To expect my DD's feelings to be respected...

[supermariosmum]

First time poster so please be kind!!

My DD (9) has a best friend who she has known for 7 years.

All through school another girl has consistently bullied my DD (along with a few others) and tried to turn my DD's best friend against her. Recently she has started inviting my DD's best friend on great days out to adventure parks, skating, sleepovers etc and the best friend is going!!

AIBU to think that the mum of the best friend ( who is very aware of what this girl has done) should have a bit more sympathy for what has gone on in the past 5 years and to not allow her daughter to go with this bully??

You can't control kids friendships I'm afraid. Hopefully the girl will catch on herself.

But the other child isn't just your daughter's best friend, but a person in their own right, whose feelings and choices should also be respected.

"AIBU to think that the mum of the best friend ( who is very aware of what this girl has done) should have a bit more sympathy for what has gone on in the past 5 years and to not allow her daughter to go with this bully?? "

You are talking about young primary children. Friendships are pretty fluid at this age. It is possible (and healthy!) for a child to have more than one friend.

I can understand why your daughter feels jelous and hurt. However she does not own any of her friends. Infact being overly possessive about "friends" is a sure way to lose friends. Your daugher's friend is not married to your daugher and why can't she choose to play with other children?

Prehaps it might come as a shock to you that your child's "best friend's" mother may well invite other children round.

Why don't you try and invite some of the other children from your daugher's class? It does sound like your daugher needs help with learning to make and keep friends.

I know I am being a bit U as my daughter does not own this other child but the girl has bullied a lot of them since year 1 and is not well liked in the class - I used to feel sorry for her but some of the things she has done to my DD have been truly awful and caused my DD to lose her confidence and trust in friends.
My DD does however socialise with a few other girls in her class so no problem there - their parents are also very aware of what this girl has done and don't let their kids play with her so maybe my DD feels 'safe' with them I don't know.
It just hurts my DD so much that her best friend is friendly with someone who has caused her so much physical and emotional pain over the last few years and I suppose I am just upset at seeing DD like this!!

"My DD does however socialise with a few other girls in her class so no problem there - their parents are also very aware of what this girl has done and don't let their kids play with her so maybe my DD feels 'safe' with them I don't know."

Do you honestly expect other parents to hold a grudge against a child at the age of nine because of the way that she behaved in year one at the age of five/ six years old? Maybe this girl has grown up and developed some social skills. It is depressing that you want this child to be a social outcast for the rest of her school days.

"It just hurts my DD so much that her best friend is friendly with someone who has caused her so much physical and emotional pain over the last few years and I suppose I am just upset at seeing DD like this!!"

No parent can make the world a perfect place for their child. The best thing we can do for our children is help them become resilent.

Jelously is normal and the best approach is to distract your daughter. Why don't you invite one of the other friends over for a nice treat? It is unlikely that a child will misbahave in a one to one situation or you could supervise closely if your child is nervous.

Friendships come and go in life. Sometimes children's interests change and they have less in common.

Reallytired the girl not only acted in this way at 5 years old but continues to do so and after 5 years of it I am just totally fed up. Trust me I would far rather she stopped bullying and got on with all the rest of the class - I do not wish for her to be a social outcast she is doing it to herself!! My DD's life would improve greatly if this all stopped!

My DD trusts the group of friends she has and they are all lovely - she is sleeping over at one of their houses tonight so obviously feels comfortable. I know I am being U in expecting the other mum to not allow her DD to be friends with the bully and realise that now after reading through my post I think that after yet another trip to be school about all the abuse that girl gives my DD I am just feeling a bit pissed off!!

Children with poor social skills are often in a vicous circle. The gap between children with good social skills and those with weak social skills gets bigger. If no one will socialise with the outcast then that child will never learn what is socially appriopate behaviour. The "bully" will learn better ways of coping with conflict if she has the opportunity to make friends.

I feel you are being insecure about your daughter's social skills. Are you worried that your daughter is going to be come the class outcast?

Reallytired I will admit my DD isn't as outgoing and confident as I would have hoped but certainly not worried she will become the class outcast - I know she is not the most popular in the class or most liked and that doesnt bother me at all - as long as the few friends she does have treat her with respect and she does that to them I am happy!!

alpinemeadow the school have been good about it all but I do feel they probably could do more. They have had complaints from quite a few parents about this child over the past 5 years and we have had meetings with the parents, teachers, head etc.

Parents refuse to believe their PFB is capable of any of the things she has done even though many pupils and teachers have witnessed it so school aren't getting anywhere with them. I do feel the girl needs help as a lot of the emotional bullying she does is to do with death e.g she once told my DD that the country her Dad (my DH) was working in had had a massive earthquake and he had died!!!

I got called up to school as my DD was absolutely distraught and screaming that her Dad had died!!!

That was when the girl was 7 years old - I find that scary that she could make something so awful up at that age.

OP, I feel for you, really I do. My DS was bullied by a little girl and still feels the effects.

All you can do is help your DD become more confident and make new friends in an environment away from the bully. Can you enroll her in swimming, martial arts or Brownies? Also I've found that by listening to DS talk about his bully, without showing my own upset/annoyance has decreased his upset about her.

