I've just had a phone call from the mum of one of dd's friends saying that dd is bullying her daughter.

[seeker]

They are both in Year 8 at different schools. They go on the bus together, and apparently, dd has been ignoring the other girl, turning her back on her, deliberately leaving her out of conversations, generally excluding her until this other girl doesn't want to go to school and is in tears every night.

I am completely gobsmacked by this - I just didn't think my dd would behave like this - but I know that's what all bully's mothers say, so I'm ignoring my mother tiger feelings.

I'm not sure how to take it forward - I need to talk to my dd, I know, but do you think it would be a good idea to have a "meeting' with dd, the other girl, her mother and me? And I'm meeting dd and another friend for a pizza tonight - the friend goes on the bus too - should I talk about it with both of them or wait to talk to dd alone? Help!

I did think of going round to her house and saying "OK - I want to say that if you ever approach my child at the bus stop again you'll be hearing from my solicitor. Right, now that's out of the way, how are we going to sort this out? What's you suggestion?" But I don't think I should.

Seeker, what a dreadful situation for both you and dd. In my opinion Merrylegs and Ahundred are offering the best solutions. Be as calm and as reasonable as you have been thus far, but call her, explain that perhaps there are greater forces going on here, that your dd has tried and should not herself be victimised and then leave it at that. Tell dd to stay away from the girl. Then you leave the whole situation yourself, no spying on what goes on on the bus, no phoning schools, no talking to the bus driver simply remove yourself from the whole scenario. And don't answer any more calls from the mother.

Seeker just read the whole thread and I think you should ring the other mother and say simply that when she rang you the last(Feb) time,
you weren't rude to her and arranged to meet with her and her dd, so who does she think she is verbally attacking your daughter in the street, she should have approached you again if she thought there was still a problem

I think that you have been more than accomadating!

I think you've handled this really well, and I remember when you first posted about this and it didn't sound like you were assuming that you dd couldn't be at fault at all.

it's absolutely wrong of the other mother to have approached your dd, and it sounds like she and her daughter have fixated on her as being the cause, or at least the symbol, of the girl's difficulties. It's really sad, and it would be a lovely end to it if your dd became really good friends with her and she became a big part of this social group of girls from another school on the bus. But that wasn't that likely before; they seemed to be drifting apart, and it's going to be pretty much impossible now. Your dd is only 13 and while of course she should be civil and kind it's not her job to sort this girl's life out for her, nor yours.

I think it's probably reached the stage where it's better for the girls to have very little interaction now. i also wouldn't speak to the mother until you've had time to talk with dd and come up with some ways forward with her, eg, if she says that she just doesn't feel like they're friends anymore then you can help her come up with for her some ways to be polite with her.

then I would ask first tell the mother that you can see she's upset and worried about her dd having no-one to be a best friend on the bus, because of course no-one would shout at a child at the bus stop unless they were very stressed. It is, however, NOT ok, and that although you won't take it further this time( if that's ok with your dd) it must NEVER happen again.

Tell her what your dd has said about how she sees the relationship, and ask the mother, with that as context, what she would like to happen.

And then just let her speak without interuption for as long as. Sometimes if you don't fuel someone's fire by giving them something to argue against they can come up with more sense than you'd expect.

You can keep very firm that

she is never to approach your dd again
your dd isn't really friends with hers anymore

but other than that, what would she like you to do?

Sorry, i've spent ages trying to come up with something useful, and I suspect this isn't very. I had a similar situation with ds a couple of years ago.
It was harsh at the time, but i think it has been good in the long run. It did make him think about how he acts with people, and actually ended up with real compassion for the other child, after he'd got over the anger and feeling of injustice. I felt very sorry for the kid too; his mum clearly had a lot of ishoos and fears, but everything she did was actually disempowering him more. She gave him no tools to deal with a situation he wasn't happy with, and unwittingly 'rewarded' him for blaming ds, because it fitted in with what she wanted to believe.

Hope it goes ok tonight.

Why don't you try to deflate the situation by asking her to set out very clearly in writing all the instances and specfic actions which have led her to decide her DD is being bullied by your DD.

If it is a bunch of "didn't say good morning" and "didn't ask her to sit next to her" and similar then either the mother will feel foolish once she has written it down in Black and white, or you can point out to her that she is being foolish and then tell her to get out of your DD's life and go hothouse in someone else's back garden.

If it is a bunch of "On this day, every time my DD opened her mouth all the children turned round, laughed at her, then turned their backs on her" and "They all wait until she has sat down and then they go and sit down as far away from her as possible", then you have a situation where you might want to talk to your DD about empathy

I doubt very much it will be anything more than normal cattyness even if it is stuff like the latter rather than the former, so taking this approach should at least prove to the other mother that there is no bullying involved.

That is a good idea Squiffy.

I remeber this thread. my thoughts were those girls having nothing else in common other than going to different schools on the same bus each morning.
Why should they be friends? They have nothing in common other than a shared bus journey, and I think the other mother is being very naive in blaming her daughter's problems on the bus journey into school.

Your dd and her friends have a lot of mutual things in common teachers, other pupils at the school, school events etc and this child would have no interest or knowledge of these. Does this mean that any conversations involving anything this child can't share are out of bounds , how rediculous is that.

I would say this child probably is being bullied at school. It stands to reason she is spending 10 times longer in school than on the bus each day so there is much more potential for it to take place. Also if she was happier she wouldn't see the imagined slights on the bus each day.

I would tell the mother you don't want to discuss this any further with her and cut all contact.

I was stuck on a bus to secondary school with a girl who I'd been friends with at primary school but no longer had much in common with (we went to different schools) for seven years. I really feel for your daughter, seeker.

Did you speak to her, seeker?

Hope everyone had a peaceful journey to school today, Seeker.