Little brother having a hard time in school...

scoot on

Apologies if mods want to move this from PI but I feel like I need to vent and I thought this was the best place for it. This might be a long and complicated post and I don't even know if i'm looking for advise or just a place to get it off my chest!

So basically, while I was minding my little bro for the weekend he ended up having one of the worst days of his young life. Somebody he considered a friend invited him to a birthday party during the week but never phoned him with the details. He assumed he was still invited and showed up at the house with bday card in hand only to find out that everybody else had already been there for an hour and they abused him for coming along when he wasn't properly invited and told him he ruined the whole day by being there.

But what's getting on my nerves more than anything is that my moms friend who we phoned and asked about the party had a go at my mother in the local shop, in front of my brother, because I apparently put her son in the middle by phoning their house and my little brother sending him a txt asking him was he going to the party.

I feel like absolute **** because I should have copped on that something was up when we got conflicting stories but I just assumed that ppl were after getting their wires crossed! If I hadn't dropped him to the house he wouldn't be in this mess and he wouldn't have spent the week being practically bullied in school and crying his eyes out to my Dad over the whole thing.

Apologies again! But needed to vent!

humanji

It's not your fault for assuming people weren't assholes. You can't blame the kinds becuase they simply don't know better, but if I were you I'd ring up the woman who gave out to my mother, and give her a bollocking for raising her child to bully another and having the cheek to give out to the mother of the bullied child.

Sprouts

Kids can be absolutely horrible to each other, my little nephew (only 7) came home from school recently and told me his classmates call him fat and won't play with him. Hes a great kid, happy and bubbly, what I've learned since is that he spends his lunch breaks in school wandering around alone, breaks my heart.

scoot on

humanji wrote: »

It's not your fault for assuming people weren't assholes. You can't blame the kinds becuase they simply don't know better, but if I were you I'd ring up the woman who gave out to my mother, and give her a bollocking for raising her child to bully another and having the cheek to give out to the mother of the bullied child.

That is exactly what I proposed when I found out about the confrontation on Friday. But my mom won't let me. She said she'll sort it out once things calm down a bit.
To be fair, I can see it from her point of view, her son is VERY overweight and has as far as I know gone through the bullying stage aswell because of this and is now finally being accepted so she's being extremely defensive. I really want to call to her house and explain the whole situation to her and get her to air her grievances at me rather than my mother but I don't know if that will make the whole thing worse.
I just feel so bad for my bro. I know everybody goes through something crappy when their younger because kids can be right arseholes when they want to be but I can honestly put my hand on my heart and say he completely thought he was invited to the party.

scoot on

Sprouts wrote: »

Kids can be absolutely horrible to each other, my little nephew (only 7) came home from school recently and told me his classmates call him fat and won't play with him. Hes a great kid, happy and bubbly, what I've learned since is that he spends his lunch breaks in school wandering around alone, breaks my heart.

It's a complete killer. You know deep down that he'll probably be fine but just the thought they're going through crap like that at such a young age depresses the life out of me. Life isn't supposed to be **** until you hit secondary school.

dr.bollocko

People are bastard coated bastards with bastard filling. There are few things more abhorrent to me, however, than things like this happening to small kids. It's one of the reasons that I may well never have a little Dr. B of my own. I just wouldn't be willing to put him / her through the horribleness of discovering what bastards inhabit the entire world. OP you did nothing wrong. Poor kid.

scoot on

Tbh i'm just glad of the fact that they're on their easter holidays now for two weeks and hopefully it'll blow over. The kids are one thing, but that mother who I've personally known for years and is a really good friend of the families just has me completely gobsmacked. She had a right pop off me because I was in charge of my bro at the time. I'm so tempted to wait until my folks go on holidays next weekend and call up to her for a "chat".

dr.bollocko

:eek::eek:
What kind of a "chat"? Sounds scary to me! Maybe discuss this with the parents too, possibly the lack of communication initially may have exascerbated the issue, and might be best to talk to your parents rather than take things into your own hands.

scoot on

dr.bollocko wrote: »

:eek::eek:
What kind of a "chat"? Sounds scary to me! Maybe discuss this with the parents too, possibly the lack of communication initially may have exascerbated the issue, and might be best to talk to your parents rather than take things into your own hands.

