considering banning dd from playing with friend if she does this again

[shesgrownhorns]

My dd has this year endured an on/off relationship with her friendship group. She's 10. I have got involved before, telling the mums (who have become my friends) what seems to be going on and the exclusion of my dd resolved for a bit, but then soon started again in an intermittent way. My dd has low self esteem now because of this, and has become quite lost I think. She plays with other children (children who themselves are on the fringe of friendship groups too, poor loves) which I think is great and I encourage her to encourage them to all play together. Anyway one of the friends of the friendship group that keeps isolating her was horrible to her and pushed her out. Dd came home sad but recovered at home. (She's getting used to it which is really worrying me) Anyhow, after a full week of being ostracised the little texted her to say sorry and could they be friends. This is after dd had texted her to chat and she blocked her... My dd said of course. So they're friends again. Dd phoned her asking if she could come round and play soon and she said maybe, she'll see.

My AIBU is.... I don't want her round, and I'm not happy that my dd has let her back in so easily.

WIBU if I told my dd that if it happens again I will ban her from being friends with her again?

I could have written your post OP.

I just keep talking to my DD about the situation and offering advice, particularly getting her to stand up to her 'frenemy'. The worst thing for my DD though, is that even though there are lots of other children she can play with, and she's happy to play with them, she feels lonely when she's not in the friendship group with the frenemy in.

So, the main thing I'm doing is discussing those feelings of loneliness and hopefully making her realise that she needs to accept feeling lonely for a while until she establishes new friendships. Feeling lonely for a while is better than allowing herself to be treated like dirt by this supposed friend. I think it is starting to sink in.

However, I have told my DD that I'm not having this 'friend' over to play any more, mainly because, the last 2 times I've had her to play, the girl has treated my DD horribly for the whole of the following week and my DD has been in tears, so I've told her it's just not worth having this 'friend' to play. If she carries on being friends with her at school, then so be it, that's up to her really and all I can do is hope she follows my advice and plays with someone else.

I have mentioned the situation to her teacher as well, but only because a similar thing happened to my older DD, and I didn't bother telling school, but then the Y6 residential happened, and the teacher put my DD in a dorm with the friendship group she'd just recently managed to extricate herself from. The whole week away ended up being pretty awful for her, whereas if she could have been put in a dorm with some other girls, it would have been an opportunity to build new friendships. It wasn't the teacher's fault - they didn't know anything about what had been going on.

I am definitely NOT going to say anything to the parent of this child though.

@karencantobe and @weltenbummler
By 'getting involved' I meant more being fully present, encouraging her to talk to me about it and helping her to develop coping strategies, rather than me just storming in and taking over. More being super-vigilant, I suppose.
If it got worse, or even tipped over into bullying I would not hesitate to ban the child and talk to the parents (and school).

Thank you all of you - I am taking in every word!

Year 6 is an awful time, which is sad as it’s the last year at primary so you want it to be special and nice. Just grit your teeth and see it through until she leaves in July. They make new friends once they move on to high school and quite often leave old friendship groups behind.