I’m struggling to remain friendly at pickup/drop off with my 4 year olds bully’s mom.
The title. Today we had an event at school and she’s a nice enough woman but she and her husband do not parent their child. She kept trying to make small talk with me and I obliged to a degree. I was polite but also possibly a little curt/to-the-point.
Their child is 5 and mine is newly 4. My child comes home constantly telling me about the mean things this other child has done to them. (Pushing, hitting, kicking, trying to push other kids off the playground) I came to find out at play dates with their friends other parents/guardians have experienced the same. Somehow one child for the last 3 months has managed to terrorize 19 other kids. Many of us congregate afterschool together and we found out the bully child hadn’t been at school for a week last week. A little girl from my child’s class announced it was the best week ever because “bully child’s name” was not there and she didn’t have to protect herself. Another child chimed in “class is so calm without bully there”. None of the parents prompted this conversation other than “how was your day”.
Mom and dad of bully are barely parenting at all. We had a play date with them end of September and I quickly gauged my child was uncomfortable and the bully child had violent and very unkind tendencies so we never followed up. The teachers seem extremely aware of the situation, several times our child has been reminded not to use their hands and come to a teacher yet there seems to be no consequences for this other child and some how they are still in this class.
We as parents have been very careful not to say anything negative about this child in front of ours in case there are issues we don’t know about. However today was the last straw. This kid pushed mine off the swings on purpose, the parents watched and did nothing. My kid did nothing to deserve it, and then the bully kid took the swing. My child, frustrated said “that wasn’t nice xyz”, he walked away. I announced, “you’re right, that wasn’t nice, I’m sorry that happened”, looking to the parents who watched their child do this again to another child. After the event, my child asked why this kid never gets in trouble.
It’s a really small preschool and I am not sure how to deal with a mom who is obviously overwhelmed but not parenting their child who is hurting my own kids education and feelings pretty daily.
Has anyone dealt with this before?
tdlr: Bully kid picks on my kid and mom wants to be friends