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?

Kindly OP - you need to get a grip. From your posts it seems you just want people to agree with you and you don’t want to consider anyone with a different opinion. At 8, kids are very aware of body image (skinny, fat etc), so this could well come from the friend herself. It sounds like you have a problem with the other mother (even mothers perhaps judging by your other comments).

Agree with this.
Whatever you do, do NOT contact the other mum directly. You want to give her a wide berth.

Before you do anything, make sure you know exactly what happened.

You speak directly to the head thats the adult way to nip it in the bud rather than escalate

I wouldn't pay this any attention at all. Why grace it with a response? It's clearly just bollocks and not worth getting het up over.

It's hearsay via two young children so I wouldn't take it seriously.

Talking directly to the mum is almost guaranteed to make things worse.

If it's true she will just use it as proof that you're awful because you had a go at her

And if it's not true, it runs the risk making you look a bit mad and of her telling her to keep away from your daughter going forward.

Just talk to the teacher. Explain your daughter was upset by these comments and ask her to have a word.

How so?

I think I’ve been quite open to opinions and suggestions on how to handle things.

You haven’t. You’ve refused to even consider that you might be wrong.

This is absolutely not the teacher's job to sort out spats between parents.

This may have already been said, but I think that you need to be very very careful as to how to react to this. So a child (what age?) has told your daughter what he mother has told her. The child could be fabricating, and coming out with this stuff to hurt your daughter. TBH neither of them sound terribly nice.

I think that I would talk to the mother, be factual, reasonable, keep the emotions down, and ask if she's told her daughter these things. Make her aware as to how upsetting it all is. Above all, be nice! (although you obviously don't feel that way).

You need to discuss it with the school and not the parent. The child could be bullying your daughter and the parent could be completely unaware she’s saying these things.

It is hard to believe that a grown up would be so puerile as to say a mother didn’t love or feed their child.
Even if it is true it’s such a silly thing for them to have said it’s really not worth worrying about.

... and don't be beaten up by people on here, please. People on mums net like to beat the shit out of people anonymously.

Because I know that I’m not 😂

I can’t really explain without outing myself, but this friend has made comments before stating “my mums said..” and it’s something you’d only know from doing some digging online..

Therefore, I’m not open to the suggestion it hasn’t come from the mother, but I am open to suggestions and opinions on how best to handle it - as per my original post!

🙄

And some people like to make sweeping generalisations about the whole site while also plopping out chatgpt style "you do you babe responses when the op was clearly overreacting.

The op seems to have realised that at least

... and this sort of crap just sums it all up. You came on here for guidance OP, not to be judged and trodden down.

I like the idea of speaking to the school, but I can't help but think that you could sort all of this with the mother, telling her what her daughter has said, and just be .... well, nice, kind, approachable.

Sorry, I know that I've just written 3 messages to you. I can't cope with this bullying that goes on on this site.

You’ve been digging online?

You need to remind DD how much you love her. How does she see this? Hugs? Time? Telling her? In-jokes? Nick names? Bedtime stories? What's your special thing? I rub DDs feet. No one could possibly love my DD like I do because I give the best feet rubs 🥰

Then point out silly comments from friends should be ignored.

Move on.

Drama not needed.

How you deal with this teaches your daughter how to deal with crap in the future. It doesn't need school. It doesn't need a conversation.

Ignore .

It seems like you've had an awful time in this site - gently, you can take a break. It can be a lot on here, but i actually disagree that this thread has been that diabolical. I have also missed the bullying.

Yes, I immediately thought about when DS and his friends used to eat mountains of food in my kitchen and then ask for more, which I was always happy to supply, but I may well have made a comment like, ‘here you go boys, it’s clear your mums haven’t fed you today!’ Or something similar. Of course I didn’t think they hadn’t been fed! And the boys knew that it was a joke. But these things sometimes get misunderstood.

You seem very hung up on it being a ‘serious allegation’, when it seems a lot more like a stupid comment, or, most likely, a child getting half a story and repeating it or making it up altogether. Surely your child knows they are loved and fed??? In which case does it really matter what another child says?

Your child’s lack of resilience is concerning. At 8 both of my children would have said something like ‘what do you know? I had pasta for tea last night and of course my mum loves me, why are you saying such silly things?’ And it would haven’t reported to me with an eye roll about how stupid x is, because at 8 they know what’s true and what isn’t.

I am incredibly thankful I’m no longer in the school playground (or a teacher) these days….

thanks for your response Tsunami. I don't come on here very often because I find the bullying horrendous. For instance OP has been told

'you need to get a grip. From your posts it seems you just want people to agree with you and you don’t want to consider anyone with a different opinion. At 8, kids are very aware of body image (skinny, fat etc), so this could well come from the friend herself. It sounds like you have a problem with the other mother (even mothers perhaps judging by your other comments)'

I find this negative and unhelpful, especially 'you just want people to agree with you'. There are also comments from people suggesting that she is, indeed, not feeding her daughter properly. This is hideous.

Mumsnet was designed to help people through life, through motherhood, and in support of others. There's a lot of stuff going on in this thread which is wholly inappropriate and also insulting.

But thank you for your response.

Get a grip woman. You cannot trust Chinese whispers from children. You would have to be insane to lose it at another parent over this -you’ll just give her more ammunition to dislike you (if she even cares who you are and what you’re doing)
Excluding this, what makes you think she dislikes you?

How on earth can you be so certain that this is something the child heard at home. It sounds like the sort of thing a child may say just to provoke another child .
I think you would be very unwise to go in all guns blazing.
If it was me, Id say something like ' some people like to say silly things to try and get a reaction. You know we love you and you can eat when you are hungry'.
I wouldn't give these people the satisfaction of thinking they have power over you.
Ignore it and hopefully it will go away, if it continues then discuss it with a teacher.

I think she means that the other mum must have been doing digging online

I would reassure your child and try to discourage the friendship.
Other than that, just ignore it.

Its difficult to approach the teacher because it is about what the girl's mum is saying, not the girl herself. I can't see how the school can do anything about it other than not sit the girls near each other.