My 8Yr. Old 3Rd Grade Son Has a Class Mate He Calls a Friend.

My son went through this last year. I told him to say then don't be my friend. I also reminded him how true friends act and gave him examples of other friends. Some mom's told me this kid is a bully and a rotten kid. I told my son others said he was mean and a bully and he felt better that is want just him. I always tell him that real friends aren't nice only when they want to be or want something.

Sure thing.
Beat him to the punch line.
If the friend says he'll 'unfriend' your kid - your kid says "Ok! Fine! Bye!" and plays with someone else.
The only power this power play has is the power your son gives him.
If your son gives it the attention it deserves - like none at all - then it's over and done with.

This is so normal. He and the other kids in his class are learning how to navigate their social world. My son is in 3rd grade, and I can't tell you how many times he said some kid is his friend or isn't his friend anymore or is only his second best friend or some girl is his girlfriend (whatever that means in 3rd grade) or isn't his girlfriend anymore. I honestly can't keep up with it all :-)

I just listen. When something is upsetting him I empathize and say things like, "I bet that makes you sad," or "That wasn't very nice, was it?" I think it's important to let him know that I hear him and understand his feelings. It's also important for him to be able to identify if another kid is hurting. Other than that I just let him be. He needs to figure these things out for himself. I can't do much other than listen and ask him questions if I think he's not seeing the whole picture.

If I thought my son was in any danger, of course I would step in or talk to his teacher or something. But really, for the most part the kids need to work these things out for themselves.

Your son could just tell this friend "oh well" or "you do what you have to do"

I'm just curious, but how is the school on top of this? It hardly seems like a major issue worthy of the teacher's attention.

Ah, kids who've adopted the vocabulary of Facebook to "unfriend" in real life!

Your son takes back the control. He decides, with your help to verbalize his feelings, whether he wants to be "friends" with someone who is bossy and threatening. You, together, define "friend". Then rather than grovel for acceptance or cave in the face of threats, your son takes action himself. There are other fish in the sea.

The teachers and school don't need to be on top of playground friendships, only outright bullying. Help your son find other friends. Ask him to list the kids in the class who don't play these games, Ask him what it says about someone that they need to threaten and bully an manipulate. I think your son will feel much better, and so will you. It's not up to your son to make this kid happy. He needs to make himself happy, and learn what it means to make choices in social relationships. It's not about making this other kid into a nice and accepting person.

The best response your son can make is a calm, "So?" and turn away. A kid can't manipulate someone who doesn't care about the outcome.

sorry, i think it's ridiculous to label someone not wanting to be your son's friend as 'bulling'. bullying is serious and needs to be addressed. the tendency to label 'anything my kid doesn't like' as 'bullying' is an issue. it indicates in my mind a degree of parental laziness. instead of working with one's child on how to be strong and resilient and discerning, it's so much easier just to make it every other kid's fault.

so the 'bulling' that's not 'excepted' in your realm is not the problem. the problem is that you're not actually wanting to do what your (sensible) question asks, which is how to take the power out of the threat.

instead of running to the school and expecting them to police all the other kids, i'd keep this one very light. i'd listen carefully and quietly while he told me how he felt about this other boy. i'd ask leading questions like 'how do you behave to other kids with whom you'd like to be friends?' then 'and is this how this boy was acting? no? so is he really a friend?'

and i'm very put off by you insisting that YOUR kid is being bullied, but being just fine with all the other boys excluding the 'bull' to the point that he was in tears. so your kid can be a 'bull' and it's great when he makes another kid cry?

now, i actually think that the exclusion is a perfect response. the other kids are doing exactly what the wolfpacks have always done- hazed unacceptable behavior and handled it in the herd-or-exclude fashion that humans have always done. the social media 'unfriending' is just the next step in the ongoing paradigm.

so the kids are handling it, your son is handling it, but you still feel the need to micromanage all the behaviors.

THAT is what i see as the problem.
khairete
S.

Tell your son that a real friend doesn't threaten friends to get their way. I would not involve the school. This is for the kids to work out.

The term "bullying" is way overused. It is to the point now that if a kid looks at another kid cross-eyed or something then the other kid calls out "bully". We deal with this at our school because kids are claiming bully when technically it is just children who are establishing pecking order in the group.

A lot of the interaction you spoke about is normal 8 year old behavior.

A tool we used was to teach our daughter to stand up for herself. If someone said, 'I won't be your friend", she said bye. We had a neighbor kid who would come play and want to take toys home and when daughter said no, the neighbor would say "then I won't be your friend".. Daughter's attitude was ok, you are not my friend then because I am not giving you my toys.

The school had NOTHING to do with these interactions and I would never have consulted the school unless something physical happened AT the school.

In the end, daughter ended up being a black belt and martial arts was something that truly helped her throughout her school years. She had a voice and was not afraid to speak up and use it.

Teach your child to have that voice, use it. People who get manipulated are people who allow it to happen to themselves.

Well when my kids complained about someone being mean or controlling I just talked to them about what it means to be a good friend, and why would you want to play with that kid anyway?
Common sense dictates that your kid simply finds better friends.
But you said it yourself, in your SWH, that your son likes this kid, and doesn't understand the unacceptable behavior.
How is that the school's problem?
Sorry mama, but that's on YOU.

