Our 12yo daughter, B, is struggling with a friendship at school. Does anyone have any advice...
She and her friend, will call her A, didn’t go to the same primary school but we are neighbours and they do now attend the same secondary school. Friend A has always been kinda crazy, we’ve known her since she was 5, and we just assumed that she would grow out of this. (Absolutely nothing wrong with a little crazy, but this is so full-on it’s exhausting!).
Anyway, they now both walk to & from school together and friend A seems incapable of being sensible at all. She dances along, singing silly, babyish made-up songs, balances on the kerb (busy road) whilst doing this, randomly runs into the middle of the road or just falls backwards (landing on her rucksack) several times each day. The other week she lost her phone due to titting around on the way to school. My daughter is becoming both embarrassed at friend A’s immaturity and also worried that A is going to get hurt with the silliness - cars do go at speed along this road and it would be so easy for her to slip off the kerb.
They share a lot of lessons together and friend A is also being silly in class. All low level under the radar stuff that the teachers don’t seem to spot. B is finding it really frustrating and is fed up with the distractions. We are not happy that she is affecting B’s work. The same silliness with dancing and ‘songs’ (we are talking things like singing the words “buzzy buzzy bumble bee” repeatedly and doing a bumble bee ‘dance’) goes on at break and lunchtime. It is driving my daughter to despair. She doesn’t want to be mean and break up their friendship but she can’t cope with the seemingly constant demand for attention that A seems to have and, again, she is just embarrassed by it at school. B is coming home and crying some evenings because it is getting her down so much.
We have tried to tell her to back away a little but A is like a fecking limpet. B has made some other lovely friends at secondary school and would like to spend more time with them but A just doesn’t allow it. She won’t leave B alone.
We’ve tried to suggest ways that B can gently say to A “I just need a bit of a break from the craziness for ten minutes - I’m off to the library” but B is sensitive herself and doesn’t want to hurt A’s feelings. We’ve explained that you can’t change people, you can only change how they affect you and advised her to just walk on etc. with the walking to school silliness, but sometimes this is easier said than done.
Wise women (and men) of MN - do you have any ideas of how we can help our daughter deal with this? She doesn’t want to fall out with her friend (and we don’t want to fall out with our neighbours though, obviously, B’s happiness is our priority).