I have never been in this situation before and ny first time raising a pre teen 😩
AIBU that this is beyond normal behaviour.
DD has started secondary school so obviously this is her first term. Not to drip feed- she is autistic but very passive / stickler for the rules and has had issues with making friends in the past due to her being a “ goody too shoes “ etc
she made friend's straight away when starting the new school and found her self in a friendship group of 4 which was amazing ! I was aware from the very beginning that 1 of the girls was a more dominant character - there had been a few issues with in the social group mainly between 2 girls the dominant girl lets call her Anne and a second girl Lola.
DD seemed to be unaffected by this but included Anne being mean to Lola and then crying telling teachers the same story but the opposite way around.
things included threatening to beat Lola up after school but then crying and telling the adults Anne threatened to beat her up. This seemed to be between Lola and Anne.
DD had never shown any upset about Anne and I was oblivious anything was going on but then it turns out that that Anne has been lying to my DD continuously about things just every day constantly sometimes these lies are just random things like what she did at the weekend etc however other times they are about things other students and staff have said about DD.
She made up a story that a teacher had discussed with her a situation regarding DD and it caused a lot of upset - the school investigated it all came out the staff member had not done it.
other things include telling her other students have said they don’t like her - she is the only one not going to be invited to people’s birthday parties.
Telling her she is the only year 7 not on a whats app group and then saying when she asked to allow her to join that she was told no because none of them even know who she was or existed. ( there actually was not any class what’s app group)
the other girls have said that the only reason she is apart of the friendship group is because of her and to remember that if she doesn’t stay her friend she won’t have any friends at all.
Also just some really harsh comments like when the girls were discussing moving maths classes they were trying to work if they were in the lowest set and Anne said “ of course it’s the lowest set “ DD” is in our class.
DD seems to now picked up that she is lying and that’s a step forward and to not take what she says as gospel and is upset by the lying but does not understand the intention - so seemingly just accepts the lies because she is still convinced that she won’t have any friends if she backs away.
I feel like she is very manipulative and when DD did call her out about the staff situation she replied “ huh I didn’t say that to you, I wouldn’t have said that I am your best friend “ and left DD confused she 100 percent knows she did but then DD just said ok then and carried on as normal the next day.
is this normal behaviour from an 11/12 year old. Do I take step back or intervene ?