This is not unusual. I'm not a fan of this behavior or condone it, but your son needs to learn how to be in control because he will be confronted with this behavior throughout his life until the person get zero control with the threat. My best advice is calling the boy's bluff. Of course the kid wants to be his friend, yet he also wants his way. You son needs to say no if all the activities are one-sided.

My son has a friend who does this almost every other day. I think of it as a primal behavior because this boy is not doing well with academics. He seems to control a lot of little 8 years olds with these threats of "I'm not going to sit with you if you don't do X for me." or "I don't like John, so you need to pick me or him."

This other kids may grow out of it or turn into an adult a$$hole. You need to focus on your son and helping him find skills to handle these situations.

It is kind of funny you involved the school about this.

So all the boys bullied this one kid but he is the bully for saying he doesn't want to be your son's friend. Makes perfect sense.

I would just take a step back and let it work itself out.

Time to explain to your son what is a friend and what is not a friend. Tell him a real friend does not treat you this way.

HE'S 8!!!

For crying out loud. This is developmentally normal behavior for an 8 year old. Children aren't born knowing how to navigate friendships. They try and test. They say "Well I'm not gonna be your best friend anymore." It's not bullying. It's normal kid stuff.

Back up and quit being so involved in your 8 year olds personal relationships. Your expectations of 8 year old kids are unreasonable.

Hmm. I agree with the moms below. And I really like what Gidget said about listening to your child's feelings. You mention how relieved your son was that he was not the only child being unfriended. And that he was relieved he could let someone know about it.

If your son felt uncomfortable or unhappy because a child didn't want to be his friend .. that's totally understandable and I get that. I guess the only thing I would say is you won't be able to go and change every kid that does this to your child in the future. The school can't (and shouldn't in my opinion) get involved every time. So I agree with the moms below - you still have to tell your child what he can and should do if this happens again.

Explain that it's his 'friend's' loss if he doesn't want to be friends. There are better friends out there. Focus on your real friends. You don't have to be friends with anyone who is unkind to you, etc.

So just make sure to get that message across. I'm sure you already have, but that way your child will be able to go forward with the confidence to be able to handle these kinds of situations, and not have to rely on others to step in. Because I agree, our school would not have gotten involved here. Physical contact (unwanted) yes. I can understand that part. And outright targeted meanness as a group ... yes. But this is one kid who sounds a bit troubled. It's ok to mention it to a teacher (if it's a consistent problem) perhaps - in case the other child is having issues, but I would still expect my child to deal with the problem mostly.

Good luck :) Glad you got it resolved.

You have "addressed this with the school and they are on top of it?" Why?
Schools cannot and should not be responsible for policing individual student friendships. Talk to your son about kindness. Then let him work this out!
Making him the kid who's mom goes to the principal anytime he has a social conflict certainly WON'T cut down on unkindness headed in his direction.
If your son has larger generalized difficulty making, keeping, and navigating friendships, the school may get involved there and involve him in social skills group or small group counseling etc. However, that's an issue that won't be solved with advice on this situation. If not, time to step back.

I appear to be in the minority that it's okay to contact the school about this. Not in a "this is bullying" kind of way but in a "my son is having problems with this and I want you to know about it" way. All the teachers my kids had in elementary school actually wanted to know if something was going on that affected how my children would perform in school. And while this isn't on the level of divorcing parents, things can seem a much bigger deal to an 8 yr old than to an adult. The school being "on top of it" may be as simple as the teacher redirecting the son to a different partner during schoolwork or not seating the two kids together when it's time to change the room around. Or the playground monitor just keeping an extra eye on these boys now that they are aware of the situation - an adult calling them out on behavior can have a big effect (not a to-the-office response, but simply a that's-not-nice response), and the adults just need to know to watch out for it.

And if this is just one of many complaints multiple parents have lodged against the unfriending boy, it may alert the school to the need for this boy to have some sessions with the counselor. Or it may be a chance for the school to talk to his parents to make them aware of something they had no idea was going on (if my kids were doing that I would certainly hope someone would alert me).

My kids have run across friends like this and I've just kept a constant dialogue going about how "real friends" act to each other. And I've told my kids to call someone out on poor behavior (a "friend" told my son his drawing was stupid; I told my son to flat out say "why would you say something so mean?" - even if he didn't have the guts to respond that way at least it got him thinking about why he wanted to be friends with someone who said mean things to him). Good luck to your little one.

Your SWH was very helpful and really explained why this was more than a simple case of a boy saying, "You're not my friend," and then being a best friend the next - which really is an everyday occurrence in grade school.

I understand your frustration, but how about you go back and read your original post. It really didn't give much detail or any indication that this was anything more than typical 3rd grade boy behavior.

You (and the school) need to get a handle on what bullying is because this isn't it. This isn't "controlling behavior." This is typical kid stuff. And by getting the school and everyone else involved, you are sending a message to your son that EVERYONE has to like him or they should get in trouble. You are not teaching him how to navigate the real world. And BTW, this is America. That child has freedom of speech and if he wants to say he won't be someone's friend, then he has a right to say that. You need to teach your son not to listen or take this sort of talk to heart. Throughout his lifetime people are going to say things to him that he doesn't like or that cause him anxiety or stress. It's your job to help him learn to deal with it.