Lost my best friend over differences in parenting

I had to walk away from one of my oldest and closest friends this week because of her negligence in parenting and I’m so mad. Mad for the loss of the relationship, mad I couldn’t do anything to salvage it, mad on behalf of her son, just pissed.There have been a few friends where we have extremely different parenting styles and I just learned to navigate that by not discussing our kids and only getting together as the two of us without the families.But then a friend of mine’s son, a 7th grader, started having unprecedented trouble at school. Cutting classes and clowning and acting out.At first I was sympathetic towards the hard time my friend was having. I’d been there.But she wasn’t doing anything about it. I was over to her house at one point when he was sent home for the day and all she did was yell at him and tell him he wasn’t going to sports that week.A little while later I asked her what he said was driving this and she replied “Who knows. He just thinks he can do whatever he wants.” And it dawned on me. I asked “You haven’t sat down and talked with him about any of this yet?”She said “He’s 12, what’s there to talk about?” I encouraged her to talk to him about what had been going on.Things escalated with her son and he was caught cheating. Blatantly caught. Like he looked right over at the test next to him and wrote the answers down in clear view of the teacher, who called him out on it.Her son is very bright and loved school until this started happening. Even she said “This is so unlike him.” I said that sounded like reason enough for her to sit down and ask why he felt the need to do that and discuss with him what he thought he stood to gain from cheating and how he could have gained that same thing a different way (like asking the teacher for help.)Same response. “He’s cheating because he didn’t study. There’s nothing to talk about.” Meanwhile whenever I go over there, I see a boy who’s very unhappy. Not going out with his friends anymore, not friendly and talkative like he used to be.He repeats the cheating. My friend continues to react solely by yelling at him, even calling him names at some points.Long story short the cheating persists. The teachers hold conferences with him but his mom goes to them and dominates the conversation most of the time. He is expelled.He has to leave all his friends in the middle of the year and just before a lot of fun school traditions like a field trip to DC and his team’s state playoff game.Still, not once, does she sit down and talk to him about it. At this point it was getting excruciating to see this little boy coming undone and I pleaded with her “He needs you to help guide him through processing what’s happening. He’s leaving his friends, he’s starting at a new school, he needs his mom in his corner.”The boy’s father is not really in the picture so I offered to have my husband talk to him for some man to man time.It was working. He was opening up about how he felt unhappy and felt overshadowed by his older sister and been falling behind and being teased for it, so keeping it to himself.My husband was just hearing him out and taking him on bike rides and stuff to just get his mind off things. At one point he shared that he was worried his mom hated him for getting expelled and didn’t think he’d do well at his new school. My husband said “Your son shared this with me and I wanted you to have that information so you could correct his misconception.”She asked my husband to stop talking to him. She didn’t follow up on any of this with her son.I tried to butt out at this point since clearly she wasn’t looking for advice, but every time I see her son he looks so unhappy and the words they exchange are so harsh, I couldn’t take it anymore.I said her son seemed very unhappy and as someone who cares deeply about her and her family I had to tell her I worried not enough was being done to address it and friend to friend I worried she was missing a critical mothering moment. She said “It’s not my job to address it. It’s his job to handle his business in school. Her got a roof over his head and food to eat and a ride to and from school and that’s all he’s owed. The least he could do is handle himself at school.”I couldn’t handle seeing her son in this space anymore and I had to end the friendship. I’m so frustrated and sad. Just had to vent. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2t2Xb9Y