Bullying or personality clash?

[2emumuk]

We have been having trouble for a number of months now between my dd1 and another girl who also happens to be dd2's best friend.

Last school year, all three girls were in the same class and I suspect that the problem stemmed back to jealousy between the two girls over dd2.

It has now got completely out of hand and the other girl's mother is threatening to take her daughter away from school.

I am really struggling to get to the bottom of what has actually been happening as there seems to be very little evidence of the incidents and I am getting inconsistent stories from my girls and their friends.

We are going to see the school on Monday but as dd1 is the older girl, she seems to be being accused of bullying and all the blame is being placed on her.

Other than this relationship, she seems to get on well with other children and has some very good friends.

We live in a small village with a small village school so quite difficult for the two girls to avoid each other.

The school seem to be wanting to get outside agencies and psychologists involved which I am very uncomfortable with.

Does anyone else have experience of similar issues or any advice?

I think first of all you need to see the school and find out exactly what has been going on. If your DDs are giving inconsistent accounts, it is very hard for you to know any other way.

Have you discussed this with the other girl's mum? What does she say?

What are the actually supposed to have done?

We are going to see the school on Monday but were hoping we would be able to go with some idea of what we might be faced with.

From what I can gather it is mostly verbal threats and name calling but it seems to be the general attitude of the two girls towards each other, the involvement of quite a few other girls in the squabble and the obsessive nature of the negative feelings.

I have unfortunately already fallen out with the mother of the other girl as a result of the two girls' squabbles although she used to be one of my closest friends.

My dd1 is on the special needs register as highly gifted with Dyspraxia which may help to explain some of the behaviour but I think also means that she has been labelled as the problem!

But surely if this other mother moves her DD to another school - that might solve the problem?

'But surely if this other mother moves her DD to another school - that might solve the problem'
..but then the op's dd will forever be labelled the bully who made (friend) leave the school.