Not really a question but more of a vent.
I picked my girls up from school the other day to find one of them in hysterics. Turns out another mother had taken it upon her self to verbally abuse my daughter calling her a bitch and yelling in her Face to the point she is now so scared she refuses to go to school. I messaged said parent and politely asked to her not to go near my daughter again and that next time she should approach the school or me directly. She stated she was polite and that she kindly asked my daughter to stay away from her daughter and not to touch her again. This I know is a lie as there are several witnesses and video footage that state she was yelling at my daughter and even swore at her.
The thing is Ive read in the group chat which this abuse towards my daughter was based on shows nothing of my daughter being the one bullying this child nor the one that touched her. Infact my daughter was the one who kept saying please stop guys and it was said on many occasions. Yes she did retaliate to a nasty picture by sending one back and I have spoken with my daughter about how this was inappropriate despite what the other child sent. I do not tolerate bullying or nastiness even if it is in retaliation and I'm so frustrated right now. The mother also stated she knows it wasn't my daughter that called hers names or pushed her yet she chose my girl out of all the others to abuse and scare. Im so angry it makes my cry. Adults go on about how bullying is wrong and won't tollerate it but then feel that it is totally fine to intimidate and bully a child. Absoloutely disgusting.
One furious mumma here. 😢😡
Bullying
Bullying
Posted in:
Behaviour
41 Replies
How old is your daughter? I think social media causes way too much drama and it sounds like its the cause of this mess. I would honestly be getting rid of it and asking the school to educate their parents and try and restrict it as much as possible. Its not worth it. Of course make a complaint about this parent but know that she was reacting to her own child being bullied and I don't think any parent reacts well in these situations. This should be a learning experience for your daughter to stay out of bitchy fights at school and online, I hope you teach her that. If your daughter had any part in bullying the other child she needs to apologize.
She removed her self from the chat because it was getting out of hand. She has appologised for the picture that she sent. I do not tolerate that kind of behavioir toward my children or from my children it is completely unneccessary. She has messenger only (she does not bave the fb app) as most of our family is interstate and that is how she communicates with them.
This sounds like a mess for the school principal to sort out!
Is your daughter still in Primary School? Why does she have access to social media, I don’t even let my 12 year old have social media and won’t even download it on his phone. He needs my password to do so. If she’s in high school you need to approach the school and make a complaint why did no one stop this lady. Sounds like a similar situation to what happened with my niece except the lady went to my sisters house and started abusing me niece through a locked screen door. Then tried to claim she didn’t mean it. Except my niece is old enough to access social media and understand consequences to her actions. For a moment I thought you were taking about a Kindy mum going ape at your child for hitting or something but then you mentioned social media 😬
She has fb messenger because most of our family live interstate so that's how she communicates with them when I am not home, and that is the only Way of communication she has with her father.(long story)
You sound so naive, like that’s why she wants social media. You need to wake up.
Not naive at all, did you not read the part where its how she keeps in contact with her father? Its the only form of contact they have with him and even that is minimal.
Do you have parental settings and restrictions on? Do you monitor it so you also see every single message and contact? Time to get tech savvy
I do log in and check her messages from time to time and to make sure she doesnt have any one on there she shouldn't. I do have to admit though I hadn't checked it in a few weeks so I hadn't seen that conversation. I have now and don't condone what went on at all. She has now been banned from social media until she can prove she is responsible enough to use it in the right way and do the right thing.
I’m so glad you came on here, although you got some unexpected and probably unwelcome responses, you took it on board and made changes. It says a lot about you and your character, your daughter is lucky to have you in her life.
Thanks. I knew I would get a range or responses, lets face it everyone has a difference of opinion. As I said I know she isn't an angel and what they all did on this chat was wrong. I do not condone that behaviour and when I found out was extremely disappointed. I was just furious that another parent could behave this way toward a child, in no way was I defending my daughters behaviour although to some it may have appeared that way.
So what was happening before she yelled at her if she said don't touch my daughter again? And why was someone recording it, they do that when there's a fight so I'm kind of thinking your daughter was involved and trying to fight this girl and Mum intervened, as most mums would. I think you need to do a bit more investigating into your daughter's involvement. Messages can be deleted too and there could be more than one group chat.
