Speechless

[Anonymous]

Middle schoolers do goof around and prank each other sometimes. And every now and then good natured pranks among friends get a little out of hand, feelings get hurt...it happens.

Hopefully the girls apologized to the Op's daughter and the girls can all work this out and remain friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Am I the only one who thought the OP was Chipotle Lady when she was describing her chest pains for hours?

No, but we're all pretty sure you're an inconsiderate asshole IRL.

wtf? why does that make me an asshole?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Am I the only one who thought the OP was Chipotle Lady when she was describing her chest pains for hours?

No, but we're all pretty sure you're an inconsiderate asshole IRL.

wtf? why does that make me an asshole?

because you're dismissing OP's very real, painful situation with a troll reference that was never that funny to begin with?

[Anonymous]

To me, it is not an issue of mom overreacting or not. It is an issue of the fact that the daughter was not very involved in addressing the situation with the friends. By 7th grade, mom should be working with the daughter to get the daughter to address the issue with the friends herself. Then mom can follow up with their parents, and can stand with the daughter for support while she addresses it with her friends if her daughter would like. Having the daughter sit there and mumble a few words while mom confronts the friends is not going to help her long term AT ALL.



And yes, that is what the mom did. She helped her DD the next day have a very tough conversation. She showed her that confrontation is part of life and its ok to do it and the world won't fall apart.

Just because her DD didnt go on and on doesn't mean it wasn't useful or helpful. After all this is likely the first time she has ever has to something like this so of course she is stumble and mumble through it.

The mother said she was the primary one having the conversation and that the daughter did not say much at all. Seriously, what kind of women are we raising in our society if we don't teach our little girls to speak up and say, "hey, friend, I don't like it when you put crap all over my face when I am sleeping?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

To me, it is not an issue of mom overreacting or not. It is an issue of the fact that the daughter was not very involved in addressing the situation with the friends. By 7th grade, mom should be working with the daughter to get the daughter to address the issue with the friends herself. Then mom can follow up with their parents, and can stand with the daughter for support while she addresses it with her friends if her daughter would like. Having the daughter sit there and mumble a few words while mom confronts the friends is not going to help her long term AT ALL.



And yes, that is what the mom did. She helped her DD the next day have a very tough conversation. She showed her that confrontation is part of life and its ok to do it and the world won't fall apart.

Just because her DD didnt go on and on doesn't mean it wasn't useful or helpful. After all this is likely the first time she has ever has to something like this so of course she is stumble and mumble through it.

The mother said she was the primary one having the conversation and that the daughter did not say much at all. Seriously, what kind of women are we raising in our society if we don't teach our little girls to speak up and say, "hey, friend, I don't like it when you put crap all over my face when I am sleeping?"

A freakin MEN!!!! Helicopter mommies. I am 100% against bullying but this was a joke/prank. It was make-up, not sharpies. It wasn't a shaved eyebrow. IT WAS MAKE-UP. It was a middle school sleepover. Then the mom yells at the kids with her teen sitting next to her sulking. All those kids are thinking is "what a baby going crying to her mommy about some make-up"

She is a teenager. She could have done either:

1. Woke up and said "girls, what the f*ck did you do to my face. Not cool.
2. Laughed it off as a good sport, invite them the following week and get some sweet revenge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

To me, it is not an issue of mom overreacting or not. It is an issue of the fact that the daughter was not very involved in addressing the situation with the friends. By 7th grade, mom should be working with the daughter to get the daughter to address the issue with the friends herself. Then mom can follow up with their parents, and can stand with the daughter for support while she addresses it with her friends if her daughter would like. Having the daughter sit there and mumble a few words while mom confronts the friends is not going to help her long term AT ALL.



And yes, that is what the mom did. She helped her DD the next day have a very tough conversation. She showed her that confrontation is part of life and its ok to do it and the world won't fall apart.

Just because her DD didnt go on and on doesn't mean it wasn't useful or helpful. After all this is likely the first time she has ever has to something like this so of course she is stumble and mumble through it.

