6 year old daughter being bullied by children in street

[glasalx1]

Hi folks,

I am father to a 6 year old daughter and 4 year old son. Both play regularly with several children in our street. However, my 6 year old daughter is being singled out for what I consider to be bullying by the other children.

My daughter is slightly immature for her age and I believe this to be the catalyst for much of the bullying. She has a fantastic, gentle nature but can be reactionary and seeks an adult to fight her battles. The pattern is that (several times in an evening) she will run into the house crying and complaining that the children are ganging up on her, calling her names, throwing objects at her, and excluding her from play. Tonight she told me she was struck hard across the face by one of the children. I have witnessed this behaviour first hand and have never had any reason to doubt my daughter, however the children flatly deny it when I ask them.

I live in a middle class area and no other parent seems to be willing to get involved. It has reached a stage where I feel any further involvement from me will increase the possibility that my child could be bullied further. The next stage is to speak to the parents of all of these children, which would involve knocking at least 4 doors. While I can be tactful it could undoubtedly lead to allegations of paranoia and falsely accusing their children. I was bullied as a child and am aware that the trauma can last a lifetime. I don't want this for my daughter and can see that it is already impacting on her.

Really grateful for any advice. Thanks.

6 is pretty young to be playing out with no adults around. I'd keep your pair in sight for now , the dynamic may have changed by next summer.

Yep 6 is too young to be playing out without proper supervision.

Can you pull up a chair and observe from your door step? You can approach the parents if you are witness to bullying

It's very normal for me as a parent to wade in and talk to the children themselves nicely. State what your DD said and ask them what happened? Get both sides of the story. Help them resolve the problem them selves if it's small stuff.

The other alternative is to ask yourDD to play in your garden and invite friends over instead.

Are the kids quite a bit older and finding your DD irritating? Obviously bullying is unacceptable but maybe she's she should have a different, more appropriate group if street friends.

I agree that 6 is too young to be playing out with out an adult about, do you let your 4 year old go off as well??

Either sit out and watch her or don't let her play out alone. She's too young and unable to handle that type of conflict without adult support. Nor should she have to.

Have the children all play at your house?

That way you can watch behaviour. Alternatively, do some front garden gardening (or similar) that keeps you able to keep an eye on the children.

You absolutely cannot go knowing on doors speaking to parents about something you have not witnessed first hand. As lovely as I am sure your daughter is, there are always two sides to a story and you are hearing just one.

For what its worth, our next-door neighbour (who is at least 3 years younger than the "main group" of children in the street) used to act in a similar way to your daughter - she would go home crying a lot. The rest of the children described her using words like "mardy", "sulky", "spoilt", "only wants things her way", and "bossy".

It would seem that unless play went her way, she would cry and expect everyone to pander to her. Of course they didn't. Because children need to compromise more than that. She just got left out and ostracised, no one wanted to play with her.

Long term you are doing your daughter no favours in fighting the battles for her in the way you plan.

Knocking, not knowing

Perhaps I should have offered more context. We stay in a quiet, safe crescent that is particularly amenable to children playing. Adults are always on hand and the children never leave the street. We have a playpark and several families have trampolines and other play equipment in their gardens. All other families in the street consider it an appropriate environment for their children to play. And all children in the street play together, so this is the only group of friends in the area.

It's tough for your daughter but being the eldest she hasn't yet learnt the give and take that's needed for playing with wide age groups of children.

My dd1 had exactly the same problems, she was on only child until she was nearly ten so had difficulties playing on the street. She often wanted me to intervene when kids did things she didn't like.
I adopted a "you need to all play together" approach and told this to all the kids. In fact I still tell dd2 that If they can't play together nicely then she will have to come in.

Yeah mrspnut she's been hit in the face and it's ALL HER OWN FAULT

There's a big difference between name calling and exclusion (which could be a reaction to your DD's behaviour) and throwing things at her and hitting her across the face.

You saw a child hit her across the face? On purpose? What did you do?

Thanks folks. The above posts are very helpful. I will step back from getting too involved, and take on board the points raised about 'knocking not knowing'. Tactfulness would only get me so far without evidence. I have been encouraging my daughter and the other children to be inclusive and will continue to do so. And I wholeheartedly agree that a year or two from now could present a wholly different picture.

Curlywurlycake - I find your comment grossly offensive and judgemental. I do not, and would never, let either of my children 'go off' without supervision.

Dancingdinosaur - children play in the school playground without immediate supervision. surely this how they develop the skills to handle this type of conflict?

glasalx1

We live and my children play in a similar environment. I would echo MrsPnut's comments.

