Why are some girls so mean? Miss 10 was in a nice friendship with girl 2 last year, along came a third girl and idiot kind girl that she is, she invited her into the group. Girl 3 is psychopathic odd, always negative, mean about others, depressive, and constantly provoked girl 2 until she and Miss 10 fell out. This year, Miss 10 and Girl 3 got put together in a class, but they were drifting apart. On Miss 10's birthday, Girl 3 made a point of dumping her. Miss 10 was fairly philsophical about it as she'd got afraid of getting in trouble when Girl 3 picked on other kids. She's tried to stop her, but it made no difference at best, or the girl turned on her at worst.
I talked her through it (while inwardly celebrating that the evil little bloody monster was off the scene). Miss 10 had made some other friends who she felt good around. But then... cause you know when you relax thinking it is the end of the movie, the gremlin creeps up on you... Girl 3's name started cropping up again. Demanding to play with Miss 10, and if she doesn't, Girl 3 will tell a teacher that Miss 10 is excluding her. Yep, those no exclusion rules are a gift to the little psychopaths darlings who engage in this sort of bullying.
Miss 10 tried just avoiding her and playing with other friends, but Girl 3 always hunted her down, interrupting any conversation and blocking out the other friends. Any time Miss 10 asked her politely not to interrupt (and god knows how any child of mine somehow ended up being super polite) then Girl 3 would go telling other girls that Miss 10 had been mean to her.
The whole sodding thing is coming to a head today, as Girl 3 is having a birthday party that goes for 6 hours. Six hours!! The mum must be insane wanting a group of other people's kids for that long. Or her own, come to that. So Girl 3 made a deal of handing invitations to a few other kids she barely knows, all the time going on about her wonderful party and saying she'd bring Miss 10's invitation the next day, then not bringing it. Miss 10 wobbled for 10 days about whether she wanted to go anyway, then decided yes (sod it, I was trying not to interfere, that was before some of it came out). Miss 10 is now desperate to get out of the friendship, doesn't want to seem vengeful by dropping this girl on her birthday, and is terrified of what this girl will do in terms of spreading untrue rumours and telling teachers Miss 10 is being mean/excluding her.
Apparently it isn't the done thing to tell other parents to pull their little arsehole darling in line, so how do I help Miss 10 to handle this kid? I normally leave her to deal with these issues, and she's way more diplomatic than I am, but I want to help her out as she's in full anxiety mode over it. Should we just move countries or is there an easier way?