Dd (6) being led a merry dance by a friend (7) at school, getting in to trouble

[bramblina]

I think I'm just trying to find that magic guidebook that doesn't exist (again) but for now I'm not sure what to do Dd is in a small composite class of 20 children and so spends a lot of time with, among others, a girl who keeps telling her what to do and repeatedly gets her in to trouble. Now, I'm not completely blaming the other girl, that's not my point, my problem is that dd is away from home 8am-4pm a lot of which she spends with the other girl, dd seems drawn to her, and after being mean to another boy today, after discussions tonight, she often tells her what to do and my problem is I'm not sure how to encourage dd to stay away from the girl. The other girl is a yr older and has recently moved here (country) and is very street-wise.
I know this is a part of life and I have tried to glaze over it, have positive chats etc, have her round to play but I have seen her manipulation and tonight found out from someone else that at a school event recently she heard dd being constantly told what to do.

What's the "positive" take on this please? At least until dd is a little more mature and can make decisions better, for herself IYSWIM....???

Unfortunately getting too involved doesn't help. Maybe tell her that if she doesn't limit herself to a "best friend", she can have lots of friends, and be friends with everyone instead. Of course these friendship groups can be fickle but at least if her bossy friend dumps her she isn't going to stuck on her own. Any chance you could invite another girl round for tea?

Try to get her involved in something that she's good at which will increase her confidence. Do you know if there any activities outside of school she could join? A sport, eg trampolining, swimming, or music? That way she isn't dependent on this one girl.

Maybe when this girl feels more at ease she will settle down more. As she's aged 7 it sounds over the top saying this girl might be actively bitchy so perhaps I'll rephrase that - had better say instead, girls who are very insecure themselves are the ones who try to make themselves feel better by putting others down. Unless you think there's some bullying going on I would try and sort this out before talking to the class teacher.

My daughter developed a friendship in reception with a little boy and the two of them together encouraged each other into bad behaviour. We told her that we didn't care what xxx told her to do we expected her to behave ( she was quick to blame him for trouble although I'm sure it was both of them).

Punishments would follow if she didn't. I think things settled down in the friendship. Have the school complained to you? How do you know she's getting into trouble?

To an extent they do have to learn for themselves, though. You can't control the friendship at school .you can - if you need to - ask the teacher to get them into different groups for learning, stuff like that. So that they each have to get along with other children.

I have done the be yourself..You know how to behave ..Be the real you. I agree with Cedar03 as well never excuse your dd behaviour because someone told her to. My DS hit another girl because someone told him to. He got punished at school at I supported the school. My DS was really horrified by his behaviour and this was a lesson learnt for him.