The mother said she was the primary one having the conversation and that the daughter did not say much at all. Seriously, what kind of women are we raising in our society if we don't teach our little girls to speak up and say, "hey, friend, I don't like it when you put crap all over my face when I am sleeping?"

A freakin MEN!!!! Helicopter mommies. I am 100% against bullying but this was a joke/prank. It was make-up, not sharpies. It wasn't a shaved eyebrow. IT WAS MAKE-UP. It was a middle school sleepover. Then the mom yells at the kids with her teen sitting next to her sulking. All those kids are thinking is "what a baby going crying to her mommy about some make-up"

She is a teenager. She could have done either:

1. Woke up and said "girls, what the f*ck did you do to my face. Not cool.
2. Laughed it off as a good sport, invite them the following week and get some sweet revenge.

This!

[Anonymous]

this idea that someone's reaction to an event determines the other person's intentions is a strange one to me.

So it Ops daughter had though it was funny, then it would have just been a joke among friends and the other two girls would have just been friends who are pranksters. But because Ops daughter reacted with a very intense emotional reaction, that someone changes the intentions of the girls (even though the reaction happened after the event). So not the girls are mean girls and bullies because OP's daughter cried.

So basically if you bump into someone and they say oh no problem then you are good, your intentions were innocent. But if you bump into someone and they blow up into a rage then your intentions were malicious and you were trying to bully them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I'm with OP. I hope your daughter is feeling better and more secure of herself because she has her strong mom behind her.

Nope. Her mother's over-the-top reaction only reinforces her feeling of victimization. She has learned that she is not strong enough to handle even the simplest things without mommy stepping in and fighting her battles for her. She probably lost two friends.

This could have been handled with a simple conversation with the girls the next morning. The chest pains, hysterics, 3am emails..... Completely over the top and unnecessary.

9:50 ...It WAS handled with a conversation!! The girls did not know about the 3 am email nor the chest pains!

It wasn't handled with a conversation, it was handled with a confrontation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Am I the only one who thought the OP was Chipotle Lady when she was describing her chest pains for hours?

No, but we're all pretty sure you're an inconsiderate asshole IRL.

wtf? why does that make me an asshole?

Because unless you also hyperventilate with anger at these two mean delinquent bullies and believe that they purposefully faked a friendship with OPs daughter so that they could maliciously attack her in her sleep and deface her ...then you are an asshole.

I wonder why people aren't upset for letting Op's daughter give them a hug when they left. Why would you let your daughter spend even a minute more around someoneyou believe had nothing but evil, malicious intentions to bully and deface your child?

[Anonymous]

^While it's true that different people take things differently (maybe the girls thought that their friend would laugh and think it was funny), when the girls realized that they had upset their friend, they should have apologized.

Of course, the Op stepped in and handled the whole incident, gave the girls a good talking to, reported it to the girls' parents...

Hopefully, the girls will make up and remain friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The reason there is so much disagreement as to OP's reaction is because we have no context for the event.

There are several possibilities. It could truly have been intended as a prank, with the girls having no mean intent and maybe even doing it in a spirit of fondness for OP's daughter. In fact, when I was a kid, it was desirable to be the subject of a prank at a sleepover, because we pranked the "popular" kid, so it is possible they really like OP's daughter and were trying to make her laugh. If that is that circumstance, some people would have laughed it off, some would have been mildly annoyed, and others would feel horribly hurt. The girls may have misjudged how OP's daughter would react, and took it too far. If they are generally nice girls and felt bad when they realized that OP's daughter was really upset, then it is no big deal. They now know that OP's daughter is on the sensitive side and have also learned a valuable lesson that this kind of thing isn't really all that funny.

On the other hand, if they were doing it with malicious intent, then that is a whole different matter. But that also has to be handled, as others have suggested, by OP's daughter (at least in the first instance).

