9 year old daughter

[esmeroo]

Hi,
I would appreciate it if anyone has any advice for me on the following.

dd is very loyal to her friends. Her teacher's have always described her as being kind and caring. She had an unhappy year at school (yr 4,disliked teacher) as did many of the children in her class plus had friendship issues with best friend.

We have always taught her to be considerate and thoughtful of others. However we have started to question whether we have done the right thing. Obviously some of her peers do not have the same beliefs and we feel as though she appears "too soft". Our youngest daughter is quite a bit tougher and this is probably because we have been more relaxed.

My sister thinks we should "toughen her up" (says she had similar with her two sons). She thinks we should try and teach her to be a bit more insensitive, less caring and more selfish with her peers. She thinks that if her peers have this attitude than it's best if she does too, especially with going to high school in a couple of years.

Has anyone else gone through anything similar?
Thanks in advance.

If you managed to watch the 'Child of our Time' series they found that the girl who was originally MOST kind and considerate, became much less so as she grew up. She decided herself that she was being taken advantage of, and altered her behaviour!
I love the idea of a child like yours so why not ask her how she would deal with certain circumstances and give her some sound advice which she can put in to practice if needed.
A judo course would also be a good idea :).

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell......... it depends how the kid is built.

after being bullied all my school life i resolved not the let my children experience the same and i did acutally bring them up to be respectful and well mannered at home, however if someone picked on them at school - they knew what to do

but my youngest son - is built very much like me and it doesn't matter how many times you say ' shout back at the the kids when they shout at you,," or 2 if they hit you - him em bacl" becuase if you just dont have it in you - you just dont

Think Custardo is right
they either have or don't

dd1 is 9 and is exactly like this, and I just tell her to ignore certain behaviours but no matter what silly things will annoy her, dh says she is as deep as the ocean and she is!

ds on the other hand is as laid back as they come nothing seems to faze him

dd2 well shes only 3 but I know there is no way anyone will walk all over her

Thank you all for your useful advice. It's good to get others opinions.

It will probably be the case then that we will try and encourage her to be a little tougher and not to try to keep everyone happy. It's not in her nature to be inconsiderate but even a little bit may help!

Thanks very much

I would tell your sister to wind her neck in and leave your dd alone. She sounds lovely.