A friend of ours hit our child - what should we do?

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

It can just as easily be said that the problem started with something that the kid did wrong, and I highly doubt that these parents who are busy making excuses for their kid ever apologized for that.

No it can't. You step on someone's foot and before you can apologize, they hit you in the face. The disproportionate response before you ever had a chance to apologize completely changes the situation. As the victim of an assault, you get the apology, not offer one. Nor has the poster ever excused her child's behavior even though I find it typical of a normal elementary school student which an eleven year old could easily have been last May.

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I don't see this as such a hard thing to answer, now that I finally get it. This child left the log. Adult pushed him down after that. Not at all the adult's place to do. Adult = off base, merging into wacko.

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@ossobuco,

Maybe in his childhood he hated other eleven year olds.

This guy on a log behaved weirdly, and it was not the normal child's fault.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

It can just as easily be said that the problem started with something that the kid did wrong, and I highly doubt that these parents who are busy making excuses for their kid ever apologized for that. Maybe the real problem is too much pride with the parents? These are the same parents who dont feel the need to talk the situation over with the guy, who coldly cut him off and considered turning him over to the police, what would motivate such poor treatment of a long term close friend other than injured pride..the refusal to accept that their kid was a brat (thus poorly reflecting upon them and their parenting) ?

You are making wild assumptions here. In fact, from the beggining you seemed to be biased against odessitka. Obviously, she is biased, any person who is telling their side of the story is biased to some extend. But you are taking that bias and, instead of trying to filter it out, pushing it to the other extreme.

Why are you so sure of that her children are actually anoying and unruly brats and that she is foolishly blind to that? From what she said so far I saw no reason to believe so. I didnt even see any reasons to believe that she is mistaken about her kids. Do you think she is lying? Why would she lie? Why are you still trying to argumentate on what happened if you have no trust whatsoever for the only source of information on it?

Im under the impression you just dont like her/her tone/ her beliefs, and making all sort of bad assumptions about her based on that.

hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:
I think it might be worth trying to get to the root of the problem

Quote:
it probably isn't necessary to attempt an understanding of your exfriend's state of mind.

Contradict yourself much?

There was a conditional in there, if you didnt notice.

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@manored,

Another arguer of Hawkeye snared, with possible other riposts.

I suppose you will have to learn yourself.

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@manored,

Quote:

Do you think she is lying?

I already answered that, I think that she exaggerates and she does not see clearly. This is not unusual, though it is sad to see it cost her and her husband any chance of salvaging a ten year relationship on the basis of a few seconds of behavior.

Quote:

Im under the impression you just dont like her/her tone/ her beliefs, and making all sort of bad assumptions about her based on that

And you are wrong. I am pointing out blind spots, bias and alternative explanations.

Quote:

There was a conditional in there, if you didnt notice.

Ya, if this guy has a lot of faults...which is saying "if this guy is human" because we all have a lot of faults.... I ignored that part as I assume it was intended to be ignored, because since we know the guy is human there really was no "if", it clearly was a rhetorical device.

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@ossobuco,

Quote:

I suppose you will have to learn yourself

Not everyone likes to go through life with their head in the sand and unchallenged, some of us have learned that the best relationships and interactions are both cooperative and combative, and so we dont shy away from conflict.....a relevant point for this thread, both when considering what happened and what the reaction to the event was. I have argued for pages that the main problem now is that these people refuse to talk to each other, refuse to have it out. This aversion to the face down (and potentially face up and thus possibly coming to terms) is what dooms the relationship and also any learning that could come from this sad story.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:
Do you think she is lying?
I already answered that, I think that she exaggerates and she does not see clearly. This is not unusual, though it is sad to see it cost her and her husband any chance of salvaging a ten year relationship on the basis of a few seconds of behavior.

You think those things based on what?

hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:
Im under the impression you just dont like her/her tone/ her beliefs, and making all sort of bad assumptions about her based on that
And you are wrong. I am pointing out blind spots, bias and alternative explanations.

I dont think im wrong. You have been pressing on that same explanation the whole time, if memory serves me well.

hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:
There was a conditional in there, if you didnt notice.
Ya, if this guy has a lot of faults...which is saying "if this guy is human" because we all have a lot of faults.... I ignored that part as I assume it was intended to be ignored, because since we know the guy is human there really was no "if", it clearly was a rhetorical device.

We all have faults but we accept different faults better or worse. Some people would think man X is perfect, and others would think he is rubbish.

ossobuco wrote:

Another arguer of Hawkeye snared, with possible other riposts.

I suppose you will have to learn yourself.