But not all teasing/pranks/hazing is malicious. It can be a form of bonding, it can be a way to have fun and have a battle of wits, and it can be totally harmless. It's our job as parents to teach our kids first and foremost that there is a hard or "objective" line that must not be crossed. Anything dangerous, permanently destructive of property, or intended to shame/humiliate/ostracize is clearly not ok. Beyond that, there IS some gray area and to pretend that there isn't ignores all reality. Kid have to learn to make good decisions based on an understanding of the personalities involved and the underlying spirit and intent of their actions. For example, when I was in college my roommate and I had a series of ongoing pranks with some other kids in our dorm. It was fun and was really a contest of who could be the most clever. It was not mean spirited and we had fun razzing each other. We looked forward to being pranked with almost as much anticipation as we looked forward to pranking others. Similarly, the "hazing" in my Greek house was totally silly and I never felt in danger or humiliated. I remember being led around the house in a blindfold and being told to kneel in "broken glass" (crushed potato chips) and recite the house pledge backwards. No one actually thought we were in any kind of danger.

We all know those adults who say mean things and then try to pass it off as a joke. Not ok. But many of us also have relationships with friends where we can tease and we know it is ok. It's a matter of having emotional intelligence and learning how to read a situation.

I agree with you. It is actually pretty amazing to me how many responders on here can't possibly fathom that this might not have been malicious. That they have never played any form of jokes or pranks with their friends or family and that those things are considered bullying in their homes. This thread has actually made me talk to my kids about how even though we joke around at home, that other people find that very, very offensive and so they need to find out first if the other person has a sense of humor and if they parents joke with them before ever joking or doing any pranks with them. They told me they already know whcih kids in their class don't get jokes and get mad if you joke with them so they steer clear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:this idea that someone's reaction to an event determines the other person's intentions is a strange one to me.

So it Ops daughter had though it was funny, then it would have just been a joke among friends and the other two girls would have just been friends who are pranksters. But because Ops daughter reacted with a very intense emotional reaction, that someone changes the intentions of the girls (even though the reaction happened after the event). So not the girls are mean girls and bullies because OP's daughter cried.

So basically if you bump into someone and they say oh no problem then you are good, your intentions were innocent. But if you bump into someone and they blow up into a rage then your intentions were malicious and you were trying to bully them.

Well-settled law. Eggshell skull rule. You take your victim as you find them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^While it's true that different people take things differently (maybe the girls thought that their friend would laugh and think it was funny), when the girls realized that they had upset their friend, they should have apologized.

Of course, the Op stepped in and handled the whole incident, gave the girls a good talking to, reported it to the girls' parents...

Hopefully, the girls will make up and remain friends.

Why would they remain friends? Who would want the friendship after this all went down? How would it be healthy in any way for any of them?

[Anonymous]

Maybe I'm naive, but it's hard to beeline these girls were bullying her. Kids joke around, maybe stupidly, but still... Have your daughter talk to them, tell them she didn't like it and get rid of them if she thinks they were being mean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:this idea that someone's reaction to an event determines the other person's intentions is a strange one to me.

So it Ops daughter had though it was funny, then it would have just been a joke among friends and the other two girls would have just been friends who are pranksters. But because Ops daughter reacted with a very intense emotional reaction, that someone changes the intentions of the girls (even though the reaction happened after the event). So not the girls are mean girls and bullies because OP's daughter cried.

So basically if you bump into someone and they say oh no problem then you are good, your intentions were innocent. But if you bump into someone and they blow up into a rage then your intentions were malicious and you were trying to bully them.

Well-settled law. Eggshell skull rule. You take your victim as you find them.

I just looked that up. But there was no damage to person or property. The only outcome was psychological distress. So does that mean that if I bump into someone as we pass on the sidewalk (and its my fault) and that enrages them and their rage is so great and combined with a pre-exsiting heart problem that they have a heart attack and die that I would be responsible for their death and charged with murder/manslaughter? So the bump caused no physical harm - only made them angry and that led to the negative outcome?