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

A school dealing with issues and behaviours AT school is not ‘outsourcing parenting’. Children receive consequences and reprimands at school for their behaviours. Consequences and reprimands are most effective when given as soon as possible after the behaviour has taken place.

If the school needs parental support and input on a behaviour then it’s appropriate for the parent to become part of the solution. It’s not effective or appropriate for parents to message other parents in the class regarding not-witnesses behaviour, behaviour the children have already received a consequence for at the setting where it happened and from the adults in charge who witnessed it, and when the school has not brought the parent into the picture.

You should be thoroughly ashamed of your daughter's nasty, bullying behaviour, and give her significant consequences (other children with similarly bad behaviour are their parents' concern, not yours, and doesn't take away from how appallingly your DD has behaved.). You should also profusely apologise to the bullied child for your daughter's behaviour.

Finally, you should look hard at your parenting, and where you failed, leading to your daufhter behaving like this.

Not the point of the thread....but this poor mother... she must be utterly beside herself.... he's being systematically bullied

I find this so upsetting to read and its not even my child...

If it was me i'd be struggling to concentrate at work and my nerves would be shot. Its so soul destroying and she has zero control over it.

It sounds like your DD got swept up in herd mentality and while she cant articulate it maybe she-s scared she'll be the next class victim if she sides with him.

The poor little boy being hit by boys and bullied by girls and boys he must be so very upset knowing he has done nothing wrong. He will remember this is whole life. How would you feel if it was the other way around. His mother must be mortified. I think you and all the other mothers of the bullies need to explain to their children just how nasty, mean and cruel this is and be suitable punished. I think the best thing your daughter can do is try to be exta kind and friendly to the little boy and hopefully encourage other children to do likewise.

This happened in school nothing to do with "lazy parenting " school.has Loco Parentis this is a parent/school situation to sort.

Tbh you’re lucky if the other mum doesn’t smack you in the face in the playground so your dd sees that her actions have consequnces. Your DD needs a major punishment imho.

So nobody should be friends with a child that is getting bullied? No one should even stand up for them or mention it's wrong? Is this the kind of person you want to raise? Is this the kind of person you would want your child become? A by stander who shuts up and thinks not my circus not my monkeys? What else do you think should your child be accepting of? Racism? Misogyny? Criminal activity? And do you think this is really good for this child in question, in this case op's daughter? Do you think it's good for anyone's mental health to keep having to see another human being bullied but being utterly helpless and not being allowed to interfere because you are too scared for yourself?

The research on bullying by the way shows that the strongest protection for a child to not be bullied is to have a friend. Even just a single friend will help. It doesn't show that both of them are more likely to be bullied. It shows that both are less likely to be bullied.

I hope you don't have kids and if you do have kids I hope that mine will never encounter them or you. And I hope that most parents try to bring up their children to be better humans than this.

I wouldn't have necessarily phrased it that way. But if I were you I'd speak to daughter and ask what happened. And remind her that you shouldn't tell people to do/say bad things for a joke. It gets them and you in trouble and is nasty to the person targeted.

Then I'd just tell the Mum I've spoken to her and it won't happen again.

This reply is pretty harsh . They are 7 year olds. Agree it’s not good behaviour but 7 year olds aren’t always consistent in how they treat each other . And the op has come here looking for advice . There has been loads of great advice on this thread already this hasn’t added anything at all except being extra nasty and critical .

Absolutely this. I would be coming down on my dc like a tonne of bricks if I heard she was involved in picking on, ganging up on, isolating and basically, bullying, another child - and would be telling the other parent that I would handle it.
I actually think the mum of the boy did the right thing in politely messaging you.
Perhaps this is because we live in a village though - I could see DH marching round with a DC to apologise.
When DC1 first got a phone, she said something which came across as quite nasty/sarky in a text message to one of her friends. Phone was confiscated and replaced it with a basic Nokia brick, with only three phone numbers in for a month. She’d just got it back and was a bit rude to a friend’s mum (friend of hours) at a birthday party when she fell out with another child there and stropped off - refusing to be walked home. Phone was confiscated again, this time for longer.
The phone of shame is something of a legend in our family and the younger siblings have, thankfully, absorbed this lesson.
Honestly OP, nip it in the bud.

Totally agree with this.
I feel so 😪 sad for the little boy and how lonely he must be made to feel.

Because she was supposed to be his friend and friends don’t do this. Something you should make very clear to your daughter. She needs to directly apologize to the boy and promise to never do it again. And to keep that promise. You’d be wise to apologize to his mother and let her know how you’ve handled this with your daughter.

It sounds like you perceive your child to be kind. An incident with this many children collectively ganging up is horrific and screams of this little boy having some sort of additional needs the others don't understand. Would you really rather this woman avoid letting you know your child is a bully whilst you believe she's always sticking up for your son? I very much doubt the school are going to contact each and every parent individually to advise about this incident because it would be outing to the child being bullied, so because you don't like being told by another parent who you've previously connected with at school that your daughter isn't the angel you perceived her to be, you're trying to fire back and blame this woman for even saying anything to you? I'd be devastated if my child was involved in bullying, particularly of that scale, and I'd be extremely grateful to have been given the opportunity to talk to my child and ensure it didn't escalate.

