6 year old and neighbour problems

I have lovely neighbours, (they were my mum and dads best friends). HOWEVER, since my mum died in 2005 when my son was 2 and a half, the woman, (In her 80's), seems hell bent on trying to take my mums place with regard to my son. On numerous occassions, she has told him off sternly, (I've actually been standing there). I rarely take my son to their house now, and visit them when he is at school. I do it this way because I knew I would eventually explode. Since the summer holidays, we have been over twice, and quite honestly i dread it.
I know she is elderly, but my own mother wouldn't have spoken to my son the way she sometimes does. On the up side though, I know if I needed anything, she would be there to try and help me out.
Alison
x

Susie, my heart goes out to you. Did anything else happen after you posted your original message?

One of my neighbours (the charming drug dealer across the road) tried the same sort of harrassment on my son over the Summer. It actually resulted in me getting a visit from several police, the social services AND the Council, the latter of which threatened to evict us if they got any more such reports. My son was accused of attacking other kids and vandalising several vehicles, mostly belonging to the drug dealer who is known for his habit of rigging insurance claims.

I stood my ground and argued that I KNEW that my son had done none of those things, apart from defending himself from a mob of kids who had attacked him and that one of his attackers had fallen over and then cried foul. Also, he'd been kept at home for his own safety so couldn't possibly have been involved in the other things. The accuser claimed to have video footage, so I advised them to look at it before blaming my son. The video footage didn't exist, surprise, surprise! A few days later an ASBO camera was attached to the lamp-post outside the man's house and miraculously there were no further allegations made all the time it was there. I bet his business suffered a bit!

Occasionally the odd scarey looking stranger (a friend or relative of the dealer presumably) turns up on my doorstep making some threat or other. The last one was an accusation that my son had been bullying some boy continuously at the old school and had resumed hostilities that day at the new school. Neither was possible - the boys went to 2 completely different schools and my son was off sick that day. I phoned up the school in any case and they looked into it and called me back to reassure me that my son was indeed totally innocent.

The police, council and social services are now well-aware that my family is the victim of some sort of sick harassment campaign. It does creep me and my son out quite a bit as it was all totally unprovoked and random. For a while it made my son and his friends regard the police as "The Enemy", and having met some of the PCs I have to say I'm not overly impressed by their manner with kids! However, he is now on good 1st name terms with a few of them and even phoned them to intervene when he witnessed a dog being assaulted.

My advice is to make notes of each and every act of intimidation aimed at your family and to get a named local police officer you can contact. We found we were dealing with so many different cops that noone had the full picture and confusion ensued. Unfortunately, we are still suffering the consequences of people who will believe there is no smoke without fire and who are happy to regard my son as one of the usual suspects now his reputation is damaged. Even sadder, I know that we were an easy target because I am a single mum. No one would have picked on us if I had a partner to protect us!

Hope it all works out OK for you.