This will be long, sorry.
dd2 is 10, going into year 6 in Sept.
She is lively, clever, outgoing, and totally crap at friendships.
Over the years we have worked on this in many ways and school has been on and off supportive. eg I raised it in year 2 to be told she is fine. same in year 3. In year 4, fantastic teacher, really got dd and she totally recognised the issue, and put a lot of work into dd, and she had a brilliant year. Roll on year 5, nice teacher with not a clue about pre-teen girls and all the issues flared up again.
So, an example, girl A lives a few doors down, about 2 years ago dd was suddenly not allowed to play with her any more, no explanation, I didn't know mum well enough to ask. Just if dd knocked, A was always busy, and A told dd one day at school that her mum wouldn't let her play. I could not get out of dd if anything had happened or not.This year A is now allowed again, and all the kids are on the street are knocking for each other, one day dd comes back home with A. I ask A if she is allowed at our house and the answer is yes because she and dd have made friends again. Afterwards Dd admitted she had been really mean to a AT A's house, which was why she was banned.
Dd gets cross and gets mean. But it isn't that simple. Another child B, started in dd's class. Suddenly one day the mum knocks on my door and says that dd is being nasty every day on the way home from school. dd walks home, we live 2 seconds away. I said I would speak to dd and that please tell me if there are any problems, but after she left, I thought - dd never meets her on the way in, as dd is early and they are late. On the way home dd always walks with another friend, and the day the mum complained about, dd had a club!
A month later, I was in the playground and this woman came and screamed in dd's face about her bullying her dd. She repeated some stuff which couldn't be true, (again about things happening on the way home, when dd had taken to walking the long way round, so she couldn't have been there) and then a screaming about something that had happened that day. I got between her and dd and said calmly, I am very happy to sort this with the class teacher, if it happened in school, teacher should sort it etc, but she just screamed at me. Head came out and escorted her off the premises. She was yelling at me - everyone knows your dd is a bully and says look out for her 
.
Head was very supportive of me and dd, and the other mum got a warning letter from school.
Later at home, as I tried to work out what had gone on, dd, in floods of tears, says this that B bullies her, and then when dd reacts, she cries and tells the teacher dd has bullied her. Dd won't tell the teacher because then there is a backlash form the other kids, who think she is a snitch. So, B had elbowed dd hard, and dd had poked her back. B shouts for teacher - sir sir dd poked me, and bursts into tears, dd gets into trouble. But at no point does dd say that B started it by elbowing.
dd didn't want to return to school, and we went in to see head, head and class teacher encouraged dd to always say if B hurts her, and not to retaliate etc.
Today, more drama. dd's best friend, plus a boy plus A all out playing. Dd comes home in tears, she says that boy and A are stopping her from going to best friend's house and being mean and telling best friend not to play with her. Then the 3 knock on the door to say dd has been mean. I suggest to them that maybe this is normal squabbles and that they will all be friends again tomorrow? They all smiled and said yes, and went off.
dd then on more floods of tears. Says she is now banned from best friends house, as best friend told her mum dd is bullying her. That boy plus A are ganging up on her. I asked if anything had happened at school, and boy had pinched her. Instead of telling she had hit him, and he then cried and whole. class then sides with boy. I try to talk to her about WHY she didn't speak up when he pinched and she said that the backlash from the others for telling isn't worth it.
Then she is talking about suicide, because she is so unhappy because they are bullying her. But when I look at it, she is giving as good as she is getting, but she CANNOT see that, no matter how we explain it.
I just feel at the end of my tether, mainly because I cannot work ou if she is the bully or if she is being bullied, and I don't know how to support her to react properly, to work out these squabbles properly, She is very easy to wind up, and then she lashes out, but she is desperate to play with these kids. To be fair as soon as boy gets involved, there is always a squabble, he is a wind up merchant, but dd knows that.
Squabbles are all normal, but this business of her talking about suicide, and being banned, and other kids calling her a bully, I just don't know where the truth lies.
The irony, I am a teacher, she is dc3, so it isn't as if I am doing this for the first time. I work with kids still, and my own dd, I just don't know what to do next.