to wonder if dd is turning into a mean girl??

[SevenOhFour]

dd9 has been best friends with 'Sarah' since they were 5 or 6. there has only been the two of them playing together at playtimes and they see each other out of school a lot. in the past 2 years 'jess' has become good friends with my dd, however Sarah and jess don't get on very well, very different personalities whereas my dd is somewhere in the middle.

Sarah I think feels upset that her friendship is now shared with jess and jess has a tendency to try to leave Sarah out. dd has tried to be the peacemaker for a while but in the past 6 months or so she has become a lot closer to jess.

a few weeks ago Sarah's mum text me to say Sarah had come home very upset because the others had been leaving her out at school, I spoke to dd and told her this was unacceptable and under no circumstances should she leave her out, they've been friends a long time.

today sarahs mum text again saying Sarah was crying and saying my dd and jess have been having private playtimes, telling Sarah they wanted it to be just the two of them for a while.

I asked dd about this and she said that Sarah doesn't speak at all to jess, and barely speaks to my dd when jess is there. she agrees to play a game but when they start playing, Sarah just sits there looking miserable or says its boring. when dd asks her what she wants to play, Sarah says she doesn't know or isn't bothered.

I don't know what to do. on the one hand I do not want dd being the mean girl and leaving her friend out, but on the other it seems she has been the peace maker between the two for so long and Sarah is only ever cheerful when its just her and dd. whenever jess is there she moans, is miserable and complains about everything.

my dd is no angel I am not naïve, but it feels like the friendship has grown apart and where dd is closer to jess, sarah doesn't have that with anyone else.

aibu to say she has to suck it up and include sarah even if shes being miserable all the time? its so horrible to be left out, I just don't know what to advise.

what ive suggested so far is that they ask everyone what they want to play, then play, and if sarah is grumpy just get on with playing and if she wants to join in she can. no need to say 'we want to play on our own'

wwyd?

I agree with PP. your DD should be friendly and kind but she shouldn’t have to play with Sarah.
I understand where Sarah’s mum is coming from: she wants her child to be happy and included. But kids have preferences and personalities too...you wouldn’t force an adult to socialise in this way.
I think you should let the kids get on with it but if you feel she needs it, remind your DD to still be friendly towards Sarah. This is just normal developmental behaviour and adults shouldn’t meddle where possible

Same thing happened to my DD at the end of Yr3 and into yr4. We read this book together which helped www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/books/fiona-foden/smart-girl-s-guide-to-friendship/GOR005895005?keyword=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIl9W_tpD-5AIViZntCh2-NA60EAQYBSABEgJ3CPD_BwE
It really is the time when they start to learn more about how to handle friendships. We made sure she other friends outside the school group of girls at Brownies etc to balance out some of the intensity of school friendships.

Spoke to dd tonight, asked why she's not wanting to be friends with the girl she's been beat friends with for years. She burst into tears and said that for ages Sarah had been saying things like my dd has chubby fat fingers and wide hands, saying she's got huge feet and why are they so big. And others saying she's rubbish at pe and catching and throwing because she's too tall. For context dd only turned 9 in July but is in size 12 to 13 clothes and has size 5/6 feet, she is the tallest child in the class despite being one of the youngest. She's been holding onto this for ages but tonight it's like the floodgates opened and she was just really upset.

Just to add, I only spoke to her as other mum had said they're still not being inclusive and I didn't want other children hurt at the hands of my child.

Hmm, so there is more to it.

We had this, only with DS. And we were (are!) friends with the parents, as well.

DS wasn't including their boy, or letting him play. But the reason was because their boy was being mean, and saying unkind things. So of course DS didn't want to play with him.

We'd known this was going on - i.e. other boy was being mean to DS, but didn't want to get involved, and wanted to give DS strategies for dealing with it himself. So we'd just told him to walk away when other boy was being unkind.

The Mum ended up raising it, and it was awkward for a while. The boys ended up going on school camp, and I called DS's teacher and asked that they not be put in the same room to sleep together.

This was ignored, and several days later, DS told us that the other boy had said some really horrible things. So horrible, that we had to contact his parents and ask to meet and discuss it.

I was out of town for a sports thing with DD, so DH ended up doing it. It was bad enough that he wanted to address it immediately.

Luckily all adults were reasonable people, and it was handled well. Although the boys don't hang out 1-on-1 outside of school, they do get on well enough now, and there haven't been any more issues, thankfully. And we're still friends with the parents.

Of course your DD doesn't want to be friends with someone who is unkind to her. However, if you've got another parent insisting on raising this with you, then you probably are going to have to discuss it, and it will have to be face-to-face.

I'd recommend keeping it calm and unemotional, sticking to the facts as you've been told them, and reinforcing that you're not laying the blame with one child.

Thanks, yeah I don't want any bad blood between parents, I think the other parents are nice enough and should all stay amicable. I just feel bad that I labelled dd as man when there has never been abutting at all to suggest that before now, in fact she's always been the opposite. Always mind, looks after others,, always has time for everyone. I wish she had told me sooner about things that had upset her but I've learnt a valuable lesson. They're both lovely girls, I think they've just grown apart and hard because it's always been the two of them.

Sorry OP but "Jess" sounds like a Wendy. Your DD could do to be careful - when "Jess" moves on to split up the next friendship, your poor DD may well be the one left out in the cold, and "Sarah" may have found a new best friend by then.

We had the exact same thing a decade ago . A mum rang twice to complain that the my dd and another girl were bullying her dd, and she was pretty sharp on the phone with me. I apologised and hurried off to try to resolve it.

It transpired that it was the other way round, and my dd was able to show me some early social media messages to prove it.

Bless her, give her the words to stand up for herself.
"That's not a nice thing to say, I don't want to play with you because of the things you say"
Sadly she's become the mean one, she needs to understand what happens when you're mean to people.

I don't think Sarah has been intentionally mean, just saying things without thinking and it's really hurt dds feelings (which I understand, I was very tall and growing up was very self concious)
But I can understand more now why she isn't a keen on playing with Sarah as much

Sorry OP but "Jess" sounds like a Wendy.

She does not, she sounds like an easy, friendly girl.

Well jess is still being mean to Sarah, snide comments and I was told she told my dd to tell Sarah she (jess) doesn't like her and doesn't want to play with her. Which my dd then did I'd like to think dd just doesn't realise the impact of her actions on people (on waiting list for asd diagnosis) but I think actually maybe she's just not as kind and nice as I thought. Maybe I'm being ott and girls go through this but I feel awful that my child is contributing to another child's misery. I've spoken to dd, so many times about being nice. Not sure what else I can do

I've forgotten who is who.
Just repeat the conversation back to her, ask how she would feel if it was said to her?
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