Please help - DDs best friend taking advantage and being a bully.

[HelenaGWells]

DDs friend is becoming a bully. I don't know if I'm overreacting or what to do. There's a big backstory but the basic situation is DD (undergoing autism assessment) is part of a group of 3 kids. A, female and B, male. In classes at high school DD has been split up from A. She is however in most of the same classes as B. In class A sits with C, the best friend of DDs cousin. DD and A have started sitting with C and DDs cousin at lunchtime. B tends to do his own thing at lunch from what I can gather. I drop DD at As house and they walk together and meet B about 2 mins away on the main road. B lives around the corner from us but it's a 30 min walk and DD was too scared to do it at first. I didn't push because the transition has been a bitch on her.

Since September As behaviour is getting worse and I'm worried it's going to impact on DD. School have no behavioural concerns about DD and we are in regular contact with them due to her currently undergoing assessment. I'm worried that she may be being bullied and keeping it quiet. I've seen a lot of nastiness but I think there is more she's keeping quiet about.

Since September I've seen:

A deleting pokemon from DDs game, because she didn't have them so didn't want DD to have them either. This happened on more than one occasion. DD didn't want to believe she would do it but she later admitted it.

A leaving DD at the school gates on her own and refusing to walk home with her for no reason.

A calling DD and telling her she won't walk to school with her because she wants to walk with C and won't wait for her. A then stropping when DD walks with B instead.

A sending a stream of messages to DD telling DD that she is a terrible friend so DD should hate her and call her names. Neither me nor DD figured this out but I suspect she may have wanted DD to call her names so she could get DD into trouble. She was very adamant DD call her names, she was goading her, telling her a list of shitty things she had done to DD (the things above) DD just told her she forgave her and refused to be drawn.

A hacked into Cs school log in and sent an abusive message to Cs tutor pretending to be C. This reminded me of an incident were in primary school DD got a torrent of abuse from A over a school messaging system but then claimed she was hacked. DD was upset about this but wouldn't talk to us about it. We found out via SIL as all 4 girls had been questioned at school about it and she wanted to make sure DD was ok.

This last incident broke all friendship ties between A and C for a couple of months, they have only recently rekindled.

The last 2 days A has called DD whilst we are in the car on our way to her house and said she wasn't waiting for her. DD very upset about this as she doesn't know what she did (answer seems to be nothing, it turns out that my niece has been sick so A has been walking 5 mins in the wrong direction to intercept C on her way to school) Tonight I've had a concerned call because it turns out A was bullying C on the way home tonight. I've no idea if DD saw this as I found out too late to ask her. I've been reassured though that DD WASN'T bullying anyone.

My concern is what the hell do I do? She's walking to school with B tomorrow because I asked her to before all this shit came out. We have agreed that she will walk all the way to school 1-2 days a week, slowly increasing, so it lessens my stress in the morning. If she wants to meet A she can do so at the gates where she comes out onto the main road, it's a 2 min walk from As house.

I'm concerned that A is ramping up her bullying and manipulative behaviour. I'm scared DD is being bullied and putting up with it because A just turns round and says sorry after every incident and DD quickly forgives. I'm also scared that she may be dragged into some shit A does. If she ends up being part of something where rules are broken she will absolutely fall apart. She can't cope with rule breaking. It broke her when A did it. She was withdrawn and upset for weeks and it was nothing to do with her.

Any ideas? We've tried to talk to her about if she's ok. We've spoken about types of bullying. We've spoken about how the last 2 days have made her feel. We spoke about jealousy. Nothing. She just doesn't see it.

Tough one Helena. A does sound like a bully, and not just to your DD. I would have suspected adolescent stupidity but you said a couple of things that suggest that she has been like this for a long time.

It really sounds like she needs to stay well away from A. How feasible would it be for you to stop all of your DD's contact with A outside school? I really think your DD's mental health needs to come before "friendship" with someone who obviously doesn't value her. If her friendship with B is a supportive one could you encourage that one instead?

Maybe have a constructive chat with your DD, not about bullying per se, but about what friendship is, and how friends act towards each other. A chart and checklist maybe. if the likes charts? She might need to have A's behaviour broken down piece by piece before she will see what A's doing.

Sorry, that's probably not helpful. Friendships are hard, especially between girls. There's a reason most of my school friends were boys!

We are trying that wings. I'm very confused. Last night DD walked home With A and C. She says everything was fine and A went off to her house on the way past even though C asked her to carry on walking with her. DD then turned up the next road to come up to school.

This doesn't fit with the story that A bullied C on the way home. So I've now got no idea if C is making shit up because she knows she isn't supposed to walk with A so she's basically saying "oh yeah A is a bitch I made a mistake etc" or if DD is scared to talk about it or even if DD is involved or
Secret third option that A did actually walk all
The way home with C but DD didn't see it.

DD has asked me for a reason she can't go to see A the last 2 holidays so there must be something that's upsetting her about it all.

She's walking with B this morning, he's coming to collect her from the door. They could meet up the road on the corner but he
Likes to walk the slightly longer way round and get her from the door so he knows she won't get lost. So glad she's in his classes rather than As right now.

I've also just had it confirmed that A guilts DD into giving her her library pass if she
Doesn't get one despite the library being DDs safe place at lunch.

So much bloody drama.

Find another way for DD to get to school whilst avoiding A. Is there an older schoolkid who would take it on for you, or pay an adult to oversee the walk to school.

Tell school about A's behaviour and ask them to keep DD and A separate at all times.

Change schools.

This isn't going to stop until A is removed from DD's friendship and social circle.

I know how hard it is, does the school have good pastoral care? If so, go in and ask what they can do.

I'm not moving her schools. She's under autism assessment and the school have been amazing. Im not risking loosing that support.

We are in contact with the head of year and she's supposed to have regular pastoral support being put into place as part of her coping. I will chase that after Easter.

She's been walking with B the last couple of days. I'm going to push that as much as I can. Tonight her biggest cousin is
Coming to ours so they will walk home together.

3 DDs here all older than yours (is your DD early secondary) and two of them had a horrible time with peer politics. DD asd had a friend who alternated between clinging to her and being mean to her.
DD NT had a whole gang of friends who did the same thing. They both got away from them in the end but it was so tough.
The group of girls have carried on being really mean to one member at a time and they are in early 20s now.

I felt so ill equipped to deal with it all. I did once confront a group of mums i knew in a cafe as their girls were keeping a "burn book" (from the film mean girls, recording when you have been nasty to people). I said if it didn't stop I would go to the head. It stopped, well the book did.

My youngest dd now has a peer group of very sassy, unconventional kids but it took a while.

What I'm trying to say is it sadly seems normal for this kind of politics in friendship groups at secondary. It is really tough for DD and you. IME schools have been very supportive even when they can't help directly if that makes sense.

My middle DD is 10 and her friends are lovely. They are quite a diverse bunch but so far we've had no issues. There are 6 of them and they mix in different pairs constantly.

I'm just totally out of my depth but I think also scared because I had really shitty "friends" at school and I ended up in some situations where I was totally out of my depth and incredibly uncomfortable.

DD is age 12 1/2 and in year 7. It helps a bit just knowing its not just me tbh. It's so much harder at high school because everything is bigger, scarier and harder to control.