advice needed for friend's challenging child

amother

Thu, Jun 09 2011, 10:51 pm

I hope this is ok that I am writing this here, how I would loke advice in dealing with someone else's child, not mine....I just hope mothers who have more knowledge/experience in this area can help me.

my lovely neighbor has a challenging child, who sadly doesn't "click" with the kids his/her age. therefore, this kid runs around with younger kids (the kid is 12, mine are 6 and 4...). the problem is that this kid is rough, bullies my kids and their friends, is highly destructive, super chitzpadik, and seems to have limited safety awareness (I've seen the kids really try to hurt someone else badly, another parent had to stop it). the parents of this child do not supervise what goes on outside. over yom tov this child was really having it out on my kids. Today my dds came to me frantically that they are afraid he/she will beat them up. I went to our front porch where the kids had gathered a gang of other kids taunting, throwing things at our house, etc. I asked them to please play some place else they were were just chutzpakik back. I just closed the door and forbade my kids from going outside. after about 1/2 hour, they went away.

I would like to approach the kids mother about this but I dont know how. I imagine life is hard enough, as I mentioned before her kid is very challenging...I think he has a diagnoses, I just don't know what. I'm sure the last thin she needs isme coming and asking her to please take care of this bullying that goes on. however, I also want my kids to be able to play in our front yard freely without getting threatened by her child. what would be the best way to deal with this, without hurting my neighbor in the process?

animeme

Mon, Jun 13 2011, 10:30 pm

As a special needs mom, I very much appreciate your sensitivity to your friend and her feelings.

That being said, while it will be painful for her to know her son is acting in this way, I am confident that she would want to know about it. In order to help hi in every way she can, she's got to have a clear picture of what's going on with him. One incident is one incident, but a pattern is something else, and it's not good for him that he's acting in this way either. He may one day find himself in a fight that he loses, badly.

Additionally, you must protect your kids.

I would choose as calm a time as possible, and tell her that you have observed a number of incidents (as opposed to your kids just telling you about it) that concern you that she may not know about. It sounds like your natural inclinations will keep you from saying anything that may sound like blame to her. She may be defensive, but that doesn't mean she's not listening to you, or even that she won't be grateful the next day that you told her. Just keep up all the other positives of your relationship with her.