New Friend Ruining Daughter’s Social Life

[Everythingputtogether]

Hello all - I’m seeking a little parenting advice from a female perspective as a single father with two daughters.

My eldest, 8, has always been super sociable with loads of friends, and sending her to school has never been a worry - she’s loved going as it’s been an opportunity to play with all her mates. She’s pretty much continually had a tight-knit group of about six close friends but also plays with others from time to time. And she has a ‘number one BFF’ she’s been close to from day one of reception.

In the last two or three months, though, things have changed, and it seems to be to do with a girl, P, who had never previously been somebody my daughter was friendly with, somehow inveigling herself in the friendship group. P is it seems very manipulative and has this way of setting people against each other, so that ever since she’s been on the scene there have been lots of fights and arguments, and the thing to do is for girls to pair up and have a ‘day together’ and not play with anyone else. So it seems as though each morning there’s a competition to decide who is having a ‘day with’ who. And my daughter very often has to end up playing with P, who insists often that it’s the two of them who are having a ‘day together’. (And, reading between the lines, I have a feeling the other girls use having a ‘day with’ somebody else as a way to avoid having to play with P.)

My daughter hates this. She desperately just wants her group of friends to play together, and she increasingly has made clear she doesn’t like P and doesn’t really want to play with her. But she doesn’t know what to do because she doesn’t want to hurt P’s feelings and is scared she’ll get in trouble if she tells P she doesn’t want to play with her. Now she’s worried she’s losing her other friends and that her BFF isn’t her BFF anymore. She was up until past 10pm last night crying about it. I’ve talked to the teacher and she’s said she’s keeping an eye on things, but I was wondering if anyone has dealt with this kind of situation and has advice what to do about it?

Absolutely say to your daughter in a kind way she can say no best to learn now before it gets to hard as she gets older..I had this with my son when he was 9 and he stood up and said to the lad sorry but I want to play with everyone and distanced himself, I'm glad he did as 2 years later that lad was actually expelled from school because his behaviours got so much worse

You've not been around young girls much have you.

several times I’ve seen this sort of dynamic when a new girl comes in, decimates the group then moves on to do it again elsewhere.

On the spectrum or otherwise, if she is odd and has odd behaviour then its odd.

Thats how humans interact, there are behaviours that come within the social spectrum and those that jar or sit outside of it, aka odd.

The cause of that is somewhat immaterial, some people are made uncomfortable about that, they dont want to engage with it and why should they. No one has to engage with something they dont want to

I’m aware.

you’ll note the “and they say children are the cruel ones”

Definitely speak to the school regarding this situation as it will only get worse and harder to untangle. The exact same thing happened to my granddaughter who was just too young and did not have the life experience to sort it out by herself. The other girl alienated all of the other friends and kept dominating my granddaughter until the girl was her only friend. It became a toxic relationship. My daughter (her mum) spike to the school and insisted they help. In the end the other girl was spoken to and they were split into different classes and teachers monitored break time behaviour. My granddaughter was also advised that it was OK to not play with her and that she was doing nothing wrong by telling her she did not want to spend time with her. Hope this helps.

Ugh. This started in y3 for us and the whole of y4 was a nightmare. Our DD was quite meek and easy to please and constantly finding herself in these situations. She would then be pushed around to the point she would explode and cry or storm off and then end up looking like the problem. It was awful.

I found speaking to other parents really helpful. There were one or two girls who were really tricky (like your P by the sounds of it) but other long standing friends were equally miserable and it helped for us to get together and make sure our girls had a consistent message, plan of how to deal with it. Speaking to the teacher we found to be useless as it mainly happened on the playground when the teacher wasn't there.

I'm happy to report that in the first term of year 5 DD just seemed to rise above it all. She now calmly takes no shit and has lovely friends. The ones causing the drama seem to play elsewhere, I don't really hear about them much. I think they all just grew up a lot and DD is one of the youngest, she is 10 in August.

This too will pass! Sympathies though.