I am worried about my DD's inability to sustain a friendship for very long at all. She was never short of friends at nursery school, and infants wasn't too bad, but in the last two years she has really begun to struggle to maintain a friendship. She invites girls round, but has not been invited to anyone else's house for more than a year, apart from to girls whose mums are my friends. She is bossy, wants to play what she wants to play, not what they want to play, unless it chimes with how she is feeling. She also talks about herself all the time and rarely asks a friend a question- well, when she does, she doesn't listen to their answer and butts in with her own story. She interrupts and talks over people. She hasn't been invited to a party for over a year at school, though at infants school it all seemed fine.
I know she is pretty immature at times socially and emotionally, though in other ways she is very grown up (wants to wear make up and says she can't wait till she is old enough to have a boyfriend).
She often complains that others are mean to her, whilst being breathtakingly mean herself on occasions. For example, she was approached by a girl at school the other morning and said "Julianne(mutual friend) is coming to my house on Friday" - deliberately to upset this girl, it seemed to me. When we got home that night, I told DD I had felt sorry for the girl and that I expected she had felt a little jealous and upset. DD told me I was completely wrong. She said this girl would have been interested and would not have been upset because she wouldn't have expected to be invited.
When girls at school pair off, DD is seemingly always left without a partner.
Or, someone will agree to be her partner, and then pair off with someone else.
I could not stand all the moaning about her birthday - constantly changing her list of people she wanted to invite, and I mean on a daily basis, so I said she wasn't having anyone to her party, and she was very upset. We ended up taking her awayfor the weekend , and we took one friend with her. This girl, I'll call her Rosie, is a real angel. I don't know how she manages my DD but she is placid and easy going. Anyway DD went horseriding, (Rosie didn't want to.) I let Rosie paint with DD's birthday paints. When DD came home, she was devastated. I said I didn't think she would mind. She had a complete tantrum upstairs. I was so embarrassed. I apologised to Rosie. DD said Rosie never lets her use her toys. I said I didn't care, even if that is the case, you should do the right thing.
Is all this normal for a ten year old girl trying to sort out her place in the world? Are they all playing this tit for tat game? "I'll invite you to my party if you be my best friend all week??" Should I relax? Or should I be trying to guide her behaviour a little? I do this as best I can by modelling how to behave when a friend does come round, and by talking DD through how I think about my friends.
Two more things - when she plays with a boy, there are never any arguments. What's that all about? And when someone cries (like when Rosie fell and hurt her knee), DD is the perfect caring friend, arm round shoulder, and so on. And Rosie's mum said she can see my DD being a counsellor at college because she is such a good listener! So is DD doing this for my benefit? (I am recovering from a serious illness.) Any ideas of how I can help her, or titles of books I could get hold of, gratefully accepted.
Thanks for reading x