9 year old's best friend criticising her apperance

[AbsoluteBeginners7]

9 year old DD has been best friends with a girl in her class for a while. At first we were a little taken aback by very expensive birthday presents (a sackful), lots of sleepovers, meals out and a beautiful but rather OTT scrapbook full of pictures of DD and her friend. DH was probably more uncomfortable with all this than I was but I put it down to us having a bit more of a minimalist approach with school friends outside of school.

As of September the friendship has taken a more controlling turn. DD's friend was making her run about for her, taking her packed lunch rubbish to the bin, fetching and carrying etc. The school actually picked up on this first and nipped it in the bud for the most part.

Alongside this started the comments about DD's appearance - remarks about body hair, hair colour, weight, foot size, any blemishes. Over the last couple of months my DD's temperament has totally changed, she sits in her room very detached and googles body hair removal and questions about appearance and having no friends. She has had numerous stomach aches and tears over it, won't sleep in her own bed and has the weight of the world on her shoulders.

We have spoken to the teacher who is concerned but also quite confused as DD always makes a beeline for her friend at playtime and they appear to be joined at the hip. DD also had made an anonymous report to the school via an app and chatted with the deputy head via the app, but said she did not want to be identified (class teacher has put two and two together and worked out now that it was DD).

Has anyone else experienced this type of situation and how best to approach, if your child actively seeks the company of the friend who is causing her the upset? I feel like DD is seeking to please and comply to her friend, to get things back to the old days of when things were rosy in the friendship.

The parents are not particularly approachable and in fact the dad, who does all school runs, now ignores us (doesn't even respond to a wave or hello now) although DD has been to their house many times. He seems socially awkward. We have politely declined recent invitations for DD which always come via a note in the bag rather than parent interaction. The whole thing is just unusual and worrying.

I can see why you'd be worried. There's not much you can do to keep your daughter away from this friend at school but you can help by a bit of social engineering and inviting other children from school, or seeking friendships outside school, and boosting her resilience by chatting about the importance of good health over good looks.

To be honest, I fee kind of sorry for the other girl who doesn't seem to have the advantage of someone to help re-set things for her. Maybe, in time, your daughter might even be able to help her friend.

Start practicing with your DD how to say “no” and how to challenge unpleasant behaviour.

Talk to her about the kinds of mean things the friend says and discuss the motivations behind them. Start your DD thinking critically about them.

Do some role plays together to practice challenging or responding to personal comments and demands. It’s an important skill for her to learn.

Learning to be nice without being a doormat is a critical life skill.

Nice does not equal compliant. You can be nice and stand up for yourself, even to your friends.

This happened to me when I was around the same age. I was in the position of your daughter and my best friend started out all roses and then began to get jealous and controlling over me, eventually telling me I was ugly, below her, and she would kick me in the shins constantly, but would still always sit with me, always want to pair up with me etc, we were pretty much joined at the hip for many years. I never spoke up about it though and noone noticed, but she did a lot of long term damage to my self esteem and that has carried across most of my relationships since. She was very toxic and became a bully eventually of the worst kind as I didn't know anything else and thought this was what friendships were. Thankfully she got moved to another school when her parents moved house, so I stopped seeing her and we lost contact due to distance.

I think it would have helped me if someone had sat me down and talked to me about how inappropriately she had been treating me as I didn't know any better. Someone should have spoken to her about this as well. Kids are very cruel sometimes.

Some really Frank conversations about 'unhealthy relationships' where a person makes you feel really special, isolates you from others and then starts to criticise and control you. Tell her people who do this often have their own problems which they take out on others. Tell her you have developed some concerns about this friendship and over the next few months you want to work closely with her on developing strategies to build independence from this friend and develop new confidence. Tell her it starts by no more contact or presents outside school. Also tell her that social media and the internet are harmful for girls self esteem and that you are going to take away internet access for now, but you and her are going to spend lots more time together. She will be so relieved, whatever she says, and this will be the making of her. Warn her that her friend may alternate between being super nice and super mean while she distances herself, but teach her to be polite but firm and not worry about any reaction from this girl or others.

Thanks all. DD does not have a phone or any social media. Her friend makes her feel bad about this but if we give DD a phone then the remarks will continue out of school time and she'll get no respite.

Thank you for the other ideas too. It's a little hard for me to teach her as I had a crappy childhood (daughter of an abusive alcoholic) so although I have learned all about people pleasing and lovebombing as an adult, I was as compliant as she is in my own childhood.

Determined not to let her be affected by this. I'll work on it.

Would having a chat with her about some of the stuff she’s concerned about and attempt to address them work? For example let’s say she’s upset about a unibrow, or hairy legs. Could you have a word with your beautician tell her what’s going on, and bring your daughter in for a consultation and have the “professional” tell her that she’s perfect how she is, she doesn’t need to worry about how she looks? Compliment something to make her feel good? I don’t know if it would work, just throwing it out there, she may not listen to you telling her she’s perfect but may listen to a stranger who makes people “pretty”? Best of luck with it, what a horrible toxic friendship for your child.

My sister had a friendship exactly like this in the first year of high school. It burnt itself out in the end and she found some lovely friends.
As your dd is a bit younger maybe you need to help cultivate some more friendships for her-have a few sleepovers/ days out with some other children?