Friend brainwashing child into 'mental illness'

[Jollyjupiter]

My daughter had a sleep over at our house with her friend (my friends daughter).
Both are 6yrs old.
My friend has suffered from 'mental illness' for as long as i've known her but has never seeked professional help, yet she considers her anxiety, trauma responses to be all consuming. I've g
ot to the point where i simply change the subject.

However, her 6yr old is now openly telling my daughter she is anxious and cannot do certain things as she finds them 'triggering'. This language has obviously been picked up at home.
I do not want my child to hear such words as at 6yrs she does not need to be around this.
Aibu to start to stop these playdates and sleepovers?

From someone who has a long history of m/h. I'd speak to the school explain what has happened and explain mum has m/h and are not sure/able to help, I wouldn't limit contact between the children, I'd remodel behaviour and be there, be someone she can trust. Honestly knowing my kids had friends who were there for them was a help to them and me

I’d have my child no where near, sadly. My DD is 5. Young and impressionable

YANBU - I don’t care how it comes across when it involves my children. I will be stopping all play dates all sleepovers and most definitely be encouraging my child to play/find other friends. I would distance myself and my children so they do not learn these behaviours themselves. I’m sorry but at 6 this is a learned behaviour and language that I will absolutely not expose my children to. Had to do it ourselves when my then 13 year old said one of her friends had anxiety and was self harming. I made the school aware and told my child to be with other friends. Felt like a crappy friend thing to do but now she is older and wiser she is so happy I pushed her in that direction. As mothers our priority foremost are our children. No apologies.

I know someone exactly like this.

Mum has a whole host of issues which she was determined her child would also have. She projected her anxiety onto this poor kid.

Social services have since become involved for a variety of reasons.

Yes it is concerning and it will only get worse. It's totally projection from parents. Kids don't understand this without being taught at age 6.

Several other parents have tried to distance their daughters over the years.

Id not stop the friendship but I would give short shrift to any such nonsense in my hearing.

She's already picking up on the anxiety by association. She's using words she doesn't really understand to explain feelings she isn't really feeling. That needs to be stopped.

What a surprise! 🙄

No. Your job is to protect your child. How can it be positive for her to be hearing this language and learning about these concepts at 6? Also if your friend has anxiety and trauma bonding, is she the kind of sensible, down-to-earth, reliable person who will know what to do in a crisis that you want in charge of your child at a sleepover?

Not the same but my daughter was friends with a lovely girl aged 6 who taught her the c-word! We also stopped play dates - what on earth was going on at home that the child (no teenage siblings) knew this? Certainly nothing I wanted my child to be party to.

That's the other mums child not OPs child.

You are confusing two things. We all agree the other mums daughter is not in a good situation. The question is whether the response should be for OP to cut off the 6 y/o girl from her child because it's 'contagious'.

It blows my mind how people STILL have no understanding or compassion of mental illness.

It won't be long until OPs child picks up on it.

However I personally would go with "if things make us anxious, in this house we do them anyway to train our brain not to be worried", or a variant of that. I would limit my child going to the friends house, but welcome the friend to mine. OP needs to be in control of the narrative her child gets.

This reads like another one of the many goady daily heil inspired threads that mumsnet is replete with of late

Same. Non-existent food intolerances were also passed on/assigned.
The family was so messed up in the end.
I always saw it as a form of munchausen by proxy.

As I said already, kids pick up on tonnes of things in school. We live in a country with lots of inequality and mental health illnesses are left untreated. You can't stop kids hearing things you wouldn't tell them.

Which reminds me of OPs comment about how the mum doesn't do anything about her mental health. Perhaps OP doesn't realise the waiting list for therapy and support on the NHS is several years long.

Of course you can't. But you can limit them hearing them outside of adult input. Hence no play dates at the friends house so the OP can counter the narrative.

This

@Jollyjupiter I wouldn't like this either but stopping playdates and sleepovers doesn't actually deal with the problem and is punishing your friend's child for her mum's behaviour. I suspect this problem affects lots of children and you can't prevent your child from ever coming into contact with children demonstrating this behaviour at school. Have the guts to explain your concerns to your friend with sensitivity. If her response suggests she is denial, at least you can say you tried to help the child and parent in question.

Just end the friendship. The talk of MH is not going to improve is it?

I have had friends with severe munchausens-by-proxy (which is essentially what this is) and it's fucked the kids up so severely and gave them learned helplessness and made them completely unsocialised and socially outcasted.

Avoid, you don't need this shit in you or your DCs life. This woman is a sinkhole of victimhood, dysfunction and you do not need to associate with her.

Your friend is probably also using her child for emotional support which is inappropriate and parentification.

Does your friend work or on benefits?

I'd definitely try and reduce any contacts. There is absolutely no need for your child to be exposed to this sh.t. That poor girl is having her future destroyed but there is little you can do about it.

OPs friend should have sorted her MH out before having a child if it's so bad that it seeps into all her conversations with OP and that mental health language is so present in their daughters' conversations that it gets back to OP. This woman sounds like a mess.

SS don't abduct children whose parents have MH issues, they offer support which this woman obviously needs. Her MH is so bad that she's inappropriately discussing it with her 6 year old, possibly munchausens-by-proxying her and every discussion with OP seems to turn back to MH discussion. The woman isn't well and frankly could use an adult in the bloody room.

This, because wtf. It sounds to me like the Mum is using her 6 year old to discuss and project her mental health issues, which is so damaging and inappropriate. A quiet word with the DSL like one of the PPs suggested at school is a good idea.

I agree with you in theory. But the bar for ‘involving social services’ is about 30 miles away from this.

Yes, they might do a welfare check / offer a strengths and needs assessment but it will boil down to essentially FA.

OP i don't think you can ban the friend if they see each other at school but as others have said, don't allow play days or sleepovers at the other house, keep your child where you can supervise.

Unfortunately therapy speak is becoming common language, especially 'triggered" - that was all round primary school when my kids were there.

I totally agree with you. I used to teach and the schools with the most anxious kids were also the ones that spent the most time fixating on how everyone was feeling all the fucking time. One awful school got them to "check-in" every single morning with a traffic light system about how fizzy or whatever they were feeling. By year 6, these kids were neurotic, nervous, anxious, scared to try anything. It was shocking. The school had really failed them. I left. Didn't want any part of that.