10 year old daughter in extremely intense friendship, what to do?

[Jiminycrickets]

My 10 year old daughter has been very surly, emotional and hard to get along with for the last couple of weeks. She shows no signs of puberty but I thought it could be hormones kicking off. She’s become very close with a girl at school. The friendship is extremely intense, the other girl is very controlling and jealous, I do realise she’s also a young child, I’m not judging her!
This morning the girl was calling on messenger, repeatedly. My daughter almost had a panic attack trying to get to answer (we don’t allow it before school). She seemed genuinely extremely anxious about not answering this girl.
In an invasion of her privacy (I acknowledge but I’m concerned and she’s very young) I read their messages to each other. It’s an unhealthy relationship, she’s being emotionally manipulated by this child who keeps testing their friendship and ignoring my daughter until she “apologises”.
Theres also talk of them being lesbians and loving each other or having crushes on various other little girls.
I think she’s being gaslit. It’s at the least not a healthy friendship.
what do we do here that doesn’t push them together or drive it underground etc. I’m imposing a messenger break. All of her friends use messenger and all of the other contact is as you’d expect of kid and friends this age.
Can anyone advise?

That's not an invasion of her privacy. It's being a responsible parent. She's 10.

It's important to regularly look in on what DC are accessing and the messages they're receiving and sending. It might be worth looking at some online safety resources to get more advice.

It does sound very intense and it's not good that your daughter is so worried and anxious about missing the calls etc.

I'm not an expert at all at how to deal with de-escalating a situation like this, so hopefully someone will be along with better advice.

I've only allowed WhatsApp and only when my DC was 12 - I would have stuck to text messages bit it really was the case that every one of their friends communicated on it. We have to have regular chats about not sending anything you wouldn't want some one else's parents to see!

No FB, IG, tiktok etc though.

The YouTube nonsense shared on WhatsApp is bad enough. 🫤

It's a minefield.

I'd make an appointment to talk to the teacher.

Try and encourage other friendships from school by having kids over after school/on the weekend/taking them.out to an activity. You need to give DD other options which she will have if she has strong relationships with other kids.

Try and get DD involved in a few hobbies outside of school, to further dilute this friendship.

Find out where this girl is going for high school and try and pick a different one for your DD.

Have a conversation with your DD about relationships, sexuality, consent etc. Make sure it age appropriate obviously and that she knows you'll support her no matter what.

It sounds like the other more dominant child actually needs your daughter more than she needs her....
Your daughter cannot possibly be happy. She is being owned by this girl and it is unhealthy.
I would be inclined to move her away either by changing class or by moving school. I would not allow them to spend time together out of school. Find out of school activities for her and change her circle of friends.

We’ve removed messenger for now. It doesn’t solve the “at school” part of it, but is a good circuit breaker.
Just having done that for 24 hours has put my daughter in such a better mood, which she has acknowledged herself. I think she’s just too little. We’ve had a few good chats about being able to come to us and we’ll love her always.
Ive been careful not to bag the other girl (who I feel sorry for honestly), but just reminded her that this girl is one of her friends not her ONLY friend, and it’s good to focus on everyone and spread the attention around.

I was in this situation at primary school. When the other girl moved overseas I secretly cried with relief. I think taking away messenger is a good start- it keeps the relationship in school. I would monitor it and speak to the school if you’re still concerned. Not to blame the other girl but just to ask them what they are seeing at school- is the other girl preventing your dad playing with other children etc.? They may be able to help by putting them in different groups for groii Ip work etc. Different secondary schools could also be an option but depending on the options I’m not sure I’d choose a worse school just to avoid this girl.

Have you thought about contacting the other child's parents to express concern about the amount of messages?

Yes - that's just what I was thinking. As a parent you would want to know what your child is doing, especially at such a young age.

Messenger is Facebook do you mean text message?

I have a 10 and 12 dd. Always dramas. I don't know why girls are so cruel.

Best thing was to delete the app. Shame as she cannot speak to her other friends now.

I'd message the parents.

First you’re not invading your girls privacy by looking at what she does on her phone. That he’s just being a responsible parent. You should know exactly what she is doing on her phone. You seem to be making quite a good job of it but it’s important for her to realise that this girl should not be her only friend but one of a few friends. And this whole nonsense talk about girls being lesbians at that age is a load of crap. It is a sign of a society who wants to sexualise everything. Some of us didn’t even know what a lesbian was at that age and it’s quite normal for girls to have ‘crushes’ at that age with nothing sexual about it. A friend of mine recently told me that her daughter come home in tears because some idiot teacher at school had made them do a survey and because she had said she liked girls rather than boys (at 12!) she was a lesbian! The whole society is going balmy.

All of her friends use messenger and all of the other contact is as you’d expect of kid and friends this age

I have children this age and this isn't normal. I can't think of anything more stressful than bringing school drama to your own home. I'd probably meet with the teacher and dsl just for a chat.

I'd speak to the teacher first, what have they observed in school? The teacher may be able to distance the girls more discretely in work groups or activities, at the very least make sure they aren't paired on school trips (I'm assuming residential at some point for a 10 year old), and even next year's classes (if they are 10 turning 11 will they go to the same secondary?)

Talking direct to the other parent could be difficult - a lot depends on why the girl is like this (for example does the other mother encourage it or not?) and may simply make the other girl double down especially around the gaslighting (which again could be deliberate/manipulative or just really poor social skills in a young child)

And yes lots of busy social activities outside of school hours and holidays to broaden the friendship groups and to avoid meet ups/messaging.

Op we've been in a similar situation.
Like you say one wants to be extremely careful by not driving them underground or making the controller panic.
I unwittingly moved my dd I had no idea at this time what was going on .

Thank goodness I did move her. They are older and still in contact but I'm praying that she naturally just evolves a life away from her.
Again I also feel sorry for my dd special "friend". But she's unstable.
It's a horrible situation.

Thank you everyone.

The teacher is pretty oblivious to this kind of thing. I have emailed asking that they not be placed together for group work or away days.

The other mother wholeheartedly encourages the friendship, they gave my daughter a very expensive best friends jewellery item (at a cost that made me very uncomfortable). The little girl is an only child and I think she is quite lonely, and spends a lot of unsupervised time online. She’s also almost a year older than mine (held back). She is a lot more sophisticated than my daughter who is still very much a baby in a lot of ways.

Its a shame my daughter can’t talk to her other friends but I think there needs to be a long break to extinguish this thing a little.