Feeling really sad for my son right now....

[jenL]

That would bother me too. To me what is worse in these situations is the parental reaction. I would chalk it up to a "she'll know the truth someday" thing and distance myself from the friendship. Likely she'll hear it from another person in the future as this behavior usually won't go away when parents are oblivious to it. Sorry that it happened. I would be feeling really sad for my ds too. :grouphug:

 

:iagree::grouphug:to both of you.

[IsabelC]

Sorry that happened to your boys. It really hurts to see somebody hurting your kid, and even more when the other mother refused to acknowledge it.

[Laurie4b]

I get where you're coming from. In most other situations, I probably would have chosen to deal with it only with my son. However, we've been in contact with this group of friends for a long time, and in the context of this particular friendship/group, it was an appropriate conversation to have. I did approach it as a group problem, without accusing my friend's son or any of the other boys. Also, I chose to bring it up because of the other boy, the one I overheard. It told me that the group was continuing to play this way, and likely needed to be redirected.

 

These kinds of posts and thoughts help me to clarify my thoughts. Thank you. :)

 

 

 

:iagree: :iagree: :iagree:

 

This is where we are, exactly. It's up to ds right now. I do wonder if the friend might be feeling bad, no matter what part he actually played. As a matter of fact, at the second gathering, the friend was a little tentative at first talking to ds11's brothers (who followed strict instructions NOT to bring the issue into the second party and played with him just fine) and avoided talking to me for the most part, which is unusual for him. FTR, I also followed my strict instructions and treated him as warmly as I usually do, mostly because I think he's a usually nice kid who made a mistake and partly because the focus of the second party was to celebrate another friend and everyone should be able to enjoy.

 

I don't know why I feel the need to keep explaining. :tongue_smilie: Probably because my sister is out of town, and the friend with whom I usually talk things through is a mutual friend, so I don't have my usual sounding boards. I am still thinking this through, mostly because we do need to decide how we want to handle the future. There's a get-together this week that we've already said we'd attend. Ds11 has a legitmate "out" if he wants to use it, so we'll see what he decides to do.

 

Cat

 

I think it's reasonable to keep him in your friend orbit, though maybe with some caution for a while. I wouldn't necessarily write him off. A lot of times kids who are mean in middle school have matured by high school and are decent human beings again. I remember a note I wrote in middle school that still makes me cringe. It was very mean-- to the mean girl. Got right down on her level. We were all nicer in high school.