.

Just to float an idea, is it possible the other child eats junk food or is a bit chubby? Some parents might be defensive about their choices and position not giving your DD crisps and chocolate bars all the time as being less loving.

Even more reason to go the formal route via the school.
The school will have dealt with this type of situation and is best placed to deal with it.
It will also then be on record if there are any further issues.
Parents that deal directly invariably regret it if dealing with challenging people.
Far better to hand it over to be dealt by those whose care your child was in.

My young daughter said she overheard all the mums saying I looked awful in my clothes and my hair was all over the place and that I wasn't very nice to her

I was fucking livid until I realised

She's 8. She just made that up.

This sounds like exactly the kind of misinterpretation/ storytelling that I remember when from when I was an 8 year old.

There must be something else going on to make you believe this has come from the mother? Or to give you suspicion the mother would say something malicious?

I remember telling all sorts of tales when I was younger - some quite salacious :/

Quite.

I also don’t see how this is a “very serious allegation” unless OP’s DD is visibly malnourished and neglected. It’s just nonsense out of an 8yo’s mouth.

Why all the drama?

Well you'd be VU to go absolutely mental over something you heard third hand via a child. But I think you should phone the mum and sweetly tell her what your DD has said and then ask her for an explanation.

I'd definitely do it by phone rather than by text. Her reaction to your question and whether she bluffs and blusters and squirms or panics will tell you all you need to know. Doing it by text gives her the opportunity to compose her response and wriggle off the hook.

comment from her mother that I KNOW has come from her mother as it related to something only an adult would know about our family.

Like the idea neither of you love your child and you don't feed her? That's not the sort of thing and adult 'knows' about a family. You're still being a drama llama about utter nonsense said by one 8 year old to another.

As for 'traumatised' - if your daughter is genuinely traumatised by something so blatantly untrue, you have a whole different set of problems relating to resilience.

1. This has not clearly been said by an adult ...

        is not the same as 

1. Clearly, this has not been said by an adult.

In the first instance the statement is saying the comment hasn't been proved to have been said by an adult. It seems to be purely guesswork on the part of the OP.

In the second, that is saying it most definitely hasn't been said by an adult, which we have no way of knowing could be true or not.

Personally,

I think telling an 8 year old that her friends family don’t love them and don’t feed them, is quite serious.. I would never say such a thing to my daughter about one of her friends?

My daughter is tall and slender, but far from malnourished.

I was once told by a 6-year-old: "Guess what? Mummy says you're a pain in the ass!" (His parents, who were divorced, were both American.) Assuming there was probably some context for this, I asked why she said that and he explained that he'd told her that I made The Best Chocolate Cake in the World and the icing was wonderful and blah blah blah and maybe I would give her the recipe.

I explained to him that in England we pronounce it "arse" not "ass", which changed the subject. He was right about the cake, though. I wonder if I still have the recipe, which was off the back of a Menier chocolate bar ...

Are the 2 girls different body types? You have said your daughter is tall and slender, but what about her friend?

If her friend is a different body shape, it's possible one of those exasperating conversations between a parent and a child that has ended up being misinterpreted.

It could very easily be something like this (and much more likely). I think YABU to be taking this as the literal truth, and even if she did say it (which I highly doubt) what are you worried about? This isn't going to trigger a social services investigation. I'd shrug it off.

I would give this absolutely no oxygen beyond telling your daughter that sometimes people say silly things because they’re bored, and it’s best to not give them the satisfaction of them seeing that you are bothered by it in any way.

What are you hoping to get from this confrontation OP?

Yeah its a dick thing to say to her kids, but so what? You can't control what she says to her own kids in her own home. Some adults will say mean things. Not everyone will like you. Not everyone will act maturely.

Teach your daughter that you can't control what other people say or think. See this as an teaching opportunity for your daughter in how to develop mental resilience to these things.

Do not escalate this drama, and do not play into this.

Apart from anything, its likely to make life harder for your daughter if drama between parents affects her life in school, which it looks like it will if you kick off at this.

I think telling an 8 year old that her friends family don’t love them and don’t feed them, is quite serious..

I don't. It should be blatantly, ridiculously untrue and obvious to any 8yo that no, she isn't routinely being starved to death and that her parents clearly love her and let her know.

It's about as serious as saying "your dog won the world's ugliest dog competition," or "my dad flies the space shuttle," - manufactured nonsense that in no way reflects reality and can be laughed off. (DS did have a friend who claimed his dad piloted Thunderbird 3, come to think if it, but he was 4 at the time)

Unless your family has some deep problems, this is the rubbish children laugh off or say "I know you are but what am I" and other bickering nonsense. No one who is healthy gets traumatised by this crap.

Stop making this into something significant.

You’re honestly giving this too much space in your head. If you give daft comments like this any time, your daughter will grow up obsessing over details and everything said to her. Teach her to prioritise and ignore pointless comments.

This is weird. Don't do this. Christ