Lol I actually went to edit the chat part but you'd already replied. Duh.
I wouldn't do anything without talking to my folks first. It's their situation to handle not mine. But if it was ok with them I'd like to talk to my mams friend about what happened because I feel really hurt that she had a real go at me (when i wasn't even there to defend myself). I know this woman for years and she knows what I'm like and she should know that I wouldn't set out to case any agro and that it was just a misunderstanding but she really hurt my mam the other day by having a right go at her. When my mam rang me to tell me I could hear her voice actually shaking. One thing she thought would never happen is this woman having a go at her.

WindSock

scoot on wrote: »

they abused him for coming along when he wasn't properly invited and told him he ruined the whole day by being there.

Where where the parents of the child whos party it was when all this was happening? You should go to them and tell them this type of behaviour is disgusting for a child, especially when his friend had invited him in the first place.

Carrigart Exile

A similar thing happened to my daughter when she was 4. All day all of the little kids had been playing together. At 3 pm, my wee one was put out of the 'baitches' garden because she was having her birthday party and everyone was invited except my daughter. Being 4 she kept going back and kept being excluded. Its still heartbreaking to this day thinking about it and whilst I was incandescent with rage it was at the adults who stood back and watched this behaviour.

spurious

Carrigart Exile wrote: »

whilst I was incandescent with rage it was at the adults who stood back and watched this behaviour.

They don't lick it off the stones.
This is all learned behaviour. I'm not sure you'll have much success speaking to parents who have raised children to behave as they did.

TheDriver

Definitely agree with spurious, your brother can learn a big lesson about human nature from this and as horrible as it may seem, the best and biggest thing you can do is walk away without fighting with them, children learn from their parents unforunately.

cathy01

what age is your brother, just wondering , what level of understanding does he have of this.
I would say, say nothing to the other parents.Live and learn.
As for your little brother, have a party for him, tell him to invite hisfriends along.Do not invite the other child.Not to be bad but you don't need the hassle of minding a brat.
Explain as best you can to your brother that we cant like everyone all of the time and that maybe that day , his "friend " wasn't in the humour of been friends with your bro.
Make sure he knows it was nothing that he done.
then, all you really can do is build his self esteem up again.Involve him with other friends, cubs, Scots, things like that.Its easier to be friends with people who you share an interest with.Warhammer club, sport.Been friends with children who you just hang out with can lead to things like this.
Oh, I am specking totally from experience.
My own son , went with a load of friends to the shop to buy sweets for the "party", they got the DVD all went back tot he friends house when the door was shut in his face, he was told he couldn't come in as he was just too annoying.
He went on to be good friends for a while with that child. As a result of that type of behaviour he now HATES any type of bulling. Which is great.
take care,
cathy

spinandscribble

as a child i was pretty badly bullied i wont go into details but i wasnt your typical 'victim', i didnt run to the teachers i sorted it out to the best of my abilty until everyone understood you dont mess with me (without violence of course), it helped being smarter then the bullies and knowing the magic of using words they didnt understand lol. eventually i got on the cases of ppl being bullied and trying to sort it lol. therefore i feel i can speak from experience on this.
the best thing you can do for this boy is yes, speak to the bullys mother, but also talk to your brother about it. hear what he has to say and listen. i knew bullying was wrong from a young age as once when i was very little (7/8), a older boy (12/13) destroyed my favorite hat. when my dad saw it when i got off the bus he drove behind the bus and waited until the boy got off to meet his family and then loudly (but didnt yell i was there) said in front of the parents what right their boy had at doing that? is that the type of thing you've taught him to bully little girls? they were mortified. i never got any trouble from him again but the important part for me was from then on i knew bullying was wrong and any bully deserves to be outed and shamed for what they are. it meant i didnt feel like a victim and would always stand up for myself. your brother clearly feels ashamed that he's being bullied and you need to change that.

