Friendship drama or more? What to do?

[Tooprincipled]

Help! I need to know whether to interfere or let this play out. Yr 6 Dd has a friendship group and there has been a bit of jostling over the last 18 months around who likes who etc. At one point the mum of one friend (a TA) contacted me and asked if we could intervene but it was pretty standard kid stuff (her dd was being bossy and saying she should be the princess whilst my dd should be ugly sister for example so my dd went and played with other children instead of her) so I said we should let it play out as they needed to learn to navigate these things. My dd decided she no longer wanted to be friends and that was that. All fine for 9 months but more recently this girl has started dictating to others that they shouldn't play with my dd, making up stories that dd gave her dirty looks, lifted up her skirt, fancied one of the girls etc. This has resulted in the other 2 friends being uncertain with what to do. One has decided to no longer be friends and that would be fine except she has doubled down on the "don't be friends with her"; the other definitely is a friend and comes over etc but my dd is told by the others that she only plays because they're not available and she doesn't really like her. My dd is a resilient kid with a strong sense of self, and understands this is about them not her. She says it's not bothering her but tummy aches and complaining about going to school tell me otherwise. The mum of the instigator is a TA and my dd and her dd will be going to the same senior school. Camp is coming up so I won't be able to counsel my kid through any drama. Do I contact school and just ask them to keep an eye out or leave it and let my dd respond to all of this? Thanks!

I'd make school aware. Keep it as neutral and non blaming as possible but let them know what is happening so they can monitor and intervene if necessary. My DD had sort of similar and the teachers were brilliant. It's the sort of thing that happens a lot but worth letting them know for your own peace of mind and so they know if anything gets raised in the future.

This sounds very targeted towards your daughter. As a teacher, I would want to know about something like this going on in my class. Friendship scenarios can go under a teacher’s radar because teachers are only out on break duties sometimes. The classroom environment is not as socially free so the social dynamics are different. We often don’t know every small friendship scenario, unless it has been brought to our attention. I think this is especially important that you take it to the teacher given that the other Mum is a class TA. She is in neutral and this could be playing into things too.

yeah this has escalated, definitely make school aware

In what way fos the TA want you to intervene? When her kid is the issue here. This is bullying and needs to be addressed and school need to be made aware.
Just a consideration, I'd email secondary school and ask for your child not to be placed in the same tutor group as these girls at the new school. You don't want her to have to contend with these kids going forward. It would give her the opportunity for a fresh start.

Definitely make class teacher aware. To be honest it is very common scenario in y6 so teacher will have strategies to ensure your dd is doing okay and knows where to get help on the really bad days.

Your dd sounds like she’s navigating pretty well - ie don’t rise to the cruel comments, and go find other people to play with. You can support that with extra play dates too etc.

The friend who is stuck in the middle wanting to stay friends with your dd but under pressure to become a mean girl , is in a horrid situation too. So worth mentioning that you think this girl is in a tight spot, trying to be nice to your dd but getting flack for it.

I bought a couple of books second hand about how to handle girls friendship drama, and dd and I read them together. We picked up some scripted responses and ways to deflect the nastiness. It helped massively also to have long walks - I wouldn’t directly ask about the drama, but usually she’d let it all come tumbling out and I’d ask questions which were really thinly disguised bits of advice eg “did you ever wonder if it might help if….” Or “when that happened did you feel confident that you could talk to your teacher about it?”

We found secondary school was a brilliant way of relieving the pressure as all friendship dynamics change and even the most solid friendships sometimes drift as new and more compatible peers arrive on the scene (that can be a bit painful in y7/y8 too). Aside from a bit of snark on the walk home from school, dd has never had anything to do with her ex best friend again. She had problems with a different girl in year 8 and a really truly awful school trip where they were in a dorm together and the girl was horrid, but I rather suspect dd gives as good as she gets now (yikes).

So when the other girl's mum wanted you to help intervene in the situation, presumably because her daughter was struggling with it, you were ok to call it just kids stuff and let your daughter just call off the friendship with a that's that. But now it's the other way round you think everyone needs to help and intervene to help your daughter? Maybe the way the initial issues went down weren't reported to you accurately by your daughter? Personally I think if a parent reaches out to another to ask for help to resolve these types of things then you really should. I've reached out to a mum previously and received a similar hands-off reply. You can bet your life if the same mum needed my intervention in the future I'd be telling her to go whistle. You can't have it all the ways.

@HardyPinkPanda I think this is why I'm struggling with the decision as it is hypocritical to now intervene. However, my dd at the time was responding to games of playing pretend and figuring out that her friend was bossy and she didn't like spending time with her so played with other children instead. She didn't launch a campaign to stop other children playing with her, say mean things or make things up to make her look bad, or tell her that noone liked her etc. She explained why she didn't want to play any more, gave her a chance to change things, and when nothing changed found another friendship group. Now feels a bit different, but equally, yes, given I said we'd watch it play out, it's uncomfortable to now step in, and I'd do it low level through school for them to keep an eye out..