a very spiteful girl at dd's school, they are only 6, please help

[frogletsproglets]

I have had dd in tears on and off all weekend

she had a "best friend" but this "best friend" has turned against her, and is turning other girls against her too. among other incidents, most recently she has spat in dd's hair (obviously I reported this). and she gets DD to play with her but she is just pretending, as she then runs away from her and laughs when DD cries. I have told DD to not chase after her (or anyone, good life lesson there) , as if she gets a reaction she will do it more, and to not bother playing with this girl when she is just mean to her. DD is very shy and I don't think she has many friends

she is distraught over it all, and earlier she was sobbing and just saying, whhyyyy doesn't she like me anymore

I don't know what to say to her. I had this kind of stuff in juniors and tbh it only got worse in high school :/

I am friendly-ish with this girls mother, not sure whether to mention anything....
I don't know what to do for the best, I have an older dc as well, who is 9 (and a boy, I suspect this makes a difference tbh) and have never had any friendship issues like this with him.

unfortunately you are never too young to be bullied. Behaviour like this indicates some serious problems for the other kid, but there's nothing you can do about that except report again to the school and ask them to intervene.

don't go directly to the other mother. Let the school sort it.

As this is taking place in school, I think you should talk to her teacher and let him/her know what's going on.

Talk to the teacher. Definitely don't approach the other mother.

I think what upsets dd most is that this girl was her best friend and has just turned on her for no apparent reason, I think she would cope better if it was just a random child

i dont really understand it myself, as they were good friends. this girl used to idolise dd to the point where every time i saw her, she would come running over to dd, be constantly grabbing her for hugs and holding her hand etc. and her mum was always messaging to arrange play dates for them. She came to ours to play a few times, and was ok then, seemed a fairly nice child. but since they have been back after Christmas all I have been hearing is horrid things she is doing to dd.

I know everyone thinks good things of their child but DD really is lovely. she is sweet, kind, funny, intelligent, and she is also a beautiful looking child (I know that shouldn't matter and again, perhaps I am biased...but looks mattered when i was at school and i was an ugly duckling lets say, where as dd certainly isnt.) i think her one downfall is she is very shy and I think that stops her having lots of friends and also I wonder if this is why she is clinging on to this girl despite how she is to her

I just know the damage this sort of thing can do, I still have self esteem and trust issues from the things that happened to me at school

am not sure what the school can do, when its mostly non physical

It's definitely worth talking to DD's teacher. She will be able to keep an eye on things and may be able to encourage DD to play with other girls. I went through this with DD when she was 7, a few weeks later the two of them were back to being best friends!

It's ok to tell her the girl is mean and she needs to find a new friend. Tell her the girl is likely to do this to other children later on too and to just keep her distance. Tell her that she hasn't caused this, that the other little girl is being mean.

Then go back to school and talk to the teacher and ask them if there are any other children your dd could be sat with to encourage a new friendship. And keep an eye on the other girl as the mean behaviour can sometimes develop into bullying. 6 years old is when girls tend to start pairing off and forming cliques and this sounds like what is happening to your dd. It settles after a few years but you can find that friendship groups shift around from now on.

Ask her who the nice girls are in her class and encourage her to differentiate between girls who are mean and girls who are nice. Teach her it is not her fault if someone chooses to be mean to her.

Perhaps a touch of jealousy? It sounds a bit like a power play that reinforces the feeling that she is really wanted by someone. You say your daughter is sweet, kind, funny, beautiful and intelligent. To be wanted by someone like that gives the other child a feeling of self worth. Strange this happened after the Xmas holidays, perhaps something happened during them.

Of course I could be completely wrong and she may just be turning into a manipulative little bitch for kicks.

The school should have a behaviour policy which includes measures to prevent bullying. If they are made aware of what's happening they can do something about it.

sevenseconds really, I have to say if my dd ended up back friends with this girl I would be quite worried given what she has done to her

good point about encouraging her to play with other girls. I have actually arranged another playdate (hate that word urgh urgh) with another girl in her class, who I know is a really lovely girl and her mum is a friend of mine, so that cheered her up

DS is really popular and I was saying to dh earlier that I think part of it is that he does a lot of other activities, he is in a local football team, plus the school team, and the cub scouts and he has 2 step brothers too who he has friends through them, so has a lot of friends from different places iyswim. so I wonder if he exudes a sort of vibe of not caring if he is liked which conversely makes him more popular? so perhaps I might see if she would like to do something like, I dunno, brownies, or dance or something then she too will have other social outlets

Y2? Pretty standard.
Build resilience in your kid and beef her up - look for friends that are actually friends.
Re spitting etc, get her to report to teacher.
But ultimately, they will probably be best friends again in a few weeks.
There does seem to be a certain amount of um, vying for position at this point - it is usually over by the time they get to juniors and are the bottom of the proverbial heap again.

