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?