Ok, had a really icky parent situation last night and I need some feedback.
Molli is in Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. So on Monday night, we were at practice. Molli and some of her girlfriends were sitting about three seats down from me. I glanced over and noticed one of the girls was crying. The music teacher swooped in and whisked her out of the room. I leaned over and asked Molli what had happened. "She got hurt," was Molli's reply. I let it go. Fast forward to Tuesday night...
Molli and I were sitting in the front row, waiting for practice to start. I notice the hurt girl from the night before (we'll call her Claudia) pointing towards us. Here comes her and her mother. Without any warning this mom gets right into Molli's face and says, "Molli did you hurt Claudia last night????" Molli's eyes get very big. The mom continued. "She says you gave her a snake bite, that is worng Molli, do you hear me??" By now Molli's eyes are welling up with tears. I finally caught my breath, it had all happened so fast. I stood up and said, "Excuse me what is going on here??" She shifted her gaze to me and asked if I was her mother. I replied yes. "Well you need to keep a better watch on your daughter because she is mean and hurt my daughter. I expect that when Claudia comes here she'll be safe and respected but I can see that all parents don't care as much as I do." I was so completely taken aback. I apologized, and had Molli apologized as well. She didn't stop. "I wasn't even here last night, my husband was and I can't believe this happened." This whole time Claudia is standing there with her arms across her chest with this huge smirk on her face, clearly enjoying this whole thing. I apologized again. "Where were you when all this was going on," she demanded. I replied that I was sitting three seats away. I thought back to the previous evening and remembered that Claudia's dad was sitting in the balcony with his hat over his eyes the entire time. I didn't mention this however.I also tried to remember hearing Claudia cry out or anything to suggest that she was in pain, I never heard anything. At this point the director came over and asked if everything was alright. I answered her that everything was fine. "Well not really, but I guess it'll have to do," the evil mother replied. I scooped Molli up, who is now sobbing, and we went out into the hall. I had Molli recount the whole story to me. It turns out that they were all taking turns giving each other snake bites and Claudia was last and cried. I was embarrassed because Molli had clearly been involved and needed to apologize but she was so crushed at having been attacked like that. I was so furious that this mom had done this. She could have waited until the children were on stage and out of earshot and came up to me and said, "I wasn't here last night, but I heard there may have been an altercation between our daughters..." Instead she verbally attacked my six year old. I wish I had responded better. Even though Molli needed to apologize (come to find out Claudia should have apologized as well as she was involved too), there was NO excuse for the mother to do that. I got Molli calmed down and sent her back in to practice. After practice was over, we headed to the door. Claudia and her mom were standing near a teenage girl who is in the show. "That's the girl who hurt me," Claudia said loudly as we passed by. I was so furious. I walked faster knowing that if I even paused for a moment, I'd slug her mom.
So what would you all have done????
5 comments:
i would've slugged her! if i had managed to keep my cool, i would've pulled her aside and very assertively said, if you have any problems with my kid, you come and talk to me about it, and we'll figure it out, but if you ever verbally abuse my kid again, i'll beat your face in! ok, maybe that last part is not the best idea, but you get the picture.regardless of what molli did or didn't do, the mom should've come to you first and let you deal with molli. this is especially true since it wasn't like she caught her in the act, or was intervening in the situation as it was happening. she had no business venting her anger on molli. sometimes adults don't realize how damaging their words are.the little snakebite thing will heal.i bet it was gone on the same day that it happened, but the words will be remembered and processed and in the long run will have done more damage.
Should'a, would'a, could'a... Mandi I'm the exact same as you. Somebody could punch me in the gut and 10 minutes later I'll say "ouch!" It's a hard trait to deal with but I think I would rather be on this end of it considering the flip side means lashing out a little kids.
In the somewhat annoying words of my own mother, perhaps there is a larger picture here with this woman...she's guilty for not being there the night before; she's irritated with the fact that her husband didn't deal with it, etc. Claudia sounds like a good little actress and obviously has mommy convinced she's the victim here. I would suggest that if there is an opportunity to see/speak with this other mom (or possibly even the instructor, as she may have some inside information as well) I would (take a deep breath, straighten my spine) very calmly approach other mom and let her know that "while Molli andI feel terrible about the whole thing, I was able to get the scoop that these little ladies were taking turns giving eachother bites. Mollie has since learned that it's nice a nice game to play. I do, however, ask that any disciplinary action be first directed to me. Because as we can see from this instance alone, there's always another side to the story."
The calmer you can be about it the better - this woman sounds like she could stand to learn a thing or two from somebdody with class about the art of confrontation.
Good luck!!!
My first reaction is for you to go back and calmly talk to her about it and say that her verbal assault took you by such suprise that you didn't know how to react, but you have had some time to think about it and would appreciate that if she has an issue with your child that she either encourage her daughter to talk to molli directly. Or tell her that if she (the mother)wants to take matters into her own hands, she needs to speak only to you. An adult never has the right to reprimand someone elses child, especially in front of the other parent.
However, given a second thought, it doesn't sound like this woman would be receptive to it at all.
The only thing is that it might have been nice for Molli to hear you defend her to this mom. Perhaps talk to Molli about it and let her know that mom was wrong.
I just re-read my comment. when I said mom was wrong I forgot the "the". I didn't mean you were wrong...I meant the other mom. Sorry if it looked otherwise. Sometimes things just don't translate in writing and this was one of those times.
Slugged her mom!
Stopped by from Cliff Morrow's blog.
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