How can I help dd? Long

[2ndSopranosRule]

My poor 8 yo is having a terrible time at school at the moment. I've posted about this before but I was hoping that the Christmas break might have improved things. It hasn't.

She's in y3. High achieving across the board and gifted and talented in a couple of areas (if that exists anymore - you hopefully know what I mean though). School has been fantastic at stretching her and she's doing so very well academically. Has a few hobbies in which she is excelling too. She seems popular and has a few very good friends, and seems well-liked as a whole.

However, one of her classmates appears to have taken a dislike to dd which I think is born out of jealousy. This girl is also high achieving and does similar hobbies, one of which they used to do together. At the start of the academic year, my dd became very distressed at doing this hobby with this girl so I separated them. All good. Dd has made excellent progress and has completely fallen in love with this hobby now. The other girl's mum was very annoyed at the time and actually confronted me - I never told her why I'd separated them - and implied I was disadvantaging her dd.

The other girl won't leave my dd alone. She's rude, is bossy, shouts, accuses dd of lying, tries to turn her friends against her and has shoved her about a bit. Nothing terrible really, but enough to make dd miserable at school. It never happens in the classroom but has been witnessed in the playground by others and dd's stories backed up.

They were made to 'hug it out' a few months ago. I can see why, but dd hated that and I don't blame her. She tells dinner ladies who always tell her to "play nicely" and the one time she plucked up the courage to tell the Deputy Head she got told off as the other girl, when dd doesn't march to her tune, starts to cry and gets her older brother involved.

Dd was so stressed about school yesterday she was in tears and couldn't eat.

The school pastoral support person is involved.

What can I do?

You need to go in and talk to her teacher. If they don't know what is going on, they can't help.

I see that the school is already involved. You could go and have another word with the class teacher and explain how stressed this is making your child. If you dd has good friends, then perhaps she can focus on them rather than this other girl. If break times are the issue staff can be alerted to keep an eye on them.
Try not to get involved with the other girl's mother, if at all possible.
I dislike the 'everybody has to be friends' attitude that some schools have. People have to get on and be polite, but they don't have to be friends with everyone.

I'm a Y3 TA. Please as the others have said talk again to the class teacher. I agree with you. Not all the children have to be friends, just be polite to each other. This is unfair on your child and needs to be nipped in the bud now.

I do honestly feel for you - but may I just play a teeny bit of devils advocate here??

Its not clear from your post re: this specific hobby both the girls were doing, but from what I can gather, you went into school & had the other child removed from doing the hobby (hence why the mother of other child feels her DD has been disadvantaged)?

I can understand, to a certain extent, why the other mother was slightly angry about that. It does seem slightly unfair on her DD (albeit she's allegedly being nasty to your DD, but you don't know what / if they're doing anything at home to teach their DD to stop being such a jealous / unkind / etc child specifically to your child. Perhaps this mutual hobby might have helped their friendship).

I'm just not a huge fan of 'erasing' situations that exist in real life so that kids don't have to deal with them. I do completely understand where you're coming from, but in reality what has happened is you've removed the 'other' child from the hobby - great, now your DD can enjoy that in peace, but its simply pushed the problem into the playground and your DD is none the wiser as to how to deal with the situation.

I'm honestly not saying this to be mean or suggest you're being precious about your DD, really I'm not! I just think having the other girl removed from the hobby is really going to make her mad with jealousy, even more than she was before! I agree with the other posters - not everybody needs to be friends, but we DO need to equip our kids with strategies to deal with these sorts of people in their lives - she'll meet similar people at every stage of her life. So rather than just remove the issue by the parent having them split up, I tend to think its better to teach your child how to deal with said problem. The other girl doesnt sound too hideous if i'm honest - she's bright, popular and well behaved in the classroom. SHe's just overbearing, bossy and mean at play. Your DD sounds lovely but, dare I say, perhaps sensitive? The combination is bound to be tricky.

Yes certainly speak to the teacher and explain the situation, but my advice (which of course can be ignored!) is try not to interfere too much in childhood friendships. When my kids come home from school with sad playtime stories (and all 3 did yesterday - my yr4 son said he spent playtime sobbing because he was told 'no - go away' by the bossy, overbearing girl in his class when he tried to play), rather than blame the other child, we talk about the situation and what they can do differently if it happens again. There are nasty people in all walks of life - our kids need to learn how to deal with them & either steer clear or give as good as they get.

HOpe i havent been too harsh