Am I making a big deal out of nothing?

[nilly1306]

There is a girl in dd's (9yrs), class who has been nothing but trouble since she joined 3 years ago. Nearly all of the others girls mums have mentioned trouble of some sort with the same girl. She goes through periods of being very mean and hurtful to dd. Trouble is, she seems to have some sort of charisma/hold (for a lack of a better word) that none of the other girls except dd has the ability/courage to say no to her. Even dd sometimes seems captivated by her. I try to encourage her to stay away from her and to play with other girls, explaining what real friendships should be like, which seems to work for a while, but only after she has been badly hurt. Until now I always played it down thinking it's all a part on growing up and learning how to handle relationships. However, when I picked her up today she was in tears over what this girl had said, which was..".....the perfect punishment for (dd) would be if her mum died, her dad went to prison she went to an orphanage and was never be allowed to see her baby sister again..." I felt so angry that a 9yrs could be so calculating mean without provocation. Am I making a big deal out of nothing or should I speak to dd's teacher?

[TangfasticFanatic]

I don't think speaking to the teacher would be making a big deal out of it, it's upset her and is a really not very nice thing to say regardless, so no, speaking to the teacher is reasonable I'd say.

[Annabel11]

The main problem is probably that girl's family. To imagine that parents would allow their daughter, especially of such young age, to talk like that ... is scary.

[MilesHuntsWig]

Urgh! How awful! Feel for you as my DD (4) came home from nursery yesterday saying she never wanted to go back because of an analogous thing (obvs slightly different due to ages), unfortunately there's often a girl like this, I remember from when I was at school.

I think you're doing a great job wrt encouraging her to have more balanced friends/friendships and I don't think having a word with the teacher is an over-reaction at all. Fwiw I've just been on the phone to my DD's key worker about the analogous situation. Helps them be aware of what to look out for.