is this ok, or is it groveling, or even taking a passive aggressive dig
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Anonymous
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My 6 year old is a little dork. He's my precious little dork, but I understand why the little older kids on our street are annoyed with him, as he's younger and his interests are WAY different than theirs. But, where the boys say "hey there" but don't ask him to play football, one 7 year old girl is just plain mean. She makes fun of him because he can't catch a football, or because he still needs training wheels. When he walks across the street, she'll say with disdain "what do you want Tommy?" or "don't stand in my yard" or "just go away". I want him to feel comfortable walking over and saying hi and being kind, even if they don't share interests, but that little girl is starting to take the steam out of him and I watch him deflate anytime he sees them outside now. As we rode bikes the other day, she started in about the training wheels, so I just told my son to ignore bullies and that some kids are just mean. I said it fairly loud and she was taken aback since I'm always kind to her when I chat with her mom.
Yesterday, we came home and my son, seeing the kids, wanted to dart in to the house. I saw grandma (of another set of kids) out, so decided we'd walk over and say hello to her, and give my son a chance to stand up for himself if necessary. All the kids were overly nice to my son, and I'm pretty sure it was 1) because they were all afraid I was going to tell grandma what little asses they are or 2) the little girl shared my comment with her mom, and her mom probably told her to be nice. (Her mom and I are friendly, occasionally messaging or chatting in the street, but not social.) My question: would it be weird of me to acknowledge to her mom my appreciation for the kids being friendly yesterday? I'm not fully certain she knows they've not been. But, for whatever reason caused it, I'd like to encourage it to continue by giving the kids some positive feedback for being nice. On the other hand, if the mother doesn't know, would my appreciation seem like I was taking a dig at past bad behavior? |
Anonymous
| I don't think you need to say anything. |
Anonymous
| Your son will experience rude and mean people. Work with your son about handling that, don't talk to all the moms in the world of rude and mean children. |
Anonymous
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Of course it would be weird. You basically told her daughter that she's a bully, when you haven't had the guts to bring up the behavior to the mother.
I can tell you what likely didn't go down: "Mom, Ms Jones called me a bully." "That's because you are! You be nice to Sam!!!" |
Anonymous
| You are WAY overthinking this whole scenario. |
Anonymous
Thank you for the opinions. So you think I should talk to the mom about the mean behavior? I thought talking to the mom would just make it totally over the top, since kids are kids and some are just little pains. |
Anonymous
Oops, OP again. Actually, I wondered if that IS what went down. LOL |
Anonymous
| I'd call the girl out if she spoke to my son like that in my presence. "Larla, that's not okay. He's younger than you, you should be kind". |
Anonymous
I think that you need to arm your kid as best you can against sh!tty treatment from other kids, but most decent parents would probably want to know if their kids are treating others poorly and put an end to it. I would say something along the lines of "Larla isn't obligated to like Sam or want to play with him, but if she were my child I would want to hear about some of the things that she has said to him." Not in a confrontational way, but a parents-helping-parents way. |
Anonymous
This. Stop calling your kid a dork. Get him better clothing and teach him to ride his bike. Some kids are just mean. |
Anonymous
This. People will be mean in every stage of his life. It happens to everyone. Teach him some self-confidence, quit using the excuse that he's small. Quit calling him a dork and then being mad because other kids treat him like one! Quit encouraging him to go crawling back to people who treat him like shit. Get him in some other activities so he came make other friends. The kids on your street aren't his friends. Quit trying to make them be. Your son is annoying them and they aren't going to change his mind. |
Anonymous
Ok, ok, aggressive people are out in full force! I will take the pieces of your advice that might be helpful, but you've made horrible assumptions. I did it affectionately, and only here, not to him of course! I only said it to explain in one word that he's different from these kids. That's fine. I understand his interests are different than most kids, and it's ok for people to not be friends when they have nothing in common or are different ages. I don't hold it against any of the children that they don't want to play with my son - I only hold the grudge for the mean comments. He dresses fine and obviously we're working on the bike situation. He's less mature, having just turned 6 last week and a K, while the others are 2nd-6th grades (with the exception of a 3 year old sibling). If he was athletic, they'd accept him, but he's still in to super heroes and can't throw a football and has no interest in chasing down flags. He's in scouts and gymnastics and soccer/t-ball, depending on season, and our family is very active with our community. He's got several friends at school that share his interests and we trade play dates with them. But, at 6, we can't constantly have his friends over and if he hears kids, he wants to play outside or ride down the street. Surely you don't suggest I keep him locked inside on a beautiful day because of a mean girl? I think teaching him to run and hide is the opposite of teach self-confidence, but maybe I'm missing something. But, again, thank all for the attempts to be helpful and I hope to pick some helpful tips up! |
Anonymous
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You were passive-aggressive by talking to one person (your son) about another person (bully girl) in front of her. Technically, that was bullying of YOU.
Do nothing now. Stand down. You've done enough. What you should have done is say to her "Hey, haven't you ever had a hard time learning something? At least he's TRYING. You're just standing around making fun of someone." |
Anonymous
| She sounds like a little bully all of the time, because most kids know better than to start making fun of another kid right in front of that kids parents. To me, the fact that she was so comfortable in doing so says that this is her normal personality & her parents know it. I don't think you were being a bully to her at all, you got the message across without speaking directly to her. Most parents I know don't want you directly reprimanding their kid no matter what it's about, they'd rather you come to them than say anything to their kid. Yippy got your |
Anonymous
Sorry, hit send inadvertently. You got your message across & hopefully she changed her attitude. |