Nothing was happening this woman went in to where my child was and started yelling at her. Her child wasnt even present. There wasn't someone there recording, the video was footage from a store. No my daughter wasnt involved in the name calling or pushing of this other child i have the messages and even the other parent admitted that it wasn't my daughter who called her names or pushed her hence my frustration.. This abuse toward my daughter was wks after the fact . It started as a friendly chat as they were all friends and then something was mentioned about one of the girls pushing her in a game they were playing at school. My daughter left the conversation because she was fed up. Im not saying my daughter is innocent. As i said in my post she did reply to a nasty pic that was sent and sent one back which I have spoken to her about. I am aware the messages can be deleted as in the screen shots half the messages her daughter sent has message deleted written under her name where she has deleted what she sent, none of my daughters were deleted everything she said in that conversation were still there.
Sounds like a very angry mum who has watched her child being bullied and hurt over a period of time. I think you need to open your eyes. You don’t have to hit or physically hurt someone to exclude them and make their life a nightmare at school. My first response to this would be to ask my child what the hell was really going on at school. You first response is to get angry at the mother. You’re a mum, you know how protective we are towards our kids, sounds like your daughter is in with a group of mean girls and although not the instigator, not the innocent bystander either. You keep going on about one event and one pic, I think it goes a lot further than these incidences,. Maybe your daughter got a taste of her own medicine. You also can’t not tolerate issues you don’t know about, now it’s out in the open, are you really going to do something about it?
I’d be going through the school principal.
My son starts primary school next year and the thing I liked most about his school and why I picked it, was how proactive they are about getting to the bottom of bullying. Schools can’t really completely block off any bullying from happening, but they can have foundations in place to stop things going any further.
I wouldn’t be speaking to the mother myself. I’d be going through the school because it’s pretty much a school matter.
Think your furious- imagine how furious she must have been to do this. I think you need to pull your head out of the sand and start looking at this objectively. And for Christ sake - your daughter does NOT need to be on social media- that is asking for trouble.
I dont need to pull my head out of anywhere thanks. I have been on the other end of this also so I know exactly how it feels except I dealt with it in the right manner not by approaching and yelling and swearing at the child.
You can focus on that or you can focus on raising your child to be a good person.
This is exactly why kids get away with it, the parents are in denial.
The parents that say they won’t tolerate, yeah right, then it happens and their little angel is innocent.
She has not gotten away with anything. She has had to face the consequences of her actions. I know she is not completely innoncent and that she did play some part in this I just dont belive the other parent went the right way about dealing with it.
Don’t go projecting YOUR experiences on to this incident.
I was not meaning to project my past experiences just trying to point out that there is a right and wrong way to deal with this kind of situation. In no way am I condoning any of my daughters behaviour in this and she has had to face the consequences of her actions. I am just frustrated about the way the other parent went about the situation. There are better ways to deal with the sitution other then yelling and swearing at an 11yr old. She could have gone to the school or approached me and spoken about the matter. I knew nothing of what was happening until my daughter came home in tears.
I agree it probably wasnt the best way to go about things, but it might have taught her a very valuable lesson. We can talk to the cows come home with our kids, but something like this might really wake her up. In the real world, people are unpredictable and there will be real consequences for your actions, she’s learnt that lesson young and can take this with her throughout life.
Sounds like the other mum is at the end of her tether with the bullying that your daughter actively participated in (even if she then backed off and apologised). I think you need to explain to your daughter that she feels victimised after 1 event from 1 person where she wasn't touched. Imagine how the other child feels. Tell your daughter the mum was out of place and that she is safe, but that she needs to learn a lesson from this. You can be angry at the mum (and express that) without losing your capacity to empathise
Wow , mind blown !
Op I would be contacting the school and advising them of this and the issues with the children and then contacting the police . In no way shape or form is it acceptable for an adult / parent to abuse someone else’s child ...
Police? For speaking with a loud volume and using adult words? I agree it wasn't appropriate but the police can't do a damned thing. Involving them is wasting their time and resources. Depending on what the picture the daughter shared was though, she may have broken an actual law...
No. You send your kids to school to be safe, no adult should approach them aggressively or verbally abuse or threaten them. In no way is that ok, and yes they can do something, sorry if you think it's not that serious.
I agree with all of that. Except for the fact that it's not illegal and police have no role in circumstances like this. Let them do their actual job.
It is illegal. You cannot go onto a school and approach and shout at a child.
Actually you couldn't do it to an adult either, and they would call the police also.
