Drama between kids

[Disney Doll]

here's how my mother would have handled this situation:

"If you and Susie can't get along, then I expect you to stay away from her and ignore her. If she says or does something mean to you in school, tell the teacher. And when you are not in school, there will be no playing with or talking to Susie. if you two can't get along, then you'll stay out of each other's way".

 

[perdidochas]

I can't believe you called the other parent over this. Yes, you are unreasonable.

So Susie is a snot. Teach your dd how to handle snotty comments.

When a bratty kid says something snotty, you give your dd a hug and then move on with life.

It sucks, but that is life. Your dd needs to learn how to handle situations like this without you getting involved. You can talk things out with her but she does need to solve things on her own.

Harsh, but correct. Parents being involved in this (unless they are already friends) isn't helpful. If the OP had a good relationship (i.e. talked regularly) with the parent before this issue, talking it between the four might help--with the mother's goals being resolving the problem. That's not going to occur here. Mothers being involved will just escalate it.

 

[SaraJayne]

here's how my mother would have handled this situation:

"If you and Susie can't get along, then I expect you to stay away from her and ignore her. If she says or does something mean to you in school, tell the teacher. And when you are not in school, there will be no playing with or talking to Susie. if you two can't get along, then you'll stay out of each other's way".

Now that's just spooky. That's almost word for word what I told DD.

 

[need2cruise]

Spin off to the mean girl threads:

How do you handle bullying in middle school? What about cyber bullying? Should you inform the prinicipal or let the child deal with until it reaches a point they can no longer handle it? What if the child who is bullying is making threats to physcially harm your child, would you get involved somehow?

 

[BeefJerky]

Let the kids work it out amongst themselves. I am sure that there are two sides to the story and if I know kids, Susie probably wasn't the only one acting up in this mess.

Also it's not correct to call another kid a snowflake when the mom is taking the sensible approach.

 

[Magpie]

Spin off to the mean girl threads:

How do you handle bullying in middle school? What about cyber bullying? Should you inform the prinicipal or let the child deal with until it reaches a point they can no longer handle it? What if the child who is bullying is making threats to physcially harm your child, would you get involved somehow?

How do I handle bullying in middle school? Exactly as I posted earlier. I coach my kids to handle it themselves. With one addition - I make sure that if there's a serious problem that the kids are documenting EVERY incident. Names, dates, witnesses. My school has a three strikes policy, but the first 20 offences don't count if no one reports them. My kids learned that when they had to deal with a bus bully. Then ended up having to put up with two additional attacks before they could get him thrown off the bus, all because they didn't report him to an adult right away. Just mentioning it to any teacher would have been enough to start the countdown on that kid.

Cyber bullying is... awesome! It's traceable and recordable. Even if the bully tries to delete what they wrote, a screencap can preserve it for all eternity. I love cyber bullying. It's so much easier to deal with than cruel words no one else hears. And middle school kids are notoriously dumb about covering their cyber-tracks (it get trickier in high school).

I try to let my child deal with it first. I offer advice. My kids have even written their own letters of complaint and arranged their own meetings with the principal. If my child can't deal with it or if I feel it's getting dangerous, then I contact the teacher by letter. That's followed by a face-to-face meeting with the teacher. If things don't improve in short order, then I contact the principal. If THAT doesn't resolve the issue, and if I feel my child is suffering or is in real danger, then I pull my child out of the school.

I will not leave my child in an environment where they are being abused. I've never forced either of my children to go to school - they both know they're there by choice.

And yes - if there are threats of physical violence, then darn right I get involved. I take that sort of thing very seriously, and I expect the school to do so as well.

 

[need2cruise]

How do I handle bullying in middle school? Exactly as I posted earlier. I coach my kids to handle it themselves. With one addition - I make sure that if there's a serious problem that the kids are documenting EVERY incident. Names, dates, witnesses. My school has a three strikes policy, but the first 20 offences don't count if no one reports them.

Cyber bullying is... awesome! It's traceable and recordable. Even if the bully tries to delete what they wrote, a screencap can preserve it for all eternity. I love cyber bullying. It's so much easier to deal with than cruel words no one else hears. And middle school kids are notoriously dumb about covering their cyber-tracks (it get trickier in high school).

