Massive fallout

[AmIJustAnUnreasonsbleBitch]

Hi,

I'm looking for some outside perspective here. I've spoken to friends IRL who agree with me but obviously they could just be humouring me or I'm unconsciously selecting people I know will agree with me!

DD has a 'BFF', they are both 8. BFF has always been a bit tricky at times but recently their behaviour towards my DD has escalated and she has felt frequently upset. IMO she has no discipline at home, is rude to her parents and their household is governed by her moods. Examples of the behaviour include towards my DD within the last few weeks include:

Taking offence over trivial things and then blanking her for the rest of the day. My DD often doesn't know what she's done wrong.

Switching on her (which I have witnessed): suddenly adopting (IMO) a mean girl persona, speaking to her in a rude and dismissive way. At times she has just put the phone down on her on calls when my daughter says its time for her to go.

Not believing DD when she told her about something else another girl had done had hurt her.

Telling DD she's looking for another BFF because she's not preppy or baddie or slay (yes, she's allowed unsupervised access to YouTube).

Telling their group of friends that everyone can touch a particular new toy, except for my DD.

Breaking my daughter's toy and then announcing to everyone that it was a fake and my DD is a liar. My DD went to the teacher about this.

This child has recently also been rude to me.

I was very good friends with this child's mother, but after the last incident between them, sent her a message saying my DD has been upset by her behavior recently and maybe we should have a chat about them spending some time apart over the summer holidays.

We met up and it all blew up. She was defensive and hostile from the start. Didn't see anything wrong with her child's behaviour at all, despite it upsetting my DD, didn’t care about her daughter's rudeness towards me (which was based on my appearance) - all just playground stuff, turned on hysterical waterworks about how her child had been scared to go into school the day after she'd broken the toy, switched it on me being a drama queen trying to meddle in my DD's friendships.

I just thought we could have a sensible conversation about being a bit kinder! I also think this BFF stuff is too intense for them (a lot of it is driven by the other family and there are very freuqent requests for video calls that interfere with family time) and that they'd benefit from a little space over summer. I didnt want to keep making excuses for not meeting up or allowing calls between the girls. She also brought up stuff about my child, which I totally take on board - its not like I thought there is only one side to a story, or that my child is perfect. Imo the reaction was way overboard.

I stopped the conversation when it turned on me trying to wreck their friendship and would not accept that my DD finds her behaviour hurtful.

I know it sounds tirivial, a lot of it is in this girl's tone, it's so sneery.IMO her kid is turning into a mean girl and is trialling this persona on my DD. I want to teach my DD its ok to not put up with it. Its actually been going on while. At Christmas my DD got got new hat which she loved, but suddenly worried what her 'BFF' would say about it. She thought she would say 'cool' in a mean way.

The ridiculous thing is, this child's speaks to her parents in the same way, but apparently shes 'only 8', so that's fine.

I don't think this is salvageable at all now given her reaction, but I didn't think I was unreasonable on flagging this firend to firend. To be honest, I expected that she might speak to her daughter about being kinder and agree that a little time away would give them both some breathing space.

I think this is just many 8 year olds unfortunately. It’s a tricky time and they often aren’t very nice to each other (hold on to your hat, it gets worse).

I do think her behaviour was unacceptable (though how accurate an account you can be sure you get of it is something else entirely), but the right course of action was just to cool the friendship, tell your daughter to spend time with others, don’t invite the girl around anymore, invite other girls over instead to cultivate those friendships.

I think going all guns blazing with a meeting to talk about another child’s behaviour has made you look a bit crazy and when word spreads about it, it won’t look in your favour because you’ll be painted as meddling, which isn’t going to help your dd in the friendship department. Much better to focus on your dd, teach her resilience, teach her how to stand up for herself if someone says a mean thing, teach her how to find kind friends, and also when to go to a grownup for help. They are good skills to have over the next few tricky years.

She is not your dd bff, get rid and make sure your child knows this is disgusting behaviour.

The girl sounds horrible and she’s really not your daughter’s best friend but you’ve handled this horribly and made a massive drama.

Best thing to do would have been to slowly cool the friendship- stop inviting her over, be busy if she invites DD, encourage other friends and have other girls round to play and maybe a quiet word with the teacher if they haven’t broken up yet to ask that they’re not paired together. And most importantly teach your DD to stand up for herself and how true friends are kind to each other.

This is the second post I’ve seen this weekend on an identical theme; the OPs DD is perfect, meek and amiable while the friends child is bossy, spiteful and controlling. The OP bravely confronts the other parent with the error of their ways and then is surprised when it doesn’t go well; of course the comments on here are about the apple not falling far from the tree, but ask yourself for a moment: do you not think you might have got a slightly skewed version of events?

Ex teacher

it’s very rare to get a parent who feels they are doing a bad job.

one of the things teachers hate most is having to talk to parents about their child’s behaviour because it is pretty much guaranteed the parents will not take it well.

her behaviour doesn’t sound that much out of the ordinary and you’ve clearly articulated in your post that you think it’s poor parenting that is the cause.

if that came over in your meeting (and it will!) then the other parent will have got very upset.

most 8 year olds are still learning social skills. They can be mean, leave people out, and experience emotions quite intensely. It’s likely the other mum has a list of incidents where your child also behaved badly
in short, it was never going to go well.

