Dealing with other parents

[formerlyak]

My ds started first grade Tuesday at his new school. One of the boys in his class is an old friend from preschool. They always got along fine until recently when said friend has decided he needs to be "cool." To him, being cool includes ignoring and teasing the new kid (me ds) if that is what his "cool" friends are doing. And you can only hang out with kids "cooler than you" because that is how people will know you are cool. Yes, they are 6!

This morning on the playground before school I was talking with another parent and heard ds yelling at this kid, so I went over to see what the deal was. Apparently the kid cut in front of him in line and said he was there first and ds wasn't. This was not true, as ds and I were some of the first on the playground this morning and I know ds was first in line. So I helped them talk through it, the "friend" got behind ds and cut in front of the girl that was behind ds (apparently line order is very important to first graders - who knew). I told ds he needed to apologize to the kid for yelling at him. Then the kid apologized to ds for teasing him yesterday. I told the boys that they may not always want to play together, but they have been friends since they were babies and need to at least be nice and respectful to each other. All was fine when I left.

Then I get a text from the kid's mom telling me that her son would be apologizing to mine this morning and what happened yesterday. I told her about what happened on the playground this morning and that both boys said sorry and were fine.

Then she starts going into how she is going to talk to the teacher to make sure they are separated in class, blah blah blah. She thinks her kid is an angel and gets all crazy when she hears he did something not nice like yesterday and starts micromanaging everything about her kid's life. I am more of the thought that kids are kids and they will get in arguments with their peers and they have to learn to work through them because they will need those skills as they get older. And I feel that the teacher has been teaching 1st grade for 13 years and knows how to handle these situations. Then was talking this morning about making all these requests to the teacher to keep the boys apart during the day which is just nutty to me. We can guide them, but if we don't let them use the social skills we try and teach them they will never learn. Bottom line, I want to say, "Please don't micromanage my kid."

She was like this in preschool, too, when things she didn't like would happen. Truth is, her kid is in this little shit phase ... they all go through it. I know mine will, too. But I don't think micromanaging it is the solution.

Any of you have experience with this? Especially those of you with older kids? How do we get other parents to not micromanage our kids?