DD’s friend resentful towards her

[GlowWorm13]

Dd (12) has been friends with Emma for 3 years, since they started in Year 5 together. They were initially part of a group of 4 girls but then at the start of Year 7 they were joined by two more. As a 4 they got on great, but as a 6 the friendship immediately became toxic due to one of the new girls thinking she was the boss of the others. All the girls quickly became scared of upsetting this girl as she would target the girls who she knew wouldn’t stand up to her. One girl was ousted from the group by this girl, and soon after she started targeting dd. The other girls would follow suit with this girl because they were scared to stand out and also get picked on. Emma, who had always been close to dd, became cold towards her and turned a blind eye to the way dd was being treated, and actually joined in the nastiness at a low level at times to try and get the other girl’s approval.

Prior to all this happening, Emma found out that dd did netball after school, so she asked her parents to sign her up. 6 months later Emma joined DD’s dance group and it went really well for a while but then, as time has gone on, Emma has become resentful of any successes dd has in either club. If she gets player of the match then Emma refuses to congratulate her and tells her parents she wants to go home. If dd gets a medal for dancing then Emma turns her back to dd and won’t talk to her. Dd, on the other hand, is always the first to congratulate Emma on her successes. This resentment towards dd doing well has got worse over time, and more frequent. Emma wins as much as dd does so it’s not like dd is amazing and Emma is rubbish. They’re pretty even in ability.

Emma’s also become increasingly competitive over friends with dd. Dd is the sort of child who likes to be part of a group and isn’t possessive over other girls. She’s basically friends with everyone. Emma is different…she wants to be friends with lots of girls but also wants to be everyone’s favourite. So on the netball team dd became close to a lot of the girls and had a play date with one in particular (Maisie). Emma had never even really spoken to this girl but as soon as she discovered dd had a play date with her she immediately started saying this girl was one of her closest friends and taking pictures with her to put as her WhatsApp profile pic, bombarded her with messages and kept putting up photos of them together on WhatsApp stories. Then dd had a play date with another girl (Anna) and Emma found out, dropped Maisie completely and started organising sleepovers with Anna, essentially love bombed her and then dropped her quickly when dd had a sleepover at ours with another mutual friend. These girls end up hurt at being dropped by Emma for someone else, but this happens continuously, maybe 5 or 6 occasions that I’m aware of. Throughout this, dd has always tried to maintain a friendship with Emma but Emma often rejects dd and can be cold towards her.

Then dd moved schools and as soon as Emma found out that dd would be walking to school with a girl from their dance group, she organised sleepovers with this girl for the next three weekends which resulted in this girl being frosty towards dd every Monday morning on the way to school.

At DD’s birthday party, one of DD’s oldest and closest friends came along (who didn’t know Emma at all). Emma made a beeline for this girl and wouldn’t leave her side all day. She even tried to stop dd and the close friend having a photo together but wanted someone to take a photo of her and DD’s close friend together instead.

When Emma found out dd was attending an after school club without her (despite her being cold and unfriendly to dd a lot of the time at this point) she implied to dd that I should also be taking her to this club and it was unfair that I hadn’t offered. She then ignored dd as punishment.

The recent thing is that since dd started her new school (away from Emma) she has made really good friends with a lovely group of girls. Emma kept grilling dd for weeks about her new friends and what they were called. Then last Friday on the way to netball dd was talking to me about something that happened at school with her friends. Emma asked the names of the girls, dd told her and then Emma said “I know those girls”. Then DD mentioned someone else and Emma said “yes I know her as well”. I asked how Emma knew them and she went all cagey and said “oh I can’t remember where I met them”. Then she told dd “Maisie’s younger sister is best friend’s with Annie’s younger sister, and they had a sleepover together last weekend didn’t they?”. Dd said she had no idea and then Emma said “well they did. I know they did”. For the record, Emma doesn’t know any of these girls at all so dd and I were both confused at this conversation but left it.