The only thing I would do is ask the teacher to keep an eye on dd socially, and try to mix up the friendship groups so that dd isn't left alone. Y2 teachers are well used to friendship shenanigans.

Talking from experience as a parent and school dinner lady. Go and see the head teacher with what's happening, what playtime it happened. She/he can then investigate and let all playground staff know the situation.

Definitely speak to her teacher there's lots they can do. Plus chances are this girl is behaving in this manner towards other children too. You might not be the only parent worrying about this and what you tell the school can help them build a picture of what's going on.

Going through something similar with my daughter just now, previous best friend has now decided to play with other girls and my DD is bereft. I've just reassured her how fab she is, that other friend is fickle and how important it is to have a group of friends to ensure this sort of nonsense doesn't leave you isolated. DD still gutted but is coping and has lucky to have other friends.

The teacher is the first port of call. If this doesn't help, then is the time to see the head, and then if necessary contact the governors and OFSTED. Hopefully it won't come to that though!

Organize one-on-one play dates with other girls in your DD's class. The more time she spends with other children outside of school, the closer she will be to them at school and the less she will care about this girl.

i'd role play for solutions. Your dd can be the 'bf' and you be dd . You want to play with 'bf' and dd acts out what happens next. You respond by running away from 'bf' which is not what \bf\ expects. Then switch roles. You are 'bf' and dd is dd . Now repeat the exercise and coach dd into doing what you demonstrated. Repeat until it is familiar . Next dd gets a star if she tries out this new response when 'bf' does her thing. Give a reward of her choice after a few stars are collected. Keep up the role play and always start with dd being 'bf' and watch to see if any changes happen - such as 'bf' does not like dd running away from her. Go from there as you think best.

I also think it could be due to jealousy. And your description of this girl's behavior before, going all out to give big hugs, grabbing her hand, idolizing her...now the opposite, cruelty...sadly it sounds like this girl, as young as she is, is adept at game-playing.

Maybe your daughter has begun making other friends, and this girl turned on her out of jealousy? That happened to my ds, one of his friends started treating him horribly and it turned out he was jealous of ds's other friends, he wanted to be ds's only friend.

I wouldn't want my child to be friends with someone who is cruel. Explain to your dd that this girl is mean and to try making other friends.

I had a problem like this with my dd when she was seven. Dd was shy and she was excluded from the group. The bully (who was rather like this girl) had a group around her with one or two other spiteful girls. Maybe someone else has made friends with the problem girl in your dd's case and they are egging one another on. Sometimes a group with the wrong mix of personalities can be really destructive. I wonder if there is some envy of your dd's good looks and personality so she is being attacked through her shyness. Nasty, but possible. I'm sure you are doing the right thing by encouraging other friendships and activities.

I helped my dd by listening to her when she was upset and encouraging her in other activities like Brownies, etc. I hope that the school takes this seriously and helps your dd. Unfortunately dd's school rather swept the whole thing under the carpet, so I hope that doesn't happen to you. Dd developed a lot of strength from what happened to her at primary school and made some lovely friends in senior school. So the problem does not necessarily continue later on.

FWIW my dd is now 20, at university and has done a lot better in life than any of the bullies!! But I remember how traumatic it was at the time. Your dd will always remember and value the support you have given and will continue to give her.

Y2 was awful for this Ime. It settled down after that.

As a teacher I would say speak to her class teacher first and work with her to ensure that your daughter is happy in school. There should be no need to go to governors or Ofsted for such a simple issue. The school can put in place buddy systems and they can work with both children on friendship and appropriate playground behaviour. You say your daughter is bright but shy and was previously best friends with this other girl? I have seen it before at this age where one half of a friendship starts to feel suffocated by the other half and due to their age they couldn't verbalise how it affected them, so they resorted to awful behaviour to almost push the other way and to break the friendship that way. I'm not saying this is the case here and I'm not saying I condone the behaviour, it could however explain why there has been a sudden switch.
You are doing the right thing by expanding her friendship circle as hopefully this will lead your dd away from the other little girl and give her more confidence to play with others.

Its not just girls - my DS2 has had (is still having to some extent) pretty much exactly the situation you describe, identical in almost every way except that they are 5 yo boys.

