My daughter's the bully

[buffersandbumpers]

Have posted before about a particular love/hate relationship my daughter has with a girl in her class. There is a 10month age gap (my DD the elder). My DD was 6 in Nov.
Recently, DD has been excluding this girl from games, being rude with basic 'I don't like you' behaviour. However, DD is now trying to encourage (sometimes successfully according to the teacher) other children to also exclude this girl.
The teacher is doing all the things I'd expect: role play, discussing in circle time etc.
my issue is how do I deal with it? The key bit is getting DD to understand the effect her behaviour has on this girl and recognising the emotions she should feel as a consequence. It is the latter part that's missing at the moment which strikes me it's developmental.
Any advice from anyone who's been on either side would be useful.
I am good friends with the girl's Mum and she is being very good about it. I have assured her I'm taking it seriously.

I think there is a lot of truth in the adage 'bullies have been/are being bullied'.

Consistently isolating/attacking one person and encouraging others to do the same must be something she's seen or experienced somewhere. It's too specific to be a natural/random act. A one-off name calling/biting/pushing etc. is a natural/all kids do it type of thing, but bullying is different.

I think you need to look really closely at her life and see if you can see where she might be feeling this. It's not necessarily bullying, but just the feeling of being isolated/shut out. Does she have a new sibling? An older sibling who is mean to her/excludes her? Does she have step-parents? Step-siblings? It could be from anywhere. I think if you locate that and fix it, everything else will fall into place.

Does she say why she doesn't like this particular girl/why she doesn't want her to join in?

Thanks for your response outraged. No step siblings. Two younger brothers (DS4 and DS2) that she gets on well with and is very close to on the whole. There are times when she's nasty to DS4 but I don't think it's anything to worry about.
Incidents where she's been isolated? When I punish her I will exclude her temporarily if the situation warrants it - but please don't say that's causing her to bully is it?! Shit!
She can get on very well with this girl - they bumped into each other at the weekend and you'd think they were best friends!

It doesn't necessarily have to be that she is being isolated, just that she feels that she is.

It could be from being excluded as a punishment. I do the same with mine, so I'm not criticising you for that btw. It could just be that she is hyper-sensitive to it. Maybe if the other girl has done something to irritate her she's 'punishing' her by leaving her out?

Do the two little ones go to school/nursery yet? Maybe she feels left out that they're at home with you and she has to go to school? Or maybe they share a room and she's by herself? Is there anything like that? I have the same girl, boy, boy pattern with my DC and similar age gaps and there were times that it (accidentally) became girl vs boys or 'you're a big girl' vs 'they're little'.

Can you maybe find tangible rewards for her NOT doing this kind of behavior? You do sound like you're communicating well with both her teacher and the other parent so its not as hard for you to monitor her progress.

How about setting her some goals? A reward chart - I don't know - whatever makes her tick being some kind of end game, a trip to an amusement park, an ice-cream cone, whatever.

The punitive stuff just seems to reinforce the negative behaviors sometimes I think.

Thanks Fizzy. The rewards are hard as the behaviour is not present on my watch - but I get that positive reinforcement is a good way to go.

Hi Outraged - interesting you've got the same combination! The other two are at school/nursery. Your last lesson struck a chord tho as yes, there is girls v boys and pressure on her to be the big girl.

I also have a 9 yr old dd and two d's aged 6 and 4. She's never been a problem but this year alot of feelings of being the odd one out seem to have risen to the surface. I feel awful as she's obviously felt this was for a while. She seems to think everything is expected of her and not the boys. That we give them more attention that her. Not all of this is true but to her that's what she feels. So maybe your dd feels similar emotions. It's not easy being the oldest (I know in the oldest of 3)

Thanks Bumblebeerat. I'm the youngest of 3 girls and then a younger brother so can't relate easily to the pressures an older daughter may feel. She came home in tears today as another friend had been mean to her in school and she got told off in assembly for talking! We chatted through it all, both snuggled under my duvet whilst the boys played downstairs. It was lovely actually! Just taking each day as it comes.