to ask for advice?

[stargazer83]

An incident occurred last Easter between my then 5 year old dd and a child in her class. My dd kept it secret until Christmas time but her behavior became appalling both at school and at home, she was uncontrollable and the school were talking about expulsion.

After we found out about the incident the school was fantastic having the other child supervised and sending my dd to art therapy and arranging extra one on one time and she went from strength to strength however all the extra effort has slowly been withdrawn and dd has been telling me for the past couple of weeks the child has been following her about, taking her toys and saying mean things about her and her abilities.

My initial response is to go in and demand the child is kept away from dd however I am also a firm believer in letting dd deal with her own friendship issues as at 7 years old the best friend this week is her arch enemy next week :o
How should I handle this?

I think if your DD had art therapy and this was all taken quite seriously by the school (not asking for details just obviously have no way of knowing)
and if DD is telling you she's upset by these new advances I would go and talk to the school quietly. I agree nip it in the bud.

Of course there is something to be said for letting them sort out their own friendships - I quite often let mine scrap it out - the difference is they may be upset or sad or cross for a day or two - a week at most then it's all change.

If she is feeling invaded and getting withdrawn and worried she may not be quite able/sure how to deal with it. 7 is still very young (there are enough adults that have issues with this). If she is just letting you know and expresses no particular concerning deterioration in how she's feeling then I would perhaps just keep a note of what she says. My only concern is the nasty thing this child is saying -again- as if supervision etc made not a jot of difference. I would be upset if my DD came home saying that. I would be upset if I was told my dc was being so nasty and would certainly deal with it (as far as that goes wrt children without SN iyswim). 7 is young but is certainly old enough to know better as far as plain nastiness is concerned.