I have tried arguing with people whose posts had to be deciphered first, so, eh =)

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@hawkeye10,

Didn't score well in reading comprehension did ya.
Try rereading the post.

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@wayne,

Well, hey. You are kicking a stolid post with your big toe. Go ahead, what do I care, waste your time.

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@ossobuco,

Yeah I know, it's really comical, especially after I read his post about what he ignored and assumed.
I am now firmly convinced we're dealing with a complete Moron.
I certainly won't bother explaining it to him.

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@manored,

Quote:

You think those things based on what?

She says her kid was hit when clearly he was not, and her english is good enough that she should know how wrong the word hit is in this case.

She knows a guy very well for ten years and yet she had no clue that he had putting hands on her kid in apparent anger in him

She has shown no interest in knowing why he did what he did, she would rather evade the reality and come to A2K for support or her evasion.

She says that she is very strict and that her kids are well behaved and yet this event certainly calls this into question. I have known kids who were well trained by their parents to behave, and they dont generally disobey to this extreme in a potentially dangerous situation, they know better.

She has yet to admit that her kid did not behave from what I can find, I see that he apologized but has she told either us or the ex friend that her kid was out of line? I dont think so.

She has yet to admit the she and her husband could have handled this better, they attacked their friend for lying hands on their kid but I see no evidence that they have acted towards him in the slightest bit as a long term friend has earned.

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@wayne,

That's the first step.
The next is to skip the reading. That may take a while as he is not a complete dolt.
He lives here by new feeds and a follower.
Said by the sardonic me.

I don't want to sway you. You may end up agreeing with him as you work through his stuff.

I could give links, but I am biased.

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@ossobuco,

Oh, I've seen him make some reasonable comments, but he can't stop there, he goes right off the edge ignoring and assuming, spoiling any content he might of had.

Doesn't bother me at all, I don't think it's infectious.

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@wayne,

Quote:

I am curious as to whether this episode is/isn't out of character for your friend. Over the ten years of your relationship, has your friend given any indication of a tendency toward this type of behavior?

There was one time 5 years ago, my son was 6 then, we were having lunch together at a restaurant, and my son talked too much and asked the man too many questions, so he finally started yelling at him to shut up because he wanted quiet during lunch. I remember confronting him immediately and asking him to never yell at my son, but talk to me or my husband first. My husband wasn't there at that precise moment (in case hawkeye will want to point out that "hubby" didn't solve this in a man-to-man way) so I had to handle that myself. Other than that, I don't remember anything that would worry me. But maybe I'm a bad judge of character. This morning I talked to my dad on the phone about this incident, and he told me he never liked the guy. I asked him why, and he said he wasn't sure, he just had a weird feeling about him. There were a couple of things the guy said to him that he didn't like, like for instance, he said he thought parents who make their kids learn how to play musical instruments are complete idiots - he would never do that. (Sounds weird, isn't it???? Yet doesn't mean the guy's out of line). I don't remember ever discussing this topic with him, so I don't really know what to say.

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@wayne,

I've agreed with him myself once in a while.

On the rest, talk with you in a year or two.

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Sorry to tangent, Odessi.

If you stick around, you'll know I do that, tangent, including within posts.
I am still very interested in your observations.
I'm not a psychologist, just an ordinary poster.

You can look us up - some of us describe ourselves on our profiles. A lot leave it blank. Just click on the person's name at the start of the post, and see the profile.

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@odessitka,

odess, More to the fact that those who play musical instruments are usually better in school/more intelligent. It's something I read many years ago about a study done about students that played musical instruments. From personal observations about our own children and children of friends that play musical instruments, they have all done very well in school.

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@odessitka,

Sounds to me as though you don't know this guy as well as you've thought you had. That doesn't mean you are a bad judge of character though.
Probably best to chalk it up as a lesson learned, and get the heck away from the guy. It doesn't really sound like the level of communication was that great anyway.
You and your family's emotional well being should be the primary concern at this point. It will mean some changes to lose a relationship that has consumed so much time over these last ten years.

If I were in your shoes, I know my feelings would be hurt, I would be angry and probably feel a little cheated. I would, like you, want him to be punished.
However, that isn't the best first aid for your family's emotions. IMO.

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@odessitka,

Maybe you haven't had a lot of experience with nasty people, and you are a naturally kind and tolerant person?

My job has put me in contact with some truly dangerous people who have done awful things. I often find myself saying to friends (or swallowing it and NOT saying it, because they are already madly in love with the person in question, and saying anything at that stage is a bad idea) "that person is trouble, be careful". I'm usually right.

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A friend of ours hit our child - what should we do?

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