This sounds really tricky. I think you did the right thing by showing your child that she deserves better and that she shouldn’t put up with someone treating her like that. It’s clear that your child is feeling like the friendship doesn’t feel good anymore and you advocating for her now will give her the skills to advocate for herself as she grows up.

As a teacher, more and more parents have the ‘not my child’ attitude and it’s infuriating. Children need boundaries. They need to be shown how to act and it’s clear this little girl doesn’t have that role model with the way her mum acted towards you. Unfortunately, this is why we have the issues we are having with lots of children nowadays.

I hope you and your daughter have a lovely summer.

Appreciate your perspective. I felt like I couldn't just cool it without questions being asked as to why I'm pulling back.

Maybe I did handle it badly, though.

She pointed out one thingaboit my DD, which I believe and take on board. Nobody is a perfect parent, or perfect at anything else for that matter - we can all do better, how can people improve or work on issues if they never acknowledge them?

Extremely defensive and closed off mindet!

Jon the up side, your dd will be free of the girl this summer and ask her teacher to split them next September in school

I just thought we could have a sensible conversation about being a bit kinder!

Thats not going to happen and you've hopefully learned that. Never ever interfere with a school friendship, be at home for your child, be their support when things go wrong but allow them to make and shape their own friendships out of the house

What I would do and did was talk to my dd and tell her to pick her friends wisely - let her know to pick kind friends, friends that treat you as you want to be treated. Yes you can forgive mistakes but if they are being mean, do you really want them as best friends.

Interested to see where I've said that at all. My DD can be selfish at times, can need help seeing someone else's perspective, can be thoughtless - I'm under no illusion that she's perfect. Shes not deliberately mean though and doesnt engage in power play (this could all change as she progresses through tween and teen years, I know). If my friend told me her behavior was upsetting their child, I'd want to broach it with my DD, not blame the kid who is upset.

I spoke directly to my 'friend' because I stupidly thought she'd be receptive. I didn't accuse her daughter of being the devil incarnte, just flagged begavior that's upset my child and suggested that have some time over summer to let the dust settle.

Of course my version of events is skewed, becasue it's my perspective. I've tried to be objective, but obviously no-one can be completely dispassionate or unbiased.

Just take the general attitude that the best thing you can do for your daughter is to teach her how best to handle people like this. There will always be people like this.

Discourage the friendship, dont allow playdates or FaceTime, speak to your daughter about how to walk away from drama and how to stick up for herself. Never, ever get involved in the drama yourself.

She's a bully and it'll only get worse,especially if her parents are allowing her to get away with it at home.

She does sound like a bully getting her education or lack thereof from tiktok. You don't have the same values and parenting methods as the other parents so I wouldn't even have tried having a conversation about this with the mother. But kudos to you for trying. Your daughter needs new friends because this one will just make her feel bad about herself.

DD had a friend a bit like this at a similar age. For a while I let her try and sort it out, with just the odd remark like, "That wasn't very kind of her." But after one incident when my DD was in tears I told DD that her "friend" was not a good friend and while DD could do what she liked at school, the "friend" was no longer welcome in our house. It cooled off ater that.

This is what happens here. This friend has always been tricky and I've let them just work it out themselves from nursery up until his point without saying a word. Recently, the behavior has stepped up significantly.

I only brought it up up with my friend because I thought she'd be receptive and knew that any attempts at distancing would raise questions, so I felt all roads led to here anyway. She is generally a kind, sensible and well balanced person, but this is obviously her Achille's heel. I now recognise that this approach doesn't work and that I'm also at fault by becoming too friendly with my daughter's friends parents - I won't be doing either of those things again!

This is how the kid will be as an adult. They don’t change. They just alter their methods slightly. Stay away

I have three DC, they're all teens now, and IME it very rarely goes well when you approach another parent about this sort of thing. The reaction you've experienced (very defensive, turning it around on your DD) is common. Basically no one likes it when you criticise their child.

My advice is to take a massive step back from the friendship, stop meeting up, encourage DD to find other friends. If the behaviour continues and is upsetting your DD, speak to the teacher.

Thank you, this is absolutely my plan.

It is almost impossible to change others behaviours towards you but you can change how you behave with them. I would focus on giving your daughter the tools to deal with someone like this, let her know its not acceptable behaviour to put up with and best thing to do is cut ties and move etc,etc.

I would never speak to another parent to try to sort this kind of thing out purely because it is always only going to end they way yours did (appreciate there may be some exceptions to the rule) as we all love our children dearly and will always belive their side of the story.

I think they're eight years old and you need to take a massive step back. Why are they having phone calls? Honestly I think you were asking for trouble, to set up a chat to talk about them spending less time together, how did you really think that would go? Just slowly back off and don't facilitate play dates.

I agree with the others. Don’t ever confront the parent. Just say you’re busy over the summer if they try to make plans.

I’m lucky I still have school friends and a couple of parents in oir wider group used to get involved and it always ended badly. If I feel tempted to message a parent I ask them to remind me it’s a bad idea.