The boy doing this to my DS is clearly a very cleaver child (initially, ironically, I was happy DS2 had such an articulate friend as DS2 has 2 languages and was stronger in English than his school language)... who was massively adoring of DS2 for about 4 months before he "turned nasty".

The other boy tells DS2 he is never right about anything, his drawings are rubbish, his ideas are rubbish, he can only play if he takes some invented humiliating role in the game ... he tells other kids they can't play with him if they play with DS2, that DS2 is a baby... then the next day throws his arm around DS2 and refers to him as his best friend and spends the entire day 1:1 with DS2 and excluding all others...

I have told DS that the other boy is not a friend, a friend would not make you feel sad, and that he should tell him he doesn't want to play with him if he is mean - it is very hard for such a small child to do though (DD had a bit of the same thing when she was 8 and handled it pretty well, following the same advice).

I have also had a meeting with Kindergarten (we are in Germany - Kindergarten til age 6/7) and they surprised me by saying DS2 is not the only boy the other one is doing this to - they already knew about it. They also let slip that they have heard the boy's dad treating him just the same way - bigging the little boy up then knocking him down (Kindergarten aren't quite as professional about not sharing information about other families as a UK school would be!) and DH has said he thought the dad is an arse when he met him (the dad answered the door at the boy's party by saying "we don't buy anything at the door" and left the door open and DH, whom he'd never met before, on the door step, and wandered off... The mum doen't try to hide the fact that she thinks that the sun shines out of her pfb's bottom, but I hadn't realised he had such a nasty, manipulative mind game playing father modelling how to treat people for him...

The girl who is bullying your DD quite likely has a more messed up family than you know, and is quite likely also spreading the bullying attention beyond your DD - school might already be monitoring to a degree. Go in and talk to them (not about the girl's family obviously :o , but about what is happening to your DD).

Kindergarten are also doing a self confidence / sticking up for yourself without violence programme for the kids and are offering it more frequently due to the situation with this boy. They are also going to call the boy's parents in, though I have no idea how that will go...

The other thing I am doing is bigging up DS2'S other friends and inviting them around more often (been a bit slack on that as its harder to do regularly with DC3 than it was with the older kids when they were small, due to schedules of older kids).

Good luck - what ever you do, do not let the school try to make the girls play together - the snide comments and nastiness will just get more subtle and your DD will miss out on building healthy friendships instead - hep her build other friendships by inviting other kids over as you have started doing, do not let her invite this girl over or go to her house, tell your DD to stay well clear, have school keep a sharp ear out for meanness and taunting and put downs etc.

This is so tricky.

DD had a friend from reception, they have drifted apart and it's been very painful for my daughter, I would say it started in year 3 or 4. There have also been a few issues with other girls in the class, I hate to say it but they are quite manipulative and emotional (last year of juniors). It's really upsetting but the good thing is that she's talking to me about it and I've been able to reassure her and help give her the confidence to deal with it better.

That apart, you have to tell the school about this. Spitting in hair is revolting and bullying. And being friends, then not etc is also bullying. The school have to know and you need to tell them it's happening in case it escalates. It may also be the case that your daughter isn't the only it's happening to. Speak to the teacher and the head and stay on the case. They should take bullying very seriously.

Yes, definitely invite other girls over for tea etc too.

he tells other kids they can't play with him if they play with DS2

schwab that is awful

and it is also how it started with this girl and my DD. dd started telling me (exfriendname) has been telling me not to play with so & so

and alarm bells rang then - I told her that wasn't right and wondered if she was trying to isolate her

thanks everyone

Sorry to hear this, unfortunately happens all the time. My DD was very shy, when she was nearly 5 I sent her to singing and dancing classes, for the first few weeks she stood up against the wall and didn't join in then really enjoyed it, made a massive difference to her confidence. Had problems with DS right when he started school, two boys were hitting him, went to the school a few times. One boy has since been left the school, major behavioural issues. The other is still a pain at times, I keep telling my DS not to let him hit him and tell the teacher, I will speak to the school again if anything else happens. Think he is a spoiled brat actually. I invite another friend round to play. I now send both my DC to drama groups, think it really helps their confidence, interacting with other people.

When I was in similar situation as a child what (in hindsight - I couldn't explain it then) was difficult too was that I actually wanted to be friends with the girl. My mother called her "mean" and then I felt worse because (the bit I couldn't explain, but felt) I wanted to be friends with a mean person.

So, I'd be tempted to not call her mean, but explain she's doing and saying mean things and that's not because of anything your daughter has done.