Parent teacher meeting - mean child

[Anonymous]

Not sure how to and if I should share my concern about passive aggressive and sometimes blatantly rude comments a girl made to our anxious (in therapy child). The other child is teacher’s pet and mom is a trustee. She will frequently ignore my child when in a group or make sarcastic comments.

School expects kids to figure it out themselves and even if a concern is brought to the teacher, she just supports the other kid. Spouse thinks I should not be an umbrella parent and let our child figure it out while advising when specific issues are brought home so direct behind the scenes.

Specific Comments directed to my child may have abated (not sure yet as not enough time has elapsed since the last one) after I gave the verbiage to my kid to speak up once. Speaking up however, has led to this girl turning the other 2-3 girls against my child so they are now ignoring so there are some tears almost daily due to being left out and being lonely. I don’t have a response to - mom why can’t everyone just be nice?

My kid doesn’t use cuss words or gossip or talk about stuff I wouldn’t expect a 11 yr old to talk about but they do. I am told that not participating in dissing people means one is kiddish. Clearly we are the outliers….as most girls that age that i have met in school or during extracurricular activities are very “mature” and the parents quite “permissive”. Mean girls…with mean mamas …

[Anonymous]

I’m with your husband. Your kid has to learn to deal with this. It’s part of school for every kid. She’s already in therapy for anxiety so I’m assuming she perceives lots of comments as personally targeted and vicious. I have to say, at age 11, mommy riding in to get the other kid in trouble is a risky move for her socially.

[Anonymous]

I guarantee that there are kids who are similar to your daughter and don't engage in cussing or gossiping about others. My kid is the same age and I can definitely identify the kids that are like you describe. But there are a lot of kids who are kind and sweet and thankfully my kid hangs out with them.

This is something your kid needs to learn to deal with and it sounds like it is just these 3-4 girls? Why not encourage your kid to look elsewhere for friends.

[Anonymous]

Sadly, this is a tale as old as time. It happened to me and it happened to my dd and she's gotten older now and she made a poor choice directed to a friend and so the former "sweet" wouldn't do a thing to hurt a fly girl has inadvertently hurt a friend. We did not let it slide or pretend it was okay. But I'm realizing while talking to her therapist (yes my dd is also in therapy for anxiety), that we can't make decisions for our kids as they grow older. And we have to let them experience things and make mistakes. It's how they grow into the adult they will become. Not saying they shouldn't have consequences or lessons at home. But I think you'll realize in a few short years how much harder all this is to control. So I encourage you to let your dd handle it like your dh suggests. Give her the tools to be stronger, help her find other friends, give her more exposure to different activities, etc.

[Anonymous]

If the situation is or becomes bad enough, consider moving DD to a different school t get a fresh tart with different kids.

We did that with our DC and it has been a huge improvement.

[Anonymous]

Running in trying to fix it for her will only make her more anxious. She needs to learn to handle things herself which will build confidence.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, I’d look for a different school. If the teacher is truly enabling this work get better and her self esteem will take a hit.

[Anonymous]

OP, why do you want so badly for your daughter to be accepted by these girls, who you say are mean and rude? Wouldn't it be better to find different friends?

Your DH is right, parent intervention will only make it worse at this age. Your daughter needs to accept that these kids do not want to be close friends with her. If she gives them some space, they may stop trying to run her off. I know you think your daughter is blameless here, but a lot of times this situation happens when they don't want to be friends and the kid just won't take no for an answer. Part of growing up is realizing that not everyone wants to be our friend, even if we want to be their friend.

[Anonymous]

Land the helicopter. You sound every enabling of your daughter, honestly. Let her figure things out herself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m with your husband. Your kid has to learn to deal with this. It’s part of school for every kid. She’s already in therapy for anxiety so I’m assuming she perceives lots of comments as personally targeted and vicious. I have to say, at age 11, mommy riding in to get the other kid in trouble is a risky move for her socially.

+1

[Anonymous]

OP you do not sound like one who is good at giving social advice so I would refrain from that if I were you.

Your spouse sounds better socially adjusted so maybe let him handle giving your DD advice on this matter.

And if you’re paying tuition, I think you might want to consider spending it elsewhere. It’s not only about academics and status.

[Anonymous]

(a) it sounds like you gave her bad advice
(b) this sort of thing comes with private school and it's small class/grade sizes. Unfortunately unless you move your child, you are stuck with these people.
(c) REMOVE YOURSELF FROM THE SITUATION. It sounds like you don't like the parents/they don't like you and it's affecting your child. You don't need to be friends with these people, just avoid them. I guarantee it will get better for your kid if you just butt the f* out.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you have a chosen a small, private school with a sucky administration. You should move your kid to a larger, public school. In large schools, there are all kinds of different groups of girls. Your kid can find her people.

And no way would I pay a lot of money to a school where the admin sucks.

[Anonymous]

OP. The one piece of Advice about this situation that I gave was good. The other girl kept making mean sarcastic comments. I told DD to stay away and next time the girl made a comment to tell her not to as it’s rude and hurtful and weird. It worked wrt to personal comments.

I know the mom of the girl and she isn’t a good person. Neither is another mom (2 of the girls and their moms are best friends). As to the other 2 girl moms no idea.

We are friendly with a couple of other parents of boys. DH went to school with one of them so we hang out a lot. But the boys while they will speak to the girls outside of school when we meet socially - they won’t really hang out in school. We are leaving end of the year. It’s this year we need to ensure our child isn’t this miserable.

It was the therapist’s idea to share all the comments with the teacher as she believes it’s causing a lot of extra anxiety. Since DH disagreed I posted here.

Some PPs May be mean mommies…DCUM I had a few wanna be psychiatrists who are ready to draw conclusions about people’s personality based on one post. Not even the best of psychiatrists would do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP. The one piece of Advice about this situation that I gave was good. The other girl kept making mean sarcastic comments. I told DD to stay away and next time the girl made a comment to tell her not to as it’s rude and hurtful and weird. It worked wrt to personal comments.

I know the mom of the girl and she isn’t a good person. Neither is another mom (2 of the girls and their moms are best friends). As to the other 2 girl moms no idea.

We are friendly with a couple of other parents of boys. DH went to school with one of them so we hang out a lot. But the boys while they will speak to the girls outside of school when we meet socially - they won’t really hang out in school. We are leaving end of the year. It’s this year we need to ensure our child isn’t this miserable.

It was the therapist’s idea to share all the comments with the teacher as she believes it’s causing a lot of extra anxiety. Since DH disagreed I posted here.

Some PPs May be mean mommies…DCUM I had a few wanna be psychiatrists who are ready to draw conclusions about people’s personality based on one post. Not even the best of psychiatrists would do that.

If you don’t want advice, don’t post. You sound insecure. I’m sure your disagree feeds off of you.