JMULL

You say the other womans son is very over weight and used to be bullied. Could it be possible that your brother was one of the kids who made his life tuff and as a result this woman just cant stand the sight of your brother. Maybe ye need to sit down and talk to this woman and get her side of the story. Try and sort it out, but not in a childish manner.

StandnDeliver

the idea of scouts and cubs is a great idea,encourage your little bro, when he does something good make a point of praising him,build his confidence back up.
i didnt find school the best place in the world,i made friends outside of school and looked forward to meeting my other friends.
Maybe comments like sure why would you want to go to the silly party,i bet it was boring,lets do something much better! that may help him feel better.

speaking to your parents is a must,maybe when he is in bed,have a chat over a cup of tea,and explain your concerns. Say how your mams friends is out of order,and bossy and while her concern is noted that her extreme over reaction isnt wanted nor helpful.

good luck OP
Your brother is lucky to have a brother like you!

Lizzykins

The same thing happened to one of my kid's Carrigart about six years ago. The little lad was asked to the party and then then the door was closed in his face. I have not as much as acknowledged the existence of that family from that day to this. Some things I can forgive and forget but not that.

Jeapy

I remember when i about 8 or so, we (my bro, sis and I) were invited to our neighbours bday party. she invited all of her friends in her class at school and not one of them came. they didnt bring the invitations home because they didnt like her and didnt want to go. Ill never forget her waiting all day for them to come and all of the extra sweets that were left over. Kids can be just so cruel. I feel really sorry for both you and your bro, really aint fair. the child whose birthday it was seems to be a sheep. if he was invited in the first place, the birthday child must have wanted him there.

Dudess

All these stories are horrible. A woman once told me about her son who has ADHD handing out birthday invitations and not a single kid showing up - not one. That upset me to the point of tears and I'm not a parent, how can other parents allow it? Are they incapable of putting their child(ren) in the shoes of the kid who has been spurned?
Yes OP, what age is your brother? I think certain parents need to be spoken to about their kids' behaviour. But then, they're probably "how-dare-you-tell-me-how-to-raise-my-child-my-johnny-is-an-angel" types.

scoot on

He's 11, so old enough to know exactly what's going on and for his self esteem to take a massive hit.
Ah it'll all work out it just had me pissed off to the last yesterday. Not so much the kid who's birthday it was, if he wants to act like that it's his loss and i'm sure it'll come back to bite him in the future. It was more my mothers friend that upset me. I know she was probably only protecting her son but she really went on the offensive.

Carrigart Exile

spurious wrote: »

They don't lick it off the stones.
This is all learned behaviour. I'm not sure you'll have much success speaking to parents who have raised children to behave as they did.

That is so true, her mother is a baw faced harridan............oh I feel so much better for saying that:D

Carrigart Exile

Lizzykins wrote: »

The same thing happened to one of my kid's Carrigart about six years ago. The little lad was asked to the party and then then the door was closed in his face. I have not as much as acknowledged the existence of that family from that day to this. Some things I can forgive and forget but not that.

It is absolutely disgusting behaviour and almost certainly done with the compliance of adults

Gordon

This is probably better off in parenting tbh.

anthony4335

Best off to leave it alone, as this might only make things worse, as adults will hold a grudge much longer than the children will. This sort of thing will happen to possibly all children during there life,it does seem to be a matter of time It is how we handle it that defines us in later life. But it does hurt all involved. the best thing is to be supportive of the kid . But if this lady does have a go at you , tear her a new one, but make sure not while you brother is around.

BostonB

Would this not be all avoided if invites were sent out and required a reply, or even a phone call to the parent?

deisemum

Apparently the norm seems to be that parents only reply to invites if their child cannot attend. I was rather taken aback when I started inviting other children to my boys birthdays and wasn't getting replies.

BostonB

deisemum wrote: »

Apparently the norm seems to be that parents only reply to invites if their child cannot attend. I was rather taken aback when I started inviting other children to my boys birthdays and wasn't getting replies.

Laziness is the norm.

deisemum

BostonB wrote: »

Laziness is the norm.

More like bad manners

BostonB

deisemum wrote: »

More like bad manners

Laziness and bad manners.