She is a parent, not a trespasser. And if speaking loudly (which is what shouting is) is illegal, tell me, what is the charge???
It wasn't at a school, it was at a shop.
Obviously, it's not an ideal way to go about these things but this mum has probably been doing all the right things to try and address this for so long, her emotions likely got the better of her. Because let's be real, going through the schools/teachers to deal with bullying (particularly cyber bullying) does jack shit!
I would let the principal know this happened because it is innapropriate but this is a teachable moment for your daughter.
She chose to involve herself in this bullying instance it doesn't matter how small that involvement, she was also irresponsible with her social media usage, she is not a victim - she faced a consequence of those choices. A little taste of that medicine will teach her a huge lesson about these things for next time. If you go and turn this around so your kid is the victim, she's not going to learn how to be held accountable or responsible for her actions. She's going to learn that she can treat people like shit but then cry "poor me" when she's called out on it!
I get that you're angry but the way you handle this will help build the type of person she becomes. She's still learning and figuring all this out, make sure you point her in the right direction!
She shouldn't have yelled at your daughter. She should of approached you and brought the issue to your attention (and the other parents of the girls involved) or the school principal.
Obviously she is at her wits end with her daughter being bullied online. Perhaps her daughter is too scared to go to school because of it. Maybe shes coming home crying hysterically because they won't leave her alone. Who knows? You only got to see one incident on the messenger app.
But now the mum has gone and reacted like this, its kind of made you so focused on your daughter being a victim of this mother's outrage, that you can't see the entire picture. But hey! Thats fare enough! Your motherly defenses have gone up and your acting protectivly....I guess so did that other mum. But she didn't follow through in a reasonable adult way.
So now your faced with options.
1. You speak to the principal. They can address the bullying issue the girls are engaging in and speak to the other mum and her reaction.
2. You can limit her social media. Yes she uses messenger to contact her dad. I get that because we have a similar arrangement. But she uses it for more than that, so is there a way to limit it to contact time only, or you having regular access to it to make sure she/her friends are behaving?
3. Put your daughter in counselling at school. It was quite distressing for her! Make sure the counsellor is aware of the group chat. Your daughter may have had limited engagement in the nastiness, but a counsellor could help her learn how to navigate if a sitiation like that arises again.
Good luck. Xxx
Have you seen the video footage from the shop?
No but I have spoken with staff. I spoke with Management before I proceeded with anything as I know my daughter can Over react sometimes when she is frustrated or upset. Management confirmed the footage showed the woman in my daughters face waving her hand around and looked like she was yelling at her and looked angry, other staff members confirmed that the woman walked in approached my daughter and started yelling in her face. One of the staff memebers stated that it was really bad and the lady was screaming in my daughters face and swearing at her.
Why message the mother nicely? Contact the school and the police. That's not on.
Yep great idea, then the police can take both parties phones and download the full picture and see what this mother is actually upset about. God damn sometimes you have to accept your child has been a little shit and be grateful someone else was willing to call her on it because sure as shit she wasn’t going to dob herself in.
When I was in high school I had rocky friendships with my BFF and their were times I was a bitch to her, nasty piece of work. You know who pulled me up - her mother! And I have never forgotten it. My mum was blissfully unaware and did nothing but apologise to her mum for my behaviour. It was a well executed lesson, maybe before you going making your daughter the victim you should consider the lesson this woman has taught your daughter.
Thats fine. Hold them all accountable. I know if my child was ever involved in a bashing video she would be grounded forever and social media cancelled. She can lose her privilege and learn that way. Figure out how to make a monitored phone call or miss communicating for a month. No excuses.
I also know if any adult ever abused my child they would have police to answer to. You teach people how to treat you and you teach your children what's ok and what's not and what to do when it's not.
There was no bashing. . The kids were playing a game of rugby at school and one of the girls got pushed (not by my daughter). The video footage is from a store of the woman going in and getting in my childs face yelling amd waving her hands around in her face. Her dad won't give is his number and won't answer calls through fb so messenger is her only option. For the time being though she is banned and that means she can't speak to him for a bit but thats on her.
Ok my.apologies. sounds like you're taking it all seriously. Does sound like there's a whole mess of girl bullying going on there that needs addressing and sorting.
Msg him and let him know. Suggest he phones your mobile and has it set to private so that he can talk to her.
If you haven't already, go to the school principal asap.
DO NOT engage with the other parents.