Subtle bullying - how to advise my 9 y old daughter

[LongDeadMotherofHorrors]

This is the latest in a year of a tricky class/playground situation for my daughter. Queen bee shares a secret, first with latest bf, then one by one with all the other girls except pointedly my daughter. I have suggested to my daughter that she feigns disinterest but she says this is night on impossible as one of the other girls keeps coming up to her and asking her if she is coping with having been excluded from the secret. She also says that if she says she is not interested in the secret it will be relayed back to Queen Bee who will then be upset, visibly, publicly and my daughter will be blamed for upsetting her. What to do eh?

My DD's are 9 and 10 so I know where you're at :-) I have found that they are all so fickle at this age everything can turn around so fast that you quickly lose track of what's happening. I do!
Maybe this is the moment for your DD to get out the elastics or skipping rope or something not considered too babyish in order to start a new kind of game and change the atmosphere. Queen Bee will soon lose her status as flavour of the month...it's just a question of time. She seems a bit manipulative and your daughter won't be the only one resenting it. I'm sure. Good luck anyway, it's good that they learn to deal with this stuff!

Thanks auntierozzi - good advice. I'll get her a large elastic! However, Queen Bee has been flavour of month for 12 months now - she joined the school at the start of KS2. An only child and yes, very good at manipulating.

What's being an only child got to do with it?

AlienAttach - the only reason being an only child is relevant is that at the root of this conflict is the issue of sharing friends. IME some only children find this harder than children who have siblings. Forgive me if I have offended.

Yep. You lost any sympathy from me at the only child bit.

And actually, rereading your OP, Queen Bee sounds less of a manipulative little cah than the shit stirrer who points out to your daughter that they all know summat she doesn't.....does the shit stirrer have siblings?

What about telling your DD to shrug it off and say to stirrer friend that she respects the Queen Bee's privacy and it's up to QB who she chooses to share her secrets with? That was she is showing "respect" to the Queen Bee while untangling herself from the "I know something you don't know" games.

She should just opt out. Say she trusts Queen Bee's judgement - if QB doesn't think it appropriate to share the secret with your DD then she (your DD) accepts that. "If she doesn't want to share the secret with me, I'm sure she has her reasons" is a good phrase to fend off stirrer friend.

longdead I think generalisations or stereotypes are always going to offend. I have no wish to derail this thread but I think you need to look carefully at what is really going on rather than liberally throwing around cliches about "queen bee". Given we're talking about 9 year olds who are learning and working out (often through trial and error) about how friendships work, I think you sound unnecessarily aggressive.

9 is a tricky age wait till you get to 11 and you will wish for 9 again

I think queen bee is a harsh thing to call a 9 yr old and I would also be concerned about the child in the middle causing it to all be talked about again.

I ask my 9 yr old to think about whether it really matters, where the secret would affect her and if the friendship at this time is making her happy.

DD has had many moments of fighting to be queen bee and it never lasts very long.

Currently we are working through positive attitude and body language both areas she really needs to work on along with the rest if the class!!

Oh a DD is a middle child so maybe I should just give up

• and not a

Any sort of bullying should be reported to the school and taken seriously by all parties. Teachers in school should be able to set something up to monitor the children involved and give children and parents advice about how to cope with it. I work in Teacher Training Education and when my daughter was confronted to emotional bullying at the age of 8 my colleagues recommended the following website: www.anti-bullyingalliance.org/home. ABA defines bullying as the repetitive, intentional hurting of one person or group by another person or group, where the relationship involves an imbalance of power. Bullying can be physical, verbal or psychological. It can happen face-to-face or through cyberspace.

I too think queen bee/only child stereotyping doesn't help. There has to be a point where kids work out that they don't like everyone in the world and how to walk away and find others they do like. Sometimes school needs to help eg have good lunchtime clubs, mix up friendship groups etc. We also only hear our Childs version of events. My y6 dd disliked one kid in y4 - they both grew upend, learnt some more social skills and now get on.

I think CheeseStraw's suggestion is excellent actually.

Your DD can say, "If QB wants to tell me that's fine, if she doesn't that's fine too, because it's her secret to share". Meanwhile your DD needs to work on strengthening other one-to-one friendships so she's not so available/vulnerable to the stirrers.

Only children if girls are manipulative Queen bees?

What are boys? Wasps? Praying mantis?

That's really quite nasty op.

Wishiwas OP already clarified upthread she meant "some" only children, that her opinion was in her experience, and said quite genuinely, "forgive me if I have offended". Doesn't that cover it?

Girls tend to work these things out for themselves. It's good advice to get your DD to start something else to distract everyone from the manipulations of the other girl. I was subtly bullied like this by a girl throughout primary school (she was jealous of me) and learned just to avoid and ignore her. She's now an adult in her 50s, has amounted to nothing, has 3 broken marriages, a face like a robbers dog and two grown up children in prison. I'm a great believer in what goes round etc. As for being an only child, I think this situation can occur with any child but it is mainly those fighting for recognition.

Thanks for all helpful suggestions....after chat with CT followed by relevant circle time session on excluding others I am optimistic that this specific issue is resolved, though of course at this age there is always some little emotional drama. Some comments here have made me very conscious that using stereotypes eg QB is not helpful and even prejudicial. It was intended as shorthand and I shall avoid it in future. Relationships are rarely simple and for children, learning this can be painful. Some of you have show great sensitivity to this in your comments. Thank you. Being a parent is a learning journey is it not? Always I find that I learn something from this site even if it is not quite what I expected!

Great post longdead and very glad you are feeling optimistic that this specific issue is resolved. I agree with your comments that relationships are rarely simple and that this is difficult and sometimes painful for children to learn. And therefore also difficult for us as parents to work out how best to support them. I hope your DD goes from strength to strength.

Thanks AlienAttack