I try to let my child deal with it first. I offer advice. My kids have even written their own letters of complaint and arranged their own meetings with the principal. If my child can't deal with it or if I feel it's getting dangerous, then I contact the teacher by letter. That's followed by a face-to-face meeting with the teacher. If things don't improve in short order, then I contact the principal. If THAT doesn't resolve the issue, and if I feel my child is suffering or is in real danger, then I pull my child out of the school.

I will not leave my child in an environment where they are being abused. I've never forced either of my children to go to school - they both know they're there by choice.

And yes - if there are threats of physical violence, then darn right I get involved. I take that sort of thing very seriously, and I expect the school to do so as well.

Thanks for replying, I wondered what happened to my post because I thought I had posted as a new thread and didn't mean to hi-jack this thread!

 

[PlutosFriend]

Spin off to the mean girl threads:

How do you handle bullying in middle school? What about cyber bullying? Should you inform the prinicipal or let the child deal with until it reaches a point they can no longer handle it? What if the child who is bullying is making threats to physcially harm your child, would you get involved somehow?

Thanks for replying, I wondered what happened to my post because I thought I had posted as a new thread and didn't mean to hi-jack this thread!

Threats are different! I would get involved with that. If I didn't, and something happened, I would never forgive myself.

 

[esbrick]

At that age, I always told my daughter that your actions speak the truth MUCH louder than your words. And your actions are your best defense against mean people.

I never tried to figure out who was in the right and who was in the wrong when my daughter got into conflicts with people. There's always two sides to every story. Instead, I coached my daughter on taking the high road.

"When someone says something mean, simply roll your eyes, and walk away." (Other options include "amused chuckle", "tolerant smile" and "shake your head and sigh". We practiced! )

"Go to a teacher or adult, if they persist in following you and saying mean things. Stay calm. Don't let them see weakness."

"Never take the bait. You're a little girl, not a big-mouth bass."

"If someone's trying to assassinate your character, make sure your actions are always above reproach."

"Ignore the obnoxious girls and work on your friendships with the others."

"Watch people. Look for an opportunity to be helpful, even if it's just offering a sharp pencil right after another girl's pencil lead breaks."

"Make eye contact. Smile."

"NEVER say anything mean about another person."

"You can't change other people. You can only change yourself."

Kids aren't stupid. They know who the nice kids are. And people who are absolutely secure in themselves are very attractive to their peers. If you can teach your daughter how to handle these situations now, she'll be better equipped to handle them on her own when she's older and you can't be there.

Good luck!

Magpie ~ I think your advice here was fantastic. I hope you don't mind but I posted it to another thread for someone who had questions about bullying. Your thoughts and advice on how to empower our children with out malice is dead on! Thanks so much for sharing! I plan on going over some of these points with my own DD this week.

 

[Magpie]

Magpie ~ I think your advice here was fantastic. I hope you don't mind but I posted it to another thread for someone who had questions about bullying. Your thoughts and advice on how to empower our children with out malice is dead on! Thanks so much for sharing! I plan on going over some of these points with my own DD this week.

You're welcome! I'm glad I could help.

 

[mickeyboat]

I got heavily involved in one of my girl's squabbles when she was 8. I am friends with the other girl's mom, and we emailed and talked about it a lot. But I found that I was so much more emotionally invested in the issue than the girls were, and that my involvement didn't help solve anything. It actaully made things worst and made DD not want to tell me what was going on because I was pretty hard on her about it.

Summer came and the girls got over it, and are best of friends now.

But I learned a valuable lesson. When my kids ask, I will advise them about what they might do when they are having problems with a friend. If they can't resolve it on their own, I tell them to talk to a teacher or the guidance counselor. Otherwise I tell them to find someone else to hang out with for a while. Most of the time it blows over and they are back to being "besties" within hours.

We are heavily into electronic communications these days, which is a whole new can of worms. But I think since I backed off on getting too involved, they are a lot more likely to talk to me about what is going on.

Now if there was a true bullying situation, I would not hesitate to get involved, and I would not stop until the bullying stopped. I keep close tabs on the kids texts and computer usage. And I insist the girls look out for one another and tell me if something really awful is going on.

Good luck, OP!