Please stick with me as I think this will turn into an essay......
DD is 9.5y and definitely at the early stages of puberty, she is a lot more sensitive, particularly to perceived slights than she used to be. She loans a pony which we keep at the owner's yard. The owner has a son of 14 and a daughter of nearly 17 (pony has never belonged to either of them). The daughter in particular is a wannabe riding instructor and very accomplished rider. She makes constant criticism of DD's riding and handling of the pony (sometimes justified, sometimes not)in a rather unpleasant tone "oh for god's sake, look at you, you're going to ruin that pony" and so on. DD now refuses to ride if she is around (e.g. this morning stopped jumping and insisted on walking round the arena until girl had gone into the house). If dD weren't so attached to the pony i would have made other arrangements by now and the deal is that pony has to stay on the yard.
The second part of the problem is that the son and daughter have started mimicking the way DD speaks. i can see that DD is a natural target, she doesn't have the local accent, they know she goes to a private school, DD has a rather adult way of speaking and so on. She decided to give up brownies because of similar "teasing" from the young leaders and is sensitive to this sort of thing. She has tried ignoring them or "not noticing" when they do it and carrying on as normal but is getting wound up by it. She is reluctant to confront them because of part 1 of the problem and I am at my wits' end.
Should i step in? The owner thinks her DD is wonderful so I'm not sure she would take anything very seriously. At the moment I'm telling DD she needs to decide on a strategy and see it through and suggesting she may be over-reacting (see note about puberty!)by getting so miserable about it. any advice welcome!