You have only heard your daughters point of view and you cannot be certain of anything you didn't see.

Adopting a "play together nicely or you come in" approach is the way forward.

Posh - if a child has been hit then of course it needs an adult to step in and deal with it. I was talking about the give and take that kids learn as siblings.

Bullying is something that needs to stamped out.

Terrierterror - I didn't witness the slap. However I've rarely seen my daughter so upset and have no reason to doubt her. And I'm not the kind of parent whose child can "do no wrong" and is to be believed at all costs. Far from it. My wife is friendly with the child's mother so I am confident the matter will be resolved amicably and she will be spoken to. My main concern is that, for whatever reason, she is being perpetually bullied. Today was the tip of the iceberg.

Crossed post.

glasalx1, regarding the comments regarding children playing out alone (which often comes up on Mumsnet), you have to understand that on this forum people live in very different communities and areas.

My children play out because the area we live in lends itself well to this independence, like your locality it seems. But you should understand that many, many other people live in communities where that would be unthinkable. It is reasonable to assume that many people will be dead against children playing unsupervised. This does not make them wrong.

I'd have thought the first thing to do is, you know, keep an eye on your kids to see what is going on. Given you don't have a scooby do.

SeptemberBabies - at no point in any of my posts have I suggested that anyone is wrong to be against unsupervised play. I myself have lived in many locations where such play would be unthinkable. However, I feel it is reasonable to take exception to an unhelpful and inappropriate post such as that from Curlywurlycake which is out of context and confrontational.

Azquilith - please keep your ill-informed thoughts to yourself. You really aren't doing yourself any favours with a post like the one above.

I am grateful for the extremely useful advice on this thread. I am bowing out now as the tone is being lowered as witnessed above.

Warmest Regards.

"I feel it is reasonable to take exception to an unhelpful and inappropriate post such as that from Curlywurlycake which is out of context and confrontational."

The post:

CurlyWurlyCake : I agree that 6 is too young to be playing out with out an adult about, do you let your 4 year old go off as well??

Is relevant, helpful in that it replies to your last sentence in the OP and cannot see how it is especially confrontational or out of context.

There are much worst things on Mumsnet

I was just trying to help to not get into a needless disagreement...

SeptemberBabies - I appreciate that you are trying to help and I also have no desire to needlessly disagree with other posters. My OP was solely about the bullying of my daughter by neighbourhood kids. The above reply from Curly is accusatory and doesn't seek to address the OP in any way. Not sure I see the connection to the last sentence.

My DD is 7 & FWIW, in your shoes I would simply encourage my kids to play at home or in their own garden for a while and only with the neighbours if there is an adult around to moderate any giddy behaviour. From what you've said, your neighbours maybe don't think there is an issue, so maybe invite the other kids to play at yours so it's easier for you to supervise.
Kids do need to learn how to get on with each other, but if your DD is struggling with this a bit at the moment then maybe give her a bit of time out. I'd agree with the other posters who've said things can change over time, where we live there are a lot of kids who play out (some might even be younger than 6!!) and they mostly get on, but there are always some fallings out - which can depend on certain combinations of personalities too.
My DD rarely comes home upset, if she doesn't like the way play is going she either comes home or gets on her bike or scooter so she's out, but not really engaging with the others.

Thanks Havanacat - very helpful advice.

OP my DD was been bullied by a couple of neighbourhood kids too, not physically just name calling and laughing at her, and spitefulness (like hiding her scooter so she couldn't find it, and stealing her stuff).

To be fair my DD is a little immature and naive for her age too and is a little "quirky". Even so these kids were targetting her and been unnecessarily mean, which isn't acceptable.

She doesn't go out to play if they're out any more, her choice, but will still play out with some of the other kids if the bullies aren't around.

I also keep a closer eye out than normal, and have intervened a couple of times when the bullies were targetting my DD (at my front door no less, they actually knocked to see if she was in and then starting bullying her right there, I told them to go away). They have backed off a little bit now they know I know whats going on.

FWIW we live in a similar set up to the one you describe and DS has been playing out since about age 5 - however he was and is generally the youngest so the others kind of looked out for him.

At the age of 5-6 he did often come back in a strop because he claimed others weren't doing what he wanted. They aren't able to control their emotions properly at that age. When he came back like that I'd just keep him in or play with him myself in the garden or tennis on the street, rather than letting him go back out.

Did your DD say why she was struck?What is the age of the other DCs she is playing with?