Bullied dd now her mother hates me

[Lostmum2407]

I’m so incredibly upset. My daughter is being bullied in high school by a ‘friend’. I know her mother very well. Her mother and 6 other women plus myself used to meet up regularly. My daughter has had issues with the girl who is bullying her for years. She told all of my daughters friends lies about her. My daughter is quiet and I feel this is why she is targeting her: to make herself look good. My daughter is extremely kind, bright and pretty. I know I sound biased being her mother but it’s the truth. She doesn’t have a nasty bone in her body. I can’t see any reason for her not to be liked. She has absolutely no friends now thanks to this bully. Anyway, a few years back I approached the bully’s mother when her daughter was bullying mine. I asked if she knew what was going on between the girls and she was immediately defensive. Her daughter denied doing anything to my daughter. My daughter is not a liar at all. Luckily it died down. Anyway, my daughter is being bullied by her again in Year 7. I didn’t want to speak to her mother/my friend as I knew she’d get defensive. I decided to contact the school. My daughter is crying daily and has absolutely no self confidence anymore. Thought I’d let the school sort it out. The school did nothing as they are both quiet girls and they didn’t believe the bully had done anything. She’s very sneaky. Even her own mother described her as ‘a Bitch’ a couple of months ago! She’s nasty to her sister at home. Well I noticed last week that I was being ignored on the mums group chat. It turns out they are all angry as I spoke to the school about this girl bullying my daughter. I have been banished from the group! I found out they’d met up without me! They were my best friends and I’m a really nice person. I was also bullied in school and I feel like I did back then when I had no friends. I have no idea what I have done wrong but they have now all blocked me. I just don’t know what to do. I feel all alone. My daughter knows what has happened so I’m having to try and act that I’m not bothered that my friends have ditched me. I just don’t understand why I’m being treated like this. 😔How can I move on from this?

You did the right thing! There are so many mums who put their friend groups before their kids needs! I know of a woman who changed her DDs school just to avoid speaking to the mother of the bully about it, even though they are friends! Exactly for this reason, she would rather her daughter was uncomfortable instead of herself!

Be proud that you stood by your DD! feels like half the town is against me for all the times I've stood up for my DC! One particular time being because my DS hit an older boy who was chasing him to hit him!! Mine was in the wrong because he threw first punch yet the other boy was chasing him and mine just happened to get in there first! They have zero thinking skills, obviously if the bullies mother took some responsibility it would be all sorted. They choose to not see it and instead focus the negativity on to others. You haven't lost friends, merely acquaintances.

If you normally host why don’t you send a group message out saying shame I haven’t seen you for a while, you are invited to mine for coffee on x day. Who turns up will tell you all you need to know.

And I know it's frustrating, that incident annoys me even though it was years ago! It's the fact that it doesn't make sense that we twist ourselves trying to understand it. It'll be someone else somewhere down the line. Your DD is by far more important than anyone else, especially jumped up, cliquey narcissists.

You don't. But nor does your daughter. You need to tackle this together. Get out there, let her join some groups where she can make new friends and maybe it's an activity you can watch alongside other parents.

Well at least you know where the daughter gets if from. The good thing about this is you can ignore the lot of them and get better friends

As for your dd. Follow the complaints procedure and escalate the bullying complaint. Your priority is your dd, fuck the other school mums .

Your post is wrong. She’s already spoken to the mother before. Victim blaming the OP’s daughter as it takes two to make a fight, really?

Why do you even want to be friends with these people? With kindness OP, this isn't about you, it's about your daughter and you need to pull yourself together.

Speak to the school and ask them to find out what's been going on. You've not said what the bullying has involved, but do you have any evidence of it and presented it to the school? Do you have a list of ongoing incidents and the dates they have happened? Have you spoken to the school about the changes in your child and asked if they have noticed a similar decline in her self-esteem?

It really isn't about you and your friendships, focus on your child.

Gosh.

I'm glad I don't have friends with your attitude.

OP - it's hard but move on. You really don't need friends like this who think bullying is acceptable and should be ignored.

Those women were not your friends. If they can all follow the other mother and simply block you after knowing you for so long, they were never real friends.

m I know how horrible it is to lose a friendship, especially when you are specifically left out on purpose in what seems to be quite a cruel way.

min term of you I think it’s ok to show your daughter you feel sad, but you have an opportunity to show her how you move on too.

id keep on at the school. I’d make myself a royal pain in the arse and demand meetings etc to push them to be active in sorting the bullying out. In a way the fact that the friendship with the mum has ended might make life easier. You don’t have to balance your approach with maintaining a friendship.

No parent ever thinks their child is the issue. The best you will ever get is an agreement that both children are at fault. Your error is basing your friendships on the friends of your dd. The other thing that will probably happen is that the girls may well make friends down the line as again this often happens. In any case they don't sound like v nice people. Don't let them know you are upset.

