I am worried about the relationship my DD has with a child in her class who seems to have some emotional problems. They are in year 2.
In reception the girls began to play together but I was unhappy with the direction of play this girl would tend to take things in. Often it was naughty, or uncontrolled and would see them getting into trouble. My DD is quite a follower and plays nicely when the children around her play nicely, but will quickly get caught up in behaviours she wouldn't normally do if the other party encourages her. This other girl is quite rough and had hurt my DD on occasion, pinching her and so on, and her younger sister had bitten my DD in a swimming lesson. Other behaviours surfaced where this girl would draw over my DDs drawings, upsetting my DD, or would deface other people's work and blame my DD for it. Things progressed over the year to the point that when they mixed the classes going into year 1 I was hoping the girls would be split up (though unfortunately it never occurred to me to request that they were). As it transpired all my DDs other friends went into the other class and she and this other girl were pretty much the only girls left from that reception class.
Going into year 1 I asked the new teacher to try to keep them apart but she failed / forgot to do this and they began to play together more often, but each time DD would come home in tears because this other girl had done or said something mean to her. It didn't seem to matter how many times I advised her to try to play with someone else and that people who were friends didn't do that sort of thing, she just kept going back next day and coming home in tears again.
This girl is very manipulative and controlling using threats to keep my DD in line, ensuring they only play the games she wants to play and getting my DD to do quite disgusting eating related things she wouldn't usually do.
For example at a party she told me they had fun making 'doughballs'. When I asked what that was she said this other girl had got her to chew up bread and spit it out and that's what making doughballs was. I told her that was disgusting and not to do that.
Another time she told us a sweet she was eating tasted like a leaf. When we asked how she knew what leaves taste like she said this other girl had tricked her into eating a leaf at school, insisting they would both do it but then spitting hers out after my DD had swallowed hers. Again I reacted explaining how dangerous that could have been, and especially because she hadn't told us at the time.
Gradually things came to a head and my DD was getting more and more upset coming home full of the things this girl was doing to her, and they began to hurt each other. This girl pinched my DD very hard in class, and she was very upset and had a big mark and bruise on her arm, fortunately this event was witnessed by the teacher. Shortly after that my DD pushed this girl over in the playground and at that point I insisted to the teacher that I wanted them kept apart before they really hurt each other. The teacher agreed and both girls were told not to play together any more and were kept apart and things mostly settled down and my DD went back to playing with her other friends and generally being much happier.
This year - year 2 - things have remained fairly status quo although occasionally my DD would come home saying this girl was much better / nicer / not lying / not hurting her and she thought it might be ok to play with her again. I expressed some reservations about it, but if they did play together it seemed fairly infrequent and without great incident.
Then, about the middle of last term this girl developed a severe eating disorder. She was hospitalised for several weeks and whilst my DD enjoyed stress free playtimes with her close friends, as a naturally caring and sensitive kid she worried a lot about this girl and developed some guilt over the fact they'd been separated before, even though I explained it wasn't really her fault.
Now this girl is on the road to recovery which is wonderful and it's great to see her back at school, but clearly she needs my daughter to manipulate and control - I guess because the other kids won't let her. Once again my DD has started coming home saying she thinks this girl is ok now, this girl has promised not to hurt her any more, she thinks this girl has been trying very hard to play nicely, but then struggling to tell me things that she's clearly uncomfortable about, namely that this girl has been kissing her - on the lips - and telling her she loves her. I told her it was ok to kiss on the cheek but that she might give the girl germs and make her poorly if she lets her kiss on the lips. And then she told me yesterday that she thinks this girl needs to work some more at not lying, which was another trait she showed a lot last year - apparently a compulsive liar about even the most innocuous of things like what kind of lunch she's eating, and wider stories that upset my daughter quite a lot like saying all boys are in fact aliens, or that it was ok to be friends with a boy whose skin was a different colour (like my DD's best friend) but that you couldn't marry him.
This girl then (sorry for the enormous post) seems to have some ingrained emotional issues and she seems rather troublingly to need my DD. My DD is clearly ill-equipped to deal with this girl and all her baggage - they're 7! And I am at a loss as to how to help her, short of just demanding they don't play with each other again which seems a bit harsh at this stage, especially when the girl has just returned to school from a prolonged absence.
I know other children in their year have also had similar problems with this girl, but have either not let her get away with it or have other mechanisms for avoiding her. But she seems to want to get her hooks into my DD, and my DD who would not dream of saying boo to a goose or stepping on an ant is loathe to just tell her to stay away. She does, unfortunately, sort of like her.
Any ideas?