Domineering classmate

[pearlym]

My DD is in reception, she is one of the older ones but is meek and mild and dare I say it, ahs a tendency to eb a bit wet at times. There is a girl in her class who is domineering, I know her, not a dab kid but just incredibly bossy, and accepted to be so by her own mother, who is no shrinking violet either. It seems she has started to single out DD for "special friendship" which invovles being told what to do all the time adn being controlled, in terms of play etc. DD is becoming upset and finds it hard to say no. Have spoken to shcool adn am happy with their monitoring, this is not full blown bullying, but I wnat advice on how to help DD deal with it, and fend off this girl a bit, just be a bit more assertive about what she wants. She is V assertive at home! Any advice on what to tell DD to do or say?

I think as long as this child isn't your DD's only friend or is getting between your daughter and making other friends then it should be fine and the teachers will keep an eye on it.
We had a child in my daughters class who literally wouldn't allow T to play with anyone else, lived down the road so would call for her after school and drove us all up the wall with her bossiness, but the child didn't actually do anything wrong so that was hard.
I just made a point of outside school activities being on a different day, not riding at the same place things like that.
And lots of other children home for tea so DD got to be the boss every now and then.

Ta, trying to do that,

We have had similar but with boys. We talked it through with DS who was sick of other boy following him around and copying him and preventing him playing with other children. We gave him some phrases to use when he wanted to not play with the other child so he felt more confident speaking up for self and saying no etc. It hasn't worked 100% but is a bit better, we also enlisted teachers in helping to separate them and play with other children, as domineering boy was getting in way of ds forming other friendships. That has helped to some extent but not totally. Outside school I have had to fend off the mum and eventually just told her (politely) straight out that ds does not want to see the other boy outside school day... that seems to have calmed it outside school to some extent...Also we make a point of meeting other different friends outside school hours when we can so ds gets a break from the other child.

Good luck!

We had this - again with boys. I didn't sort it out as well as FiveStar, due to friendship with mum. I found that part of the controlling behaviour on the part of the friend is due to her inability to sustain friendships elsewhere. So it can get pretty intense.

For us, it ended when they moved up to secondary school, but we had 4 years of problems at primary. Wish I had followed FiveStars advice - rigorously.

Yes we have this as well with boys.

One particularly boy seems to shoot mine down whenever possible - usually reducing ours to tears. Mainly over trival things, for me this is the early stages of bullying as its almost as if he enjoys or his goal is to make mine burst into tears.

Weve also told ours to use phrases or to turn his back and walk away, do not respond and to saying things like "I dont think you are being very kind or nice to me, so I do not want to talk to you".

Quite often the child does this in my ear shot and until the other day I havent said anything but now as my ds is gettign distressed about it and has even said that this child is not kind and he doesnt want to be his friend I now will.

What concerns me is that our ds seems to be frightened to say anything to him...so we are monitoring this at the moment and if it continues I will say something to the teachers

pearlym - have you broached it gently with the girl's mother? i think i would want to know about this if i was that girl's mother, and try and nip it in the bud at the other end also. But bossyness and bullying (as curvey is describing) are very different things IMO.

I had this with my dd in Reception. I did discuss it with the school but as my dd wasn't complaining to the teachers they didn't consider it bullying. The other child was preventing other children from playing with my dd and was also saying 'mean' things to her. I did discuss it with the mum but to be honest she didn't take it very well and the brown stuff hit the fan. So, I wouldn't always suggest discussing problems with other mums, some don't seem to be able to recognise that their little darlings would behave like this!
I did teach her phrases like 'you are hurting my feelings' and 'I do not want to play with you today'. I also invited loads of her classmates round to our house and made it clear to the mum of this child that our dds would not be socialising outside of school. I am glad to say that the situation has now resolved itself but it did take nearly a year!

Bossyness imo leads to bullying especially if the child involved is not being corrected or explained what he/she is doing.

Some children are very confident and forthright but they need to understand that it should be used in the appropriate manner

As others have said, helping your DD to come up with a couple of phrases to say or things to do when she feels she doesn't want to play with this other child will probably be the most helpful thing you can do in the long-term as it's a strategy she'll be able to use forever.

Try role-playing with her, "you be bossy girl and I'll be DD...." play along for a while before deciding to go and play with someone else and say, "I think I'll go and do X now... bye". This will give your DD the chance to demonstrate some of bossy child's tactics to which you can reply, "no thank you, I'm going to go and do X now". Be polite and walk away after saying it so bossy girl is able to see that you (as DD) has made a decision and is in charge of her own mind.

My own 5-year-old DD is a fairly assertive child and I sometimes worry that she could well be the classroom bossyboots however, although she has very clear ideas about what she'd like to do etc. etc. she understands that everyone has to make their own mind up/have their own ideas/chance to be in charge and seems to appreciate that as she doesn't like always being told what to do, nor will anyone else. Her problem in class is different; one of her friends is manipulative rather than bossy per se. She regularly tells DD, "if you don't do this/play with me/whatever then I'll cry and you'll get told off for making me sad". We practise en route to school the things she will say if this friend uses this tactic each day. Her current response of choice is, "I'm sorry you are sad but I am going to play with X now... would you like to play with us?".

Good luck; girly friendship traumas are horrible and seem to go on throughout primary school so teaching a firm but kind assertiveness will stand her in good stead for the future.

follygirl - how can the child be 'corrected' if even her mother/father doesn't know?

curvey - I know lots of bossy kids, but few if any are actual bullies.

You can't really expect teachers to get involved here. At my dc's school, teachers don't even do playground duty - it's dinner ladies.

My dd2 has been the domineering child, she tries to be like it at home but we don't let her get away with it. We were told by a teacher in year1 that she was being a bit bossy with one child in particular. So we had a long talk with dd, who really didn't think about how the other girl might feel. We have to keep her in check and try to praise her lots when she's being good and I hope it's working. She's 8, so a bit older than your dd.

So, as the parent of a bossy child I wouldn't be in the least upset if another parent told me that my dd was being too pushy with another girl. I'd want to know and attempt to deal with it.

my DD had same problem at school and this girl was even telling her how she liked my DDs' hair done,that she would bug me to change it. first i told their class teacher and she monitored them,things got better but still had to teach her to be more assertive. we then started doing roll play at home where i would play 'bossy girl' and i told my DD to firmly tell girl she dosen't appreciate her behaviour and tell her if she does it again,she will not play with her again.it worked a treat and now they get on,just don't make her feel bad about being mild-that's who she is.also encourage her to play with friends that treat her well. good luck,i know how stressful it can be to see your kid like that.

sorry,i meant role-play

I think bossyiness if not corrected or explained could lead to bullying

The other mum does know child is bossy, in fact thinks it is a good thing, as the mum is quite a f*k you character herself. I felt best thing was to teach my DD some strategies, cos she will come up agianst these people all her life nad needs to know how not to be a victim. DO not think it is bullying as yet, but think that level of bossiness could turn into bullying.

Thanks for all insight, help etc the role play ( or een roll play - throwing bread buns at each other!) sounds quite good, we have tried to take away the child's mystique by calling her "miss bossy -pants" , so as to make her less of a threat, so hopefully will improve.what makes it a bit easier is that I know one of the other girls has had similar issue with her.