Our 6yo girl has had problems with one of the neighborhood kids for about 2 years. We had a tough time around that time with some bereavements very close together and our girl hasn't been 100% since, but that's a side issue. She bickers with other kids, as all kids do, and that's fine, I get that. They always make up, and are back playing within minutes. This one kid however, has said some pretty harsh things, shockingly cruel for a kid her age, e.g. when our baby passed away she told our girl she wasn't a sister any more, now that her sister was gone. More recently she's been telling our girl that X person and Y person hates her, and deliberately excluding her from games. I caught her red handed last week calling all the kids over and making them all agree that nobody would go to our one's birthday party.We've been to speak with the parents of this child a couple of times but recently it's getting really tense and messy. They have 9 kids and use CCTV to keep an eye on them outside the house. Last week I saw a boy from the next street over who is 4 and not able to communicate very well, being goaded by this same family into fighting with their 3 yo boy. I stepped in and brought him home to his mom. That completely backfired because the mother of the 9 kids was able to show the other boy's mother CCTV footage of them all rough housing earlier and it made me look like an idiot.I called over this evening because our girl was turned away by their daughter from a bouncy castle they'd hired for a birthday party and was really upset. I told the mother I wasn't trying to have an argument or whatever, we just want them to know what's going on and what we're hearing. She basically told me that we shouldn't be getting so involved, we should let our 6 year old "grow up and start experiencing things" and that it looks bad for me and my wife that we're the only ones who call to other parents to complain about what their kids are doing. She told me that the other moms in the estate have an agreement not to listen to every little thing their kids report to them. My wife has been very anxious about the whole thing and feels like the other moms in the neighbourhood think she's strange or overprotective.So anyway, we don't think we're doing the wrong thing standing up for our girl, she's only 6. She's by no means an angel, she can be a cheeky pain in the ass at times, but I still don't think it's fair to expect her to fight all her own battles every single time. Also, we don't want to be falling out with other adults over kids' squabbling but where do we draw the line? I can't always stand by and see our girl upset just because other parents have lower standards of discipline and rules. I'd like to hear other voices on this. via /r/Parenting http://bit.ly/2XaMTP4
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