You think she should ignore her daughters bulling?

I actually don’t think her tone was aggressive - but I think a child being hit by several other children while egged on by other kids is aggressive and completely indefensible. If they did it walking down the street, the police would be called. I don’t think I would contact the other parent myself, partly because I’d assume a child behaving like this would have parents who are similar but I do have empathy for her and I think she probably reached out as she knows its out of character for that child and thus her parent is more likely to address it. If my child came home and told this story though, I would be livid and I would be liaising strongly with school to ensure it didn’t happen again. OP, it sounds like your little girl isn’t normally a bully and got led along by her peers. I’d be working with her to understand why and to help her avoid behaving like that again. I’d probably send a clear brief message back to the mom stating how sorry I was her child had experienced that and that you’d explore it with your child. Kids mess up and she absolutely needs to learn from this, I would try out defensiveness aside - I can only imagine how upset I’d be if my child was hit by several of his peers - that kind of experience is traumatic and stays with you.

I’d message back explaining you spoke to dd and she has said xyz. Explain that you are cross with her for joining in and you will be dealing with it. End by saying you hope her ds is ok and you will be asking dd to apologise tomorrow

Really? OP's DD has literally admitted to acting in a nasty bullying way, and OP isn't dealing with it, and trying to find excuses like "other kids bullied him too" or "I don't like the way the other Mum contacted me", rather than dealing wirh her child's appalling behaviour.

OP knows, by her own kid's admission, that
her daughter is a bully. She needs to deal with that, quickly and harshly.

I remember this sort of thing from when dc were that age, they are now mid teens and the bullying has stayed but changed as the years have gone on. So with hindsight my advice would be:

• It sounds like your dd is no longer friends with your friends' ds, and i would hazard a guess that this is because the children at the school have formed groups and no one wants to be in the unpopular group and your ds is in the unpopular group; it is likely that your dd in the moment probably did ask the boys to hit ds, but possibly because your dd panicked in the moment and wanted to be seen as not in the unpopular group; I personally would be honest about this with your friend and explain the dynamics and keep the dialogue open with her to try to help both children navigate their situations at school
• I would encourage your dd to be honest with you and to frequently tell her that bullying other children, or excluding them, is not okay, on the basis that you won't "tell her off" but will try to help her find strategies which take into consideration the fact that she might feel scared of sticking up for the ds (eg she is scared of being bullied herself as a result and her intuition is probably correct).
• I would talk to the school and try to get them to stop the bullying. Basically if someone at the school understands bullying mindsets and understands child development and they talk to all the kids every day about treating each other with respect and not hitting each other, and not excluding, and the benefits of being nice to others, the bullying will stop or be greatly reduced and it will have a longlasting positive effect on all the children (this is what my school was like, it is not how dc's schools have handled things).

This. The only way I would be talking about the other children is reminding my child that she is not a sheep and doesn’t need to join in things that she knows are wrong.

Absolutely this.

I would be absolutely disgusted if my child behaved this way, regardless of what other children were doing.

Defending the child’s behaviour by saying she wasn’t the only one is awful too, and almost comes across as condoning it!

You should absolutely be apologising to the other parent & your child should be apologising to the other child, and thank her for bringing it to your attention, who knows how long you’d of gone on without knowing your child was a bully.

Yes it does sound that way. She appears to be making excuses.

"Firstly To me, this is personally not how I would approach the situation if it was the other way around "

"Secondly, she's wondering why her daughter is getting all the blame."

The fact is her daughter was involved so she obviously needs to discipline her own child.
I hope the daughter apologies and actually means it enough to never get involved in any bullying again.

This post has bought back a sad memory for me, when my daughter came home from school and told me, " mom no one plays with me."

This is just awful, that poor lad and his mum.

The mum is absolutely right to have messaged you, but I can imagine its upsetting to find out your DD is a bully.

You are right that concerns of bullying should be reported to schools. But if the parents are good at social relations then there is no reason why parents can't also deal with this, and together talk to schools together to agree on joint approaches. The advice not to talk to other parents is to do with parents not being able to deal with the situation well between them, ie one or both sets of parents not being able to. But if two sets of parents are friends and are generally savvy, nothing to stop them also discussing things and agreeing on courses of action and talking to schools.

Yep completely agree with this, i've been there. Do not engage with her! She should have contacted the school. If your child is in the wrong they then contact you. It was not ok for her to.

Are you for real?

I told my daughter what my mum used to tell me: I don’t care what other kids do/don’t do. I expect you to use your brains to work out right from wrong. Honestly OP you need to get a grip. I’m not surprised your daughter’s a bully.