what do you do when your child behaves badly with another child

[NK62611a9eX12005a762d2]

I was out today when My child was rude to two children out with their mother .I subsequently realised that they attend her school.Should I insist she apologises on monday and speak to the mothers or ignore the incident as she recieved a time out when we got home.I don't want to appear to be a lousy mum,especially as my child started school in january and I'm finding the playground mum thing difficult due to cliques

Tbh honest I would have told her off and made her apologise there and then.

Not much point doing anything about it on Monday as I'm sure everyone will have forgotten about it.

There would have been a time when I would have told my child of and made them apologise, now I would do nothing as most other parents I know seem to take this stance and I felt my child ended up looking like the naughty one!

I would speak to my child about it when we were on our own.

I would tell mine off on the spot, but I have noticed that I am more prone to telling my kids off in public that many of my friends.

I think you need to do damage limitation on the spot, so the other mum knows you don't condone rudeness. Once the moment has passed, it has passed. But do it next time. Your child needs to know you care about other people's feelings.

NK how was your DC rude?

Try not to dwell on it too much, they are hopefully not so judgemental that they will be judging you or your child on the basis of this incident (I know how you feel though).

I have noticed that early-school age kids can feel quite awkward when they meet kids out of school, like they don't quite know how to handle the situation. Sometimes this translated into unfriendliness. Sometimes they are rtying to appear "cool".
I try and get round it by cheerily saying hello myself.
As undomesticgoddess making too much of this kind of thing can backfire on you

If your DC was really rude (and not just embarrassed) and it makes you feel better, you could sidle up to the mum and say something like "sorry dc was so rude the other day"

In future I would take DS aside at the time it happened, and quietly tell him that he needs to go and say sorry. I he/she refuses, say "I am sorry about my son/daughter"