Anonymous wrote: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 …

They're ignoring your kid. I don't know what you expect the school to do. Your kid spoke up and the response from the other kids was to separate themselves.

I think you need to better consider your goal in discussing this with the teacher. What realistic outcome are you hoping to achieve? How will you deliver it? Quite frankly, if you deliver it in the tone you have been using in this post, it will be dismissed as vindictive and lacking empathy for anyone else involved. They are all children learning to navigate the world. This does not sound like bullying but rather tweens trying to figure out who they do and do not want to spend their time with. Most adults would practice empathy here. The teacher has an obligation to not take sides and rather act as a guide for all of them. I have been on both sides of this situation in my life. On one side, I felt pigeon-holed and unable to do anything right as the "mean girl" with a very demanding, clingy girl I was struggling to extricate myself from. We grew up and moved on and my mom told me be kind, civil and hold my ground. On the other side, I felt lonely and unfairly excluded. All the feelings are valid. But bottom line is, you can advocate for your daughter without the (ironically) mean-spirited tone you have taken here. You can say, "I'm trying to help my kid navigate a tricky situation and I could use some insight from you as you may have witnessed some of these interactions" and see what the teacher says. Stop assuming she's a moron who cares about which parents are trustees.

Yeah I just don’t know what’s supposed to happen now. The kid spoke up for herself. The comments stopped (good) but now a couple of the girls are ignoring her. Wasn’t that the goal? The teacher cannot force kids to like each other and be friends. It doesn’t sound like this is bullying.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I disagree with the posters who think parents not get involved. Don’t throw her to the wolves. You giving her words was good and necessary. If the two girls have mean moms then I am not surprised their daughters are mean.

+ a million. If you make her handle this on her own when she has been begging for help you will make her feel very alone.

But what do you expect the school to do? The teacher likely doesn’t even hear or see anything. This isn’t a case of bullying. It is just petty girl drama.

Short of switching her class, the teacher isn’t going to really add anything helpful to this dynamic. I’m guessing this is not middle school yet? Most middle schools switch classes every hour so that will be helpful. Unless you are in a small private school where these 30 kids are stuck together every year.

Anonymous wrote:I disagree with the posters who think parents not get involved. Don’t throw her to the wolves. You giving her words was good and necessary. If the two girls have mean moms then I am not surprised their daughters are mean.

+ a million. If you make her handle this on her own when she has been begging for help you will make her feel very alone.

Is your school Sheridan?

I agree with the posters who said that those of us who were bullied or were at the receiving end of 'mean girl' behaviors feel it acutely when our child has to face a similar scenario. Those with glib comments or trying to blame the victim or victim's parent(s) are just that - mean.

We all know people have gotten meaner - and on an anonymous forum of course people are rude. No way would either of these PPs say what they said on this thread or all the other threads here were they in person with the OPs.

Therapy is good. It takes time. I disagree with your DH. I would absolutely say something. This is a child (not an adult or even a teenager) who is suffering. Do something.

Op isn’t throwing her kid to the wolves. She’s got her in therapy, so she is helping. But if she doesn’t let her daughter use what she’s learning in therapy, what good does it do?

Anonymous wrote:I disagree with the posters who think parents not get involved. Don’t throw her to the wolves. You giving her words was good and necessary. If the two girls have mean moms then I am not surprised their daughters are mean.

+100

I’m a different teacher and a parent, but I teach kids a little older. Kindly, what would you like the teacher to do if you have a meeting and tell her all of this? It sound like typical 5th or 6th grade behavior. Kids say passive aggressive or sarcastic comments and friend groups change.

The only suggestion I have would be to reach out to the school counselor to see if they have a social skills group or lunch bunch. That could be helpful and your daughter might meet new kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a fifth grade teacher at a private and I’m also a parent. There’s little we can do at this age other than make sure that students treat each other kindly and respectfully in class. We have parents calling us and asking why their children weren’t invited to parties or out trick or treating. Some of my colleagues have tried to intervene in these situations, and zero of these interventions have resulted in friendships being formed. If your child is being bullied, by all means, call us. Otherwise? You need to teach your kid to find their people and develop thicker skin. Not everyone is going to be your friend, and this is only going to be more apparent in middle school. Your daughter needs to develop more confidence and resilience or she’s going to really struggle in the coming years.

NP. I’m interested in your opinion as a teacher and parent. I am a parent at a private school - 5th grade son, 60 odd kids in his grade. I have learned a lot about the breadth of parental opinion when it comes to when, how, why parents expect the school to intervene with social conflicts. Some parents want their kids to work it out. Some parents want the parents to work it out and take pains not to let the school know. Some parents want the school to handle it completely. Some parents content themselves with gossiping to other parents and posting cryptic posts on social media.

Do you think kids today are able to cope with social conflict as well as they used to? If not, is it us (the parents), social media, less unstructured time, or something else?

I'm not the teacher PP, but I would think the variation is because they're parenting different kids who have different challenges and the specifics of each conflict is different. You're reading too much into it.

Anonymous wrote:I’m a fifth grade teacher at a private and I’m also a parent. There’s little we can do at this age other than make sure that students treat each other kindly and respectfully in class. We have parents calling us and asking why their children weren’t invited to parties or out trick or treating. Some of my colleagues have tried to intervene in these situations, and zero of these interventions have resulted in friendships being formed. If your child is being bullied, by all means, call us. Otherwise? You need to teach your kid to find their people and develop thicker skin. Not everyone is going to be your friend, and this is only going to be more apparent in middle school. Your daughter needs to develop more confidence and resilience or she’s going to really struggle in the coming years.

NP. I’m interested in your opinion as a teacher and parent. I am a parent at a private school - 5th grade son, 60 odd kids in his grade. I have learned a lot about the breadth of parental opinion when it comes to when, how, why parents expect the school to intervene with social conflicts. Some parents want their kids to work it out. Some parents want the parents to work it out and take pains not to let the school know. Some parents want the school to handle it completely. Some parents content themselves with gossiping to other parents and posting cryptic posts on social media.

Do you think kids today are able to cope with social conflict as well as they used to? If not, is it us (the parents), social media, less unstructured time, or something else?

I disagree with the posters who think parents not get involved. Don’t throw her to the wolves. You giving her words was good and necessary. If the two girls have mean moms then I am not surprised their daughters are mean.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I could tell by your original post this was how you’d respond and that you just plan to go in there anyway. The advice said not to so you’re decided that means we are all mean. Consider that you yourself are feeding a victim complex to your daughter and really listen to your husband who knows both of you AND the situation and said not to do it. Or is he a “mean mommy” too?

+1

Anonymous wrote:Disagree that 11 is too old for a parent to bring this to the teacher. Suggest following the daughter’s therapist advice and sharing this information. Did the therapist have any additional advice? Just because the teacher is informed does not mean they will choose to make specific changes to reduce your kids involvement with the others. It will allow the teacher to observe for problem behavior. It is great you have your daughter in therapy. See if you can get her into other programs outside of school to develop friendships there. Hopefully your daughter’s therapist is working with heron ways to handle the situation as best she can herself.

+1