disrespect

Disrespected completely

My story starts off last September when my Son was taking his cousin to school every morning.  His Mom would drop him off at my house about 20 – 30 minutes before leaving for school.  Since my son was leaving at the same time my 7 year old daughter went to school I was having him take her to school also.  My son has always played extremely rough with Faith so she was used to playing that way with boys.  Well she was way too rough for the Jr High school age cousin.  During the month of September he was injured by the toy horse she hit him with.  She also hurt his arm in a tussle.   I was not told any of this was going on until about a month later when my daughter broke down crying and told me her cousin wouldn’t talk, or even look at her.  I finally got the scoop and we disciplined my daughter and explained that she was not to play rough with the older boy any longer.  She was truly sorry and apologized to the cousin and knows now that he wouldn’t be her friend if she was too rough.  She plays nicely with everyone now.  His mom confessed and said that she shouldn’t have told her son to ignore my daughter and not talk to her.  When I asker her about this she said that she should have told me this was going on every morning since it was my home and that she would talk to her boy about not ignoring my daughter anymore.

My Niece continued to drop her son off every morning and seemed happy about it.  She never mentioned any problems and I thought that she had talked to her son about being passive aggressive to my daughter.  I trusted that she had a talk with him and thiat the situation was over.

After the fact my niece told me her son had been continuing to call and text her every morning,  numerous times  accusing my 7 year old of saying mean things to him,  hitting and pushing and poking him.  My niece never told me of not one of these accusations and they went on for 7 more months.  My two teenagers swear that my 7 year old daughter did not say anything mean to him or hurt him in any way during this time as they were there every morning.    They did say that they thought he was just depressed because he was being mistreated at his Jr high and that kids were saying mean things to him every day.  His Mom did tell me about this treatment at the Jr High though and that he texted her about being picked on daily and constantly.  She said that he would start texting her as soon as he arrived at his school in the morning.  I was unaware that she was actually getting calls as soon as she dropped him off at my house complaining about my 7 year old also.  She didn’t tell me about that until much later.  She eventually pulled him out of jr high and put him in a home school program.

 My niece told me she had given her son daily instructions to ignore and not speak to my 7 year old when entering into my house.  When she told me this I was so shocked that she had lied to me earlier I couldn’t even talk about it.  I trusted her when she said she would have a talk to him.  Anyway, he followed her orders and also rolled his eyes every time my little girl spoke.  He wouldn't look at her or speak to her even if she spoke to him.  Even so, my little girl was so excited to see him every morning and was so crazy about him that she never mentioned the abuse to me but she did tell me that she thought if she kept talking to him and trying to get him to respond to her he might start to like her and be her friend. 

This boy sent a text one Saturday morning to my teenager saying how my little one had said so many mean things to him the day before.  My teenager was there and witnessed nothing but good behavior from her that day and called him on it.  That is how I finally found out about his behavior.

 I was so deeply hurt that his mother never told me about the accusations and that she instructed him to be so mean toward my little girl.  When I asked her why she didn't tell me of any of this for so long she insisted that it was none of my business and that the kids should be allowed to work this out by themselves. 

I disagree and think parenting means not letting the children parent themselves but guide them to do what is right. Sometimes that means intervening.   She shouldn't be teaching her Son to be passive agressive toward anyone.  I also feel since she was dropping him off at my house every morning it was my business.  He was being driven daily in one of my cars, with insurance and registration and gas that I paid every penny for.  But worse, he was waiting around for about 20 minutes every morning before going to school in MY house behaving this way.

If she felt she had to keep this a secret instead of trying to work out the problem she should have dropped him off at someone else's house.  There are plenty of day cares in our city.  This has been bothering me so bad because I trusted her and she acts like she has done nothing wrong here. 

Trust your intuition.  Deep down I knew something wasn’t right. I had no idea about all the secrets being kept.  It saddens me so much to think that her Jr high aged cousin would spread rumors to other people about my daughter under the encouragement of his Mother and that his mother could even entertain the idea that this was none of my business.

Even if my daughter was saying mean things, hitting, and pushing then I should be told.  And she would be punished and she would apologize for these things.  This is not a time to keep secrets.

Again, trust your intuition.  I overheard this niece around the time of these events mention how well she keeps many secrets. She was so proud of that fact and at the time I remember thinking well that’s not always a good thing.  Boy if only I had listened to my inner voice trying to warn me.