Anyway, at school on Monday one of DD’s friends mentioned that someone called Emma was following her on TikTok and she knew that Emma was one of DD’s old school friends because Emma had posted a video of dd dancing on TikTok. Then DD’s other friends all said that Emma was following them as well. So it turns out Emma doesn’t know DD’s new friends at all, instead she’s hunted out their TikTok accounts so she can watch what they get up to and has pieced together the links between little sisters etc. DD doesn’t have social media so this has completely bypassed her but now she feels left out because I won’t allow her to have TikTok, and on top of that she feels like this is a way for Emma to sneak into her new friendships away from her old toxic ones.

Tbh I just can’t get my head around this at all. Emma openly rejects dd much of the time, and ignores her WhatsApp messages, barely communicates with her most the time, but then is actively following all her friends accounts and pretending she knows them.

Dd has been upset ever since she realised this as she feels she can’t ever have anything to herself. She loved netball and now Emma is ruining that for her, she loved dancing and now Emma is ruining it for her, she created new friendships away from her old toxic friendships and now Emma is trying to muscle in on that as well. For the record, Emma can be lovely at times, particularly when they’re one to one together. But when they are at clubs and/or around other kids, Emma is different- difficult, hostile, and resentful towards dd. I’ve suggested to dd that her and Emma have more 1:1 play dates to help improve their relationship and get it back to what it used to be, but dd is so hurt by Emma’s behaviour towards her that she refuses to host her and she just wants to spend her time with all her other friends who are carefree and fun, and treat her kindly at all times. The fact they’re on the same competition teams for both netball and dancing means that their lives are very entwined and if dd were to dump her altogether as a friend it would cause issues between all the kids on both teams.

Has anyone got any advice on how to deal with this? Or what I can say to dd to make her feel better?

I don't think I would be encouraging this friendship at all and I can only think emma will get worse as she gets older . Try to get her to focus on her new group at her new school because realistically the friendship with emma would fizzle out even if she wasn’t incredibly toxic .

My DD spent most of her teens with a friend like this and with hindsight wishes she had cut her off years ago. They've finally fallen out and DD feels free.
Change clubs if you need to..

Why is DD still spending time with Emma and telling her about her new friends, when Emma has form for causing problems?

I'd be encouraging DD to spend less with Emma, not more!

I think your DD shouldn’t tell Emma anything anymore - if she joins a new club just don’t tell her. And don’t encourage the friendship for goodness sake, sounds like the last kind of friend she needs when she’s settled well into her new school and made nice new friends!

Agree that your DD needs to cut ties as much as possible with Emma. She is going out of her way to make your daughter upset, competing with her about everything and it will only get worse. Are you friends with Emma’s parents? That’s the only possible reason I can think of why this girl is still on the radar and why you are suggesting 1:1 play dates. I have a teen dd and have seen these traits in some
girls and it will never improve. The behaviour in entrenched and your dd needs to stay away and definitely not mention any of her friends to her.

Why are you encouraging this friendship it’s toxic!

Your daughter seems to have recognised she needs distance between Emma and herself.

They are at different schools which is a massive help. Could your DD have little break from.the clubs for a few weeks or go to other clubs? If not your DD needs help with strategies in dealing with Emma - polite, smiley but not sharing info, making sure always with others and not alone with Emma etc.....

Emma is not likely to suddenly be totally lovely. She sounds insecure in herself. And you don't need this drama as they head into their teen years.

Thank you for all the replies! Dd is a really friendly girl and gets on with everyone and I suppose she’s always been reluctant to cut the ties completely because they used to be so close, plus Emma isn’t always awful. The problem so far has been that dd gets to the point of ending the friendship, then Emma does something to reel her back in again. But going forward I’ll make sure we keep Emma at a distance and encourage DD to ignore her behaviour.

I am friendly with her parents and we do a lot of lift sharing but that benefits them more than me tbf. And we don’t spend time together so it’s not like I’m losing some great friendship.

I appreciate all the replies and you’re just confirming what I know I need to do and how to encourage dd to move forward.

Can’t you talk to Emma’s parents about this?

I mean, I don’t know how that conversation would go, but Emma is still a young child.