You can't do anything more about this child's behaviour or that of her parents. All you can do is help and strngthen your own DD.

supermariosmum, I think when ReallyTired spoke of social outcasts she meant the little girl who has been bullying- if all parents in the school join together and ban their children from playing from her she will never have a chance to learn better behaviour and will probably stay a bully until the end of her days. She does sound troubled, but a total social ban is unlikely to make things better.

the girls are 9 the friend can go out on any trip she likes I know your little girl is sad or you are unhappy about the situation but I do think at this age friendships are always changing you cant control who this friend goes about and plays with,

Cory you are completely right. I feel that it is sad when an entire community decide to orastise a nine year old! No child brings that kind of rejection on themselves and some children need extra help to learn to make and keep friends.

If you want your child to have lots of friends then encourage her to be kind to everyone, including those who others don't like. If she is having a ball with her own social life then she won't have time to think who were friends are playing with.

The idea of our baby being bullied can bring out the worse in parents. Sometimes the behaviour of parents can be a thousand times worse than the behaviour of a six year old.

Sorry Alpine, I should have made my position clearer.

What I did was to expand DS's social life so that he had less contact with the bully. Then (after another upsetting episode), I told him exactly what I thought of her and what he was to do/say when she was around.

After that, yes I agreed with him when he spoke about her. I was , the level of bullying was much greater than I had originally thought and what he had originally told me.. However I thought it best not to react negatively to what he was saying (although really I wanted to rip her head off and kill her parents). I just let him get it out and assured him that he was an excellent child and she had problems.

Cory and Reallytired I can understand what you are saying but after 5 years of the bullying and the things this child has done and said it is very very hard for myself and the other parents to not only try to be nice to her but to trust her aswell.
Yes it brings out the worst in the parents but when you see the affect it has on your child, the nightmares, crying every day before school and on the way to school, your child being physically sick through worry then surely you can see why we find it hard to accept this child as anything but a bully.
And at 5 and 6 maybe you can excuse that behaviour but to be still doing it at 9?!? For the first year I encouraged my DD to be nice to the girl, ask her to join in so she wasn't left out, not to retaliate physically or verbally to her and look where it got her!!! I even made my DD invite her to her party that year even although my DD really didn't want her there and she was so horrible to my DD I felt awful.
Surely you can understand why I would find it hard to have anything to do with that girl let alone let my DD socialise with her?!?

Dione how old is your child now and has the bullying stopped? X

"Surely you can understand why I would find it hard to have anything to do with that girl let alone let my DD socialise with her?!?"

I understand that you don't want your dd to socialise with this girl. However it is completely unreasonable to expect others to ostratise her.

What I don't understand is why you don't want the girl to socialise with other children in the class. Why do you want to control friendship choices of other girls in your child's class.

Both your daughter and her friend have the right to pick their friends. It is OK for both girls to make different choices of who they play with. If a child has lots of friends then its inevitable that at least two of them will not get on.

Thank you alpinemeadow and Dione for your advice I realise I should concentrate now on the positive experiences DD can have with other friends and take on board that we shouldn't make her friend feel bad for being friends with the other girl. That has been very hard for my DD (and myself) to accept but hopefully will help her understand as she is growing up the feelings of jealousy and how to deal with it in a positive manner.

My DS is 6. The bullying happened for 2years and had a massive impact on him.

Has it stopped?

Well, I stopped it by restricting the bully's access and teaching him how to respond before walking away. A few months ago she got another child to approach him. He told the child that he would play with him, but not her. I think his exact words were: "I like you and will play with you, but I won't play with her. She's a bully and she will make you one of her goons and make you feel bad". I was do proud of him then.

But, yesterday, after more than a year, he agreed to play with her and another child. I kept a close eye on them and soon realized that the other child was being excluded. I called DS and asked what was going on. He cried and told me that he knew what she was doing, but "I couldn't stand up to her".. I invited the excluded child into my garden and told the bully that she was not welcome in my garden or my home until she was able to play nicely with all the children. Then I sent her on her way.

Today, all the children in my street were in my garden (the 1st time DS had any of them in in over a year, he was too afraid before) except the bully. They were all talking about how mean she has been to them and sharing their stories with eachother.

Reallytired I feel you are trying hard to read between the lines in my posts but getting the wrong end of the stick!!!
I do not expect others to ostracise this girl it just so happens most of the parents do not let their children have anything to do with her because of the problems she has caused to my DD and also their children!
Yes I would have preferred my DD's best friend didn't play with this girl but certainly do not want to 'control friendship choices of other girls in my child's class' and have never said that.
Likewise I have never said I do not want this girl to socialise with other children in the class - it is ONLY my DD's best friend I would HAVE LIKED to not socialise with her. In fact if she socialised with the other kids then chances are her attention would be taken away from my DD!!!
I can only assume you have never had to deal with a bullied child as you seem to be getting annoyed by my feelings for this bulky even although I have stated a few times that she has made our life hell for 5 years!!!!!

Dione that is awful and its true what you say about the impact it has on them.
My DD at 9 still finds it very hard to stand up to her bully so well done to your DS for sticking up for himself!!! Hopefully the girl has learnt a lesson and they can all get on now x