Child spat on my child at school - I’m friends with the mum

[bananasinabowl]

What would you do in my situation?
this child seems to be targeting my child for some reason. We’ve had play dates, even shared a party. But this child keeps putting my child down and school have taken action. He spat on him too.
Mum keeps reaching out to me and trying to be “friends”. She’s trying to get the boys just to be friends but it’s not working and I’m starting to think she says stuff at home to make her child target my child. Do I just ignore her now? Back off? That’s what I want to do. Not sure how to deal with this though.

@TheRealMagic

With toothpaste, you already have the substance in your mouth.
With spitting you have to ‘suck’ and collect a reservoir of saliva between your tongue and the roof of your mouth. It takes time, and quite a lot of forward planning/learnt behaviour to collect a large amount of sucked in spit, aim at your target and project it out with sufficient force.
My 6 year old can’t spit Toothpaste to the back of the sink. It’s more like a dribble.

He doesn't need strategies. He needs the school to do their damn job and discipline the bully.

What 6 year olds can do is put their lips together and blow. Saliva comes out and then the teacher gets told ‘x spat at me’. Adults (many of whom can’t empathise enough to view the world through children’s eyes/only their adult interpretation) would hear the ‘spit’ and assume that equates to Rinaldo ejecting his flob from one side of a pitch to the other, singling out their precious angelic child who never winds anyone up ever.

You are making this child out to be manipulative which I doubt is the case. More likely is having moments of losing self control rather than consciously being nice to you and then his bullying streak coming out as you put it. Do you not see / understand that a child of that age is still developing and learning?

have the school said he’s actually bullying?

honestly children do stuff all the time that their parents are maybe unhappy with and one day perhaps your son will do too.

Every day's a school day! I defer to your knowledge on this - I guess I thought spitting was innate, but I have never spat deliberately myself, and for obvious reasons I don't want to ask my 7 year old to demonstrate to me whether or not he can spit at someone!

The adult teacher saw him spit at my child.

Plus the teaching assistant. There was spit on his face. They were furious. His parents were called in straight away.

I am sorry, but I feel that giving your kid strategies to help him might make him feel like HE is the problem. WTAF are they doing about the other kid? What strategies are in place to keep yours safe?

My child does need more confidence. I’m not sure they are allowed to tell me what they are doing with other child. It does say in the email that they will work with the other children about relationships and inclusion.

I completely agree with this. The bully also does not need nice chats about ‘relationships and inclusion.’
We are putting so much pressure on young children to analyse and discuss behaviours and feelings when a swift “If you spit or punch again the consequences will be VERY serious.” And then an actual appropriate consequence, NOT a ‘restorative/reflective conversation.’
Why should the whole class, and your son in particular, have to put up with the spitter - and I can almost guarantee your son is not his only victim.

Not taking anything away from your son and what he is going through (my ds went through something similar and it is heartbreaking) but the school and mum are also failing the bully by not nipping this behaviour in the bud. He is only 7 - young enough to turn this behaviour around but that requires the adults involved with him doing some hard work and sadly sometimes schools don’t want to do that.

I wonder also if it is not helping with mum making comments that she wishes her ds was more like your ds - that would piss anyone off and could be the reason why he has targeted your son (again, not condoning)

Keep on at the school Op. my ds school had done a whole campaign thing on S.T.O.P (several times on purpose = bullying) and I used their own campaign against them to complain about them and emailed every member of staff, committee members and governors the day my ds came home and said he didn’t want to be alive anymore. Maybe a slight overkill from me but I was at the end of my tether and so worried about my ds - and I was worried about the bully too and what he possibly had going on to make him behave like that and I made it quite clear to the school they were failing 2 of their students who were only 8 at the time.

But how would I know what they’ve said or are doing with the other bully? I don’t know if they can tell me. Her reply looked like something out of ChatGPT. I’ve read their policy and I will be emailing her every time something happens.

My child has come home happy past two days and now seems to think this boy is his friend again and wants to invite him to our house?!! I have told him that is not a friend and didn’t say anything else.
He is 7 though so I’m pretty sure he’s still thinks children can be mean but then friends again. I’m not really sure what to tell him?!

The spitting incident didn’t happen this form year. It happened in his last class and the teacher swiftly rang the parents etc. I suppose this years teacher can’t focus on that and she can only focus on what’s happening now which is just verbal petty comments “you can’t play with us” etc.

That book I recommended had a whole section on "so called friends"
Think you need to be thorough and explain some children and people in life will pretend to be nice and then hurt us.. like Rapunzel's mom in Tangled, eg
Friends don't physically hurt one another ever and he needs to look for other friends.
Think your son is socially vulnerable and you need to help him by explaining dynamics, bullying, friendships etc? You need to go into depth or find books etc to chat about it.

Exactly this. Just be polite and civil to her and not act immaturely around her. You said she was your friend after all and it seems she likes you and your son.

Every time she pushes for playdates, just say what a previous poster said - that it’s probably not a good idea right now due to the ongoing issues.

After a while, organically this will get resolved and there will be no more tension. Either her son will start to change his mannerisms around your son and they will become friends again and your son will want to be around him again so playdates can resume, or the bullying will continue in which case it becomes easier and easier to refuse playdates and his mother will become more self-aware and not push anything.

Just complain to the school if your son continues to be targeted and keep politely refusing playdates. She will know why you’re refusing because the teacher will most likely mention her son’s behaviour to her.

“He is 7 though so I’m pretty sure he’s still thinks children can be mean but then friends again. I’m not really sure what to tell him?!”

This is exactly what happens though. Almost every child in the entire world has been mean to their friend in school and then want to be friends with them again 24 hours later. It happens to every child every day. Children fall out with and make-up with their friends multiple times within 24 hours. It’s frustrating and upsetting for parents to see their kids who were so upset by what their friend did to now desperately yearn for their company. Kids friendships are fickle and they get over things quickly.

The crux of the matter is if it is significant targeting of your child and it’s making him upset and scared then you need to take the reigns and firmly tell your son that this boy will not be coming around for any more play dates and explain to him why his behaviour is unacceptable.

But also be prepared that they make make up eventually and want to be best friends again. Such is life and children’s friendships. The problem at hand is that you don’t want this boy around your son but the other mum, the other boy and (sometimes) your own son do want to play together.

I think you are being a bit harsh to assume all poor behaviour is the direct fault of the parents. I would just say “I’m sorry we aren’t go to do anymore play dates with you because the (my child’s name) is finding it difficult to understand (their child’s name)’s behaviour. I’m sure you’re working on it. But I have to put my child’s feelings first. Thank you for your understanding”.

I’m not putting fault per se but not sure why she thinks I would want her son around mine?! Her answer always is, I’ll tell my son to be nice, let them have play dates and then the cycle starts again.

I understand as the poster said above, friendships are fickle. But my child has never come home crying about anyone else in his class except for this child, to the point he doesn’t want to go to school. I always loved the fact my child loved going to school so I hate that this child is making my child dislike learning.