Is this bullying or normal childhood conflicts?

[oa81]

For a few months now, my 7yo daughter has been mentioning incidents both in school and outside of school with a particular child being mean to her, leaving her out etc. I’m starting to wonder if this is normal childhood bickering or if she is in fact being bullied. She’s in year 2 so didn’t expect bullying to happen at the age of 6 and 7.

In the summer she was upset because a group of girls left her out of the dance for the talent show, so she done the show on her own instead and actually seemed happy and proud doing her own dance.

in October she come home from party early with dad, crying her eyes out because she was being left out by X and another girl, running away from her saying they were having private conversations.

this carried on in school the following week, my daughter said X wouldn’t allow her to be in her dance. Daughter then tried to join in another game on the playground and was told by X she wasn’t allowed to play the game as she wasn’t in the dance.

Things settled and she wanted to invite this girl to her birthday tea party. This girl decided to scream and sob hysterically that noone was listening to her when we were just trying to sing happy birthday to my daughter. She also made another child cry, raised it with both of their mums.

this weekend my daughter was crying at party because X was excluding her. Asked to go home but told her to play with her other friends instead. X heard my daughter talking about how she was making her sad with another mum and then included her in the group.

Tonight my daughter was crying before bedtime because X has been mean to her in school. Said about a game before Christmas where she was being left out by X, crying in hut but Miss sorted it out. Said it’s happened again today. X snapped at her for asking another child for a pen telling her to have some patience. daughter confronted her by saying she’s being mean and X said “so what”. Said she’s been like this since year 1 and she is sad because she thought they were BFFs and now she doesn’t want to be friends because she always leaves her out.

is this turning into more than just childhood bickering? I’m apprehensive about raising with school as this child’s mum works there, and a couple of other parents have commented on how she gets preferential treatment due to this. My daughter has been crying her eyes out saying she can’t understand why this girl is so popular with other children and is so mean to her. I’m at a loss on what to do and if I am overreacting

Hmm...it sounds like your DD possibly just wants to be friends with a child who doesn't want to be her friend.

Do you suggest that your DD leaves this particular girl alone and plays with other kids instead?

Hi, yes I’ve suggested this to her, that she should maybe play with other children. She’s actually said today she doesn’t want to be friends with her anymore but still play with her other friends. I think what’s difficult for her is they were all in a friendship group about 6 of them and this one girl is consistently leaving her out, but when she wants something e.g to be picked for a task, she’s lovely to her

Definitely raise it with the school. This was typical behaviour in my DDs friendship group. 6-7 girls, often leaving members out to have a private chat. By year 6 they even had tier 1 and tier 2 friends with my DD down in tier 2. My DD joined a different group for a while but the girls were her crowd so she gravitated back. I spoke to her teachers a few times and they were great, they spoke to the girls individually, talked to them in a group together, banned certain playground games that created a divide and generally made DDs school days more pleasant.

My DD got into similar situation, also 6-7 years old old, a group of 4 girls with X mum being very active in the school activities so X has somewhat got some preferential treatment, and quite popular due to her mum.

X has been DD friend since nursery, and X has been a polite girl to grown-ups and she's been favored by her teacher every year. I didn't know she's been mean to DD until 2 months ago DD had had enough and spilled the beans to me. DD being the weakest and tenderest heart of the girls, she had been the target of X's anger and frustrations for long. DD got deliberately excluded, shouted at, and constant mean comments made on her hair/jumper/any choices she made.

i then guided my DD to identify what's a good friend and encouraged her to judge if X is a good friend - a good friend should not make her feel inferior everyday and they should be having fun when playing together. I also informed the teacher to separate the two in class so there will be no more mean comments whispering into her ears. I also read books like "my secret bully " with my DD and introduced the term relational bullying with her. While I was successful in guiding DD to try new friendship group, X didn't like it and stalked DD to prevented her from forming new friendships. X also retaliated by tricking her to make pinky promise to play together every break times only to have her feeling excluded/isolated in the games.

it was very difficult before the term break, that DD dreaded going to school. I was busy liaising new friendship group. After term break, my forgiving and forgetting DD seems to forget it all and went into X group to play again, only to get mean comments from X that sounds deliberate to upset DD "Y and me are besties but you are not" " I am inviting Y, Z to my birthday but not you, because you are not my BFF", " Why don't you have your gloves today? We all have gloves but you don't." But DD still play together for 2 days in a row...

I don't think I can stop my child from joining them or being emotionally bullied, to my fear that she might have already got used to it and thought it's normal...but I can support her whenever she needs me. And hopefully, gradually she has the wisdom, and courage to realize what's the best for her.

it is very difficult, I have countless sleepless nights and stomach pills, and I read like crazy on this topic. My only comfort is that X is still a little girl and her tactics are very predictable, so predictable that I can prep my DD to respond before it happens. Hope things will get better for your DD.