Is this mum’s message the right way to go about things?

[Finishdinnerliedownsleep]

Received a text message off a mum from school, have spoken a few times, say hello, all friendly and ok. Her Ds and my Dd are friends, Dd often tells me people are mean to him in class and I say to always be kind to him and to stand up for him if she can.
In the message the mum says that her Ds spoke to her after school and said my Dd told some boys to hit him, which they did and then the assistant told them off. She said she wanted to know what her Ds had done to deserve this and why my Dd thinks this kind of behaviour is acceptable and that she wanted him to have a nice day but is really upset because of my Dds actions.
Dd is at her friends and will be back later, so I will speak with her to find out what happened

To me, this is personally not how I would approach the situation if it was the other way around and I would enquire, rather than accusing and find out what happened first

It’s made me feel sick as I hate confrontation, we’ve never had anything like this before

I think she’s been quite polite in my opinion, if another child had instructed children to attack my child every parent involved would be dealing with me face to face not over text. Schools are quite useless when it comes to bullying their very limited at what they can do most have some bollocky no blame policy. Luckily my children have never been bullied but when there has been an incident of violence towards my child the parents have absolutely heard about it and everything’s been resolved and apologies have been made. If my child was the aggressor I’d want to know 100% and it would be dealt with accordingly.

Too much children he said they said. You need to discuss this as adults.

You think this Mum is batshit to raise concerns that her son is being treated badly by his friends?
Your post says stuff about you most people wouldn’t advertise.

The other kids involved are not your concern, op.
Focus on your own child’s bad behaviour, you don’t even know if there were others involved, or if she’s just trying to make herself look less bad.
Was she really upset before you found out about it, or just after she was caught out?

Are you serious though? Wouldn't you at least ask your child what had happened?

Poor little boy. These repeated experiences will be shaping his future. I feel for him and his mum. OP, make sure DD knows you are very disappointed that she joined in the bullying on this occasion and encourage her to make better decisions in future. She should apologise to him. I get that it's easy to be led by the crowd at that age and she probably feels rotten about it (both getting found out by parents and actually doing it). I'm sure she's a good kid really who wants to the the right thing. Remind her that in thr future she will look back on these days and know that she made this boy's school experience a little bit easy (the majority of the time) because she was his friend and stood up for him.

The parent playground has always been a challenging place with Cliques and besties, competitiveness and sadly bitchyness. But I do feel for you today where you can just rant at anyone on a text when it suits.
We have lost the art to converse.
I will never forget driving home from work to see my Daughter walking up the hill in tears. She was 13 (today 28) at the time. She told me she threw a conker at a girl, she had been friends with because the girl had kicked her.
I was friendly with the mum and spoke to her to apologise and give reasoning. As her daughter was in a group of girls at the time.
We were no longer friends after that conversation but nothing lost to me.
But yours are still little one's and parents behaving like this. I feel so sorry for you.
There are always 2 sides to every story and parents can make a mountain out of a molehill.

As an absolute minimum I would be reading my daughter the riot act and she would apologise to him tomorrow to his face. She would then also be grounded for a month (absolute minimum)

bullying isn’t acceptable in any way shape or form, regardless of friends. I would also be really apologetic to the other mum, regardless of who else was involved, your daughter played a part and he is now upset.

I think she’s dealt with it well, I’d be absolutely raging

This isn’t about the etiquette of how you were informed. Don’t try to twist it that way.

At the end of the day bullying is physical and/or emotional assault. If an adult treated another adult the way this poor boy was treated they’d be arrested. It is very very serious and it can cause death. Never sweep it under the carpet for any reason. There is zero excuse.

"the mum says that her Ds spoke to her after school and said my Dd told some boys to hit him" "I spoke to her ... and she said she was part of it, she told them to annoy him after two other girls said it too. She said she didn’t say to hit him."

I am inclined to believe the boy's account over your DD's. Your DD has a reason to lie (to make herself look better), whereas the boy does not. It is highly possible that your DD did instruct the boys to hit him, exactly as he reported.

