Another Parent Approached My Child

[CircussMasterr]

Just looking for a bit of advice. My DD was approached by another child’s parent in the playground before school last week. She came home and told me about it when school was finished. Apparently the parent said to her to leave their child alone or they would speak to me. To be clear, this parent has my husband’s phone number and knows where we live.

Now, I know my DD isn’t a saint, she can be bossy/rude, just like any other kid can. They are children, they do have disagreements. These, as far as I have ever been aware, have been dealt with by the teachers and are not anything out of the ordinary behaviour wise for kids of this age.

I’ve never been shy to tell my DD if what she is doing/how she is behaving is unacceptable and I do enforce consequences to her actions where needed. When someone treats her unkindly I have told her to firstly tell them what they are doing and how it makes her feel in case they don’t realise and then if it continues to just tell them she doesn’t want to play with them because they keep doing the same thing.

She has had a bit of an on again off again friendship with this parent’s child. They just seem to clash sometimes. This child now comes into school telling my DD that her parent is going to beat me up, her parent is going to come to our house and speak to me because my DD is bullying her etc. I told my DD to say that’s totally fine and that I am more than happy to have a conversation with her Mum. When I have seen this parent out they don’t say anything, I smile, they nod, that sort of thing. We’re not best pals but I assumed this was all just kids being kids as they never came to me or even hinted there was an issue.

Now to find out that they have approached my DD themselves and what I feel can only be described as intimidated her I feel really pissed off.

I called the school and the HT said that she didn’t feel it was something she needed to inform me about as it happened on school grounds and she dealt with it. We disagreed on this and she apologised and assured me that it would not happen again. She also told me she had spoken to the other parent.

My DD still struggling with this all as there is another friend that now seems caught between her and the other child and the other child seems to be making her choose a “side”.

This parent was at a school event that my husband was at and didn’t say a word to him. They haven’t reached out. I’m not sure what to do?

I have and will undoubtedly do the same again. You’ve raised an animal. She will be treated as such until you control the feral behaviour.

Are you all right?

Parent of a bully I assume?

Without knowing the full story, it's a bit tricky to offer advice. What one parent thinks is perfectly acceptable behaviour, another parent might not be too keen on.

It's possible that the mum in question might have been a bit hasty in approaching your daughter directly. On the other hand, we can't expect the mum to be perfect all the time. She's only human, and if she caught your daughter in the act, she might have gotten a bit emotional and told her off without thinking of chatting with you first.

This reminds me of a recent school trip I recently helped out with. There was a 7-year-old boy who was being absolutely a handful, pushing boundaries left and right. At one point, I felt I deserved a glass of prosecco for just stopping him from banging on the bus windows. During the pick up after the trip, the teacher suggested to the mum that her son could have behaved better. But here's the thing: the mum was taken aback, thinking her son's behaviour has always been good and if anything, was just normal for a boy his age. It just goes to show that as parents, we can get a bit too used to our own children's antics and lose sight of how others might see them.

Yup. This. The mum can’t seem to handle her precious child being a bully. I often find when parents say “not a saint” they mean out of control brat.

Who said anything about shouting or threatening 🤣🤣🤣

For people who seem very against bullying, there are plenty of posters on this thread who appear to be displaying some bullying behaviour towards a child.

How old are the children involved? Children don’t always tell the truth do they? If she’s walking home from school alone I’m guessing she’s not 5 years old. I would nip this in the bud now and tell your daughter bullying is not and never will be acceptable. She’s going to get a shock in high school when older and bigger girls hear that she’s a bully.

Nah, just calling out the daughter’s behaviour. Plus I highly doubt the op is going to show her daughter the thread she’s made. She will be oblivious to the comments. So what’s the problem?

Someone's described the child as an animal! If you think that's normal, then crack on.

I’m not for a second suggesting that your daughter shouldn’t be held to account for any unpleasant or unkind behaviour but whatever she has done, it was 100% wrong of the other parent to speak to her. The parent should have spoken to the class teacher or you, but should NOT have approached your child without you there.

No an adult approaching a child like this is intimidating for the child. They do not have the relationship to address that child's behaviour. There is no way they can approach it without being intimidating. Which I think is actually the intention, so it's actually quite bullying behavior for an adult to do this.

The other problem is they actually have no way of knowing if it was actually true. We hear it on here every time, there are two sides to every story, a parent will only ever have had their child's account.

As a teacher, I've lost track of the amount of parents who have embarrassed themselves this way. Just today I had a parent complain their child had been whacked by another across the head at playtime and no adult did anything, the child was a bully and this had gone on all day. I took great delight in telling them the accused child was on a class trip yesterday.

My son was bullied so badly at school, he is now 19yrs old and on anti depression medication. It was terrible what happened to him, and l hope any parent of a bully will sort their child out asap. You have no idea how bullying affects mental health and you should be having a reality talk to your daughter. You do not seem that bothered that she is bullying, just bothered another parent has had to speak to her. ...This tells me, the other parent felt she could not come to you, because you wouldn't do anything about it. We ended up in court , because the kids who bullied July son didn't give a toss who they hurt, neither did their parents. Children can only take so much. You really need to get your child in order. Bullying enrages me and l wish l could say more but my post would be taken down...

Yes, my one year old is feared on the estate.

Seriously, am I reading a different thread? The only post by the OP concedes her DD can be bossy. ALL children can be bossy!

Of course OP says her daughter’s behaviour is nothing out the ordinary, parents of badly behaved bullies rarely think their “little angel” is capable of the things they do.

And somebody whose behaviour is nothing out the ordinary, doesn’t prompt other parents to come up to them accusing them of being a bully.

However strongly you happen to feel about these issues you are way out of line with that comment.

If your child has stopped bullying her, then it's worked.

Some posters on this thread offer a good example of why we shouldn't condone adults confronting children. You can imagine them offering to rearrange the poor child's face or similar comments.

This is the thing, if my child was bullying another child I would be horrified and mortified and I would want either the parent or the school to tell me about it. I know how to talk to my child and taking that out of my hands and into their own before I'm even aware of what is going on wouldn't be on. IF a parent was standing there and witnessed my child doing it with their own eyes I'd have no problem with them pulling her up for it there and then, but to just approach her cold without raising it with me, no. That's cowardly.

It’s worth noting that OP hasn’t come back to make a single comment or reply.

It’s also worth noting that the other parent did not “threaten” OP or OP’s DD directly. OP says the other child is telling DD in school that the other parent is going to do this and that. The other child could just be saying these things as a bluff/bluster.

Or - get this - OP’s DD could be lying about what this other child is saying. DD could be making up the entire thing.

I think if I posted a genuine question and got fulminating replies calling my child a bully, feral and an “animal” with absolutely no justification in the original post, I wouldn’t come back to discuss it with the weird yob mentality here either tbh.

I have never been on school grounds as a parent without staff in sight. So your theoretical issue wouldn't come up. Due to safeguarding, parents would not be on site unaccompanied. Only people with a DBS can be in an area with children without a staff member present.

Parents should not be approaching children. Two parents did this to my daughter - she is autistic but they didnt know this - and the head was absolutely clear to them that this was unacceptable and that it was not to happen again.

Your daughter is a bully, sort that shit out immediately.

Depends on the situation. If some kid had been bullying my child for some time and it wasn’t stopping, I would probably say something to the child. Short sharp shock by another adult/ parent may do the trick and nip that behaviour in the bud.
maybe your daughters worse than you think and is making the other child’s life hell.
nothing worse than a bully and parents that don’t see that shit.