They aren't friends to turn on you like that. At the very least, they should have come and asked you your side of the story

You did the right thing! Going to the school and asking them to deal with the bullying is the right thing to do. Stand up for yourself and your daughter. Go back to school and insist they take action to make the bullying stop. Or change schools. These women were not your friends

The OP has already confronted the friend previously who was immediately defensive. I don't blame her for going through official channels.

You're quite, quite mad.

Going to the school was absolutely the right thing to do.

The adolescent response of then excluding the mother from the group was pathetic.

The OP has already confronted the friend previously who was immediately defensive. I don't blame her for going through official channels

hang on, she said she did and then it all died down and it was a few years back. So clearly something changed. It has now started up again. There is a major time lapse between then and now.

op, I’m sorry it’s horrible what’s happening but they clearly feel reporting to the school was not acceptable as you were friends and you should have spoken to her first again and given her a chance to sort it.

they are now bullying you by exclusion and this isn’t acceptable but I can also see why as there are a few years since the last time you spoke to the mother and you proclaim her to be a friend , you should have spoken to her first.

This is the only bit I find odd about the whole situation.

You are friends with 6 women. You report one of the women's children to the school for bullying your DD. The other 5 "block" you.

There's more to this. Unless you were friends with 6 arseholes, in which case, who cares if you aren't anymore, then this is not a normal reaction by the other 5 unless, as I say, there's more to this.

I would tend to agree. I’m very surprised that since it’s been a few years and the op says this woman is her friend, she elected to not talk to her at all but simply to report the daughter to the school immediately as her first step.

op. How did your friend find out you’d done this. Did you tell her? Or did she find out from the school?

I can sympathise as I had this with my eldest. One mum who’s child was bullying mine took it upon herself to contact the other mums and say it was me and my child who were the issue, despite school backing me. I soon found out these people were not my friends. And it hurt. But years down the line, I’m so glad I found out because these people are absolute twats. As it sounds like these “friends” in your situation are too.

they are now bullying you by exclusion and this isn’t acceptable but I can also see why as there are a few years since the last time you spoke to the mother and you proclaim her to be a friend , you should have spoken to her first.

I could maybe see why the mother was upset at the OP going to the school first.

The other so-called friends have zero excuse for jumping to take sides in such a bitchy and dramatic way without even talking to the op first.

Your so called friends are probably scared of this other mum. Trash breeds trash and the bully is learning from her mum.

OP is the bullies mum the queen of the group by chance?

I agree. It’s only a matter of time before the mother turns her attention on one of the other sitting ducks; seen it so many times and it was why I always avoided fixed groups of parents at school.

You may find that the others, while not confident enough to think and act for themselves are not necessarily as on her side as they feel they need to appear. The other thing you may find is that once on the outside of this group others may be less keen on this woman and see her for what she is. There are a lot more people who aren’t part of this friendship group, start diversifying, not just other parents but developing contacts away from school. Do this even if this person wants to be your best friend again next week. Do this because it’s a good thing for your daughter to see.

For your daughter I would follow through with the school and escalate. This may well not be the first offence.

Or... OP's daughter isn't 100% faultless as she insists. Maybe the girls have each been behaving the same, the school says they are both quiet. But the other girl doesn't get phased when they fall out, and OPs daughter cries every night. We just don't know. Only OP's side.

Or...the rest of the women in the group feel that it was completely uncalled for to go immediately to the school and report her suspicions of bullying without even asking her friend if she knew of any problems with the girls. The idea that years ago when they were very young primary children, the other mother dismissed a fall out as kids being kids, meant OP had to go behind her "friends" back and make reports to the school as her first step, is silly.

Maybe the other girl was bullying exactly as OP says. The excuse of why she couldn't speak to her mother, when she calls this women one of her best friends, doesn't stand up.

I understand why the group have responded like this. And it shouldn't be confused with being anything to do with the children. They feel betrayed by OP. They haven't been nasty, they've just stepped away.

Neither of us know this. The op says this girl bullies her daughter. The op also says the school didn’t find in her favour, last time, which to be fair a lot of schools are shit with bullying, but after she spoke to the mum last time it all died down.

I strongly suspect there is more to this than either the op knows or cares to admit about the two girls and their behaviour.

she said this woman was her best friend. They all were. Would you really not talk to your best friend about it? Because they were defensive a few years ago, so you’d just jump to telling the school and say nothing to your so called best friend?

if I genuinely considered someone my friend, my first stop would be them and as soon as it started.

OP you say you’ve known this group for a long time so do they have a pattern of this kind of exclusion behaviour? Think really carefully about the history - are there things you didn’t notice? Have they excluded and blocked a person from the group before? Or any other really poor dynamics/bitching/bullying? If so, then they have form for this, and it was only a matter of time until it would happen to you. You went with it in the past when you weren’t on the receiving end and this is the risk you took.

If they don’t have form for this and it’s the first time they’ve done something like this, then Im sure there must be more to it. Not a single person will hear your side of the story? Or take a call from you? In an otherwise nice group of friends? If they’re nice decent people someone should be willing to tell you what’s going on or stay neutral. Are you sure you’ve mentioned everything in your OP?