The other children are not your concern. Your child is, and I like @CountFucula's example response.

Some children are easily led, and it sounds like your daughter has got caught up with the peer pressure. I would not be happy, but I'd want to know why she did it, and if she doesn't really know, because she likes him, I would suggest you work with her on her resilience and her ability to stand up to bullies.

If your darling daughter is guilty then make sure you punish her. Too many little biathces get away with this type of behaviour, as they are devious so and so's, and very good at pretending like the butter wouldn't melt! I'm so glad I don't have any daughters, only boys.

I think you need to apologise to this parent, and have your DC apologise too. It doesn’t matter if she wasn’t the only one, she was still part of it. Think about the message you’ll be sending to her about how to treat people if you let her get away with it.
Maybe the other mum could have handled it better, but I don’t think she sounds batshit, as others have said.

I would contact the other Mum, say you have spoken to your daughter and will deal with her appropriately, but also suggest she takes it up with the school as many children appear to be involved. Her poor son.

That poor boy, his only friend joined in with the awful bullying taking place and your reaction is to minimise her input? It’s so horrible to hear. He’s probably devastated because she was on his side and now she’s not. I’d be so disappointed and make that clear to DD.

I agree with this.

I had a similar situation a couple of years ago. My DS had said nasty things to one of the girls in his class and told others not to be friends with her.

The class teacher spoke to me about this specific incident and I then spoke to the girl’s Mum in the playground to apologise and reassure her that we’d be speaking to him at home. From that conversation I found out that it had been happening for a while.

We then both let the teacher know that it was a bigger issue than originally thought. I spoke to DS and got to the bottom of what was happening (jealousy, friendship issues, the usual primary school stuff) and put sanctions in place at home. The other Mum and I then then checked in with each other regularly to make sure it hadn’t happened again. We’re even quite friendly these days and chat on the school run.

Don’t shoot the messenger OP, and don’t get distracted by focusing on the Mum - the main thing here is the situation with your daughter and what your next steps are. Work together, get school involved and resolve this like adults.

why would school be best placed to parent OP's child? We have to parent our own kids, and saying school is best placed go deal with my child's behaviour is such a cop out, or do people on this thread just object to hearing from the parent of the bullied child?

Otherwise it all becomes unnecessarily complicated:
Bullied kid's mum talks to school > school contacts OP > OP talks to her child > OP reports back to school > school talks to child > school contacts bullied kid's mum.

No wonder we are losing teachers in droves.

What matters is how you deal with this now you know. There may be a few nuances about how you found out but they are not terribly important compared to the fact that the accusation is true.

This. I find it very odd that other posters are saying her message to you was inappropriate. Your child did something unkind and there are consequences for that.

I think its an excellent opportunity to address peer pressure with her. Sometimes it feels easier to go along with the majority. Its scary to go against the group. But , she absolutely has to when the group is doing the wrong thing. Bullying is wrong. How sad must the boy feel to have everyone hurting him? How upset must he feel that someone who he though was a friend didn't help by telling an adult and actually encouraged the behaviour. My daughter would be made to sit and think on her behaviour and tell me what she thinks she needs to do now. She'd probably make an apology card or picture. Id be very clear. She doesnt have to he friends with anyone she foesnt like or ghat isnt kind to her but I will not tolerate her bullying anyone.

I dont think the message was inappropriate. That mum and the boy thought they were friends. Really she should have addressed it with the teacher but you clearly have a relationship so she addressed it with you directly.

Generally I would say that it's for the school to manage, not for parents to start messaging each other. But when my son was at school my DH spoke to one of the mums about some unpleasantness that was going on at school and it stopped. So it's worth approaching a parent politely - but in person, not via text.

I hate to disabuse you but boys can bully as much as girls. The unpleasantness I referred to in my post above was purely boys, nothing to do with girls.

But maybe the teachers thought the same as you as they thought one of the culprits was a golden boy who could do no wrong.