She needs to cut ties with Emma. She’s utterly toxic. Clearly there are other issues with this child and she’s very jealous of your DD but this won’t get better and I agree that it will get worse as she gets older. Imagine what she’ll be like when boyfriends become involved. No, she is not a friend and I’d be cutting those ties completely. She’ll soon find another target. Don’t encourage sleepovers, in fact say she’s not welcome. I had a similar (ish) situation with my own DD and a group of toxic girls. I changed her school and she cut the lot of them off completely. They tried to get to her through me for a while but I grey rocked and they soon got bored. What a nasty kid.

Oh and the rejection and hoovering back in is a narcissistic trait and common with in DV cases. While I acknowledge that Emma is a child, she’s still extremely manipulative and not a friend your daughter needs.

I once spoke to a lovely parent who I’d always got on well with about a situation between our dss. I was friendly and polite about it and wasn’t blaming her ds or trying to excuse mine, and she literally flew into a rage and started hurling personal insults at me and my ds. I won’t ever approach a parent again.

Why was she at her birthday party?

Happened to mine too, They met in nursery aged 3 and I could see the red flags even then. I always encouraged DD to mix with others and spend less time with her but it was pretty much an abusive, toxic relationship from the beginning. DD finally binned her off when she left school and went to university.

Discourage this non friendship now op, it will only get worse.

Yes I think she is insecure. She’s insecure in her current friendships and I imagine she’s being targeted by the main girl now dd isn’t around. Her mum and dad are also very hard on her and expect her to always do THE best, not her best. So at the end of matches her dad often tells her she didn’t do well enough but then compliments other children’s playing, which sometimes includes dd. I think the following of DD’s friends on TikTok is partly because Emma is wistfully watching what she wished her life was like, as the old Emma would have fit in perfectly with these girls. So it’s like Emma is punishing dd for having what she wished she had. And she could have had that as well but she said she didn’t want to move schools and belittled DD’s choice to move.

The incident at the birthday was over a year ago. She’s had another birthday since that Emma wasn’t invited to.

This really hits home. Thank you!

Please dont tell your dd to "be kind" or other such nonsense.
Tell her to block and delete emma and avoid her at extra curriculars.
Starve the girl of the oxygen of information about your dd.

No I won’t. I’ll just tell her to be civil when the need arises. I will also tell her to block her old friendship group as they all go through phases of posting things on WhatsApp stories designed to hurt dd, although she has hardened a lot to it now. I’m a bit worried about what will happen when they all move up to upper school at the end of this school year as they’ll all be in the same school together again. But I’ve already told her I don’t want her hanging around with any of them and she agrees as she can see how toxic they have all become.

Please don’t do this. You won’t change Emma but you can certainly minimize her effect on your daughter’s life.
Emma is clearly a trouble maker, I would encourage your daughter to give her a wide berth and not divulge any information about friends or activities. Don’t lift share and avoid crossing paths when possible. It’s great they go to different schools.

Ugh we have a similar situation with a toxic boy towards my 11 year old son (who sounds similar to your daughter). The boy and his father are madly jealous of my sons sporting success and do all the same things to my boy that Emma does to your daughter. The worst bit is that my son and ToxicBoy are stuck on the same sports team though. ToxicBoy is ruining the sport that my son loved, is talented at, and did long before ToxicBoy ever joined. My son doesn’t want to move teams though as he is the captain and has huge loyalty to the team. We are at a loss to know what to do about the whole situation x

This is a great life lesson: not everybody is nice, and being friends with - or friendly to - some people can be bad for your own mental health. They need to be ditched.

Oh that’s horrible, especially as the dad’s jealousy is most likely encouraging and justifying this boy’s nasty behaviour towards your ds.

And yes, that’s exactly how my dd feels about her clubs. They’re both so important to her as she’s done them both for a long time, way before Emma joined, and she has great relationships with her team mates and huge loyalty to her coach and team. It’s sad and so difficult to deal with, as you’re also finding.

I hope things improve for both dd and your ds.

You’re not wrong and my dh tells her the same. It’s best to learn these hard lessons in how to deal with difficult people when you’re young…but at the same time it’s horrible to see your dc struggling to deal with someone they care about. She’s pretty resilient though so I’m sure she’ll find her way through this .