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Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

How to help 15 yo DD leave toxic friendship

3 replies

Lonelyandupset · 22/08/2023 20:54

How can I help my daughter see she is being treated badly by a "friend" and encourage her to leave the friendship behind?

DD has a friend who doesn't live nearby. They meet up a few times a year, and in those periods of time between meets the friend is attentive, kind, interested in DD and supportive of her when she is upset about something (all over WhatsApp of course due to distance).

My DD is equally supportive, kind and caring and absolutely thinks the world of this girl who she's known for a number of years now. She really looks forward to their meet ups and is always keen to arrange something.

The last 2 times they've met up (they stay at each others houses due to the distance) the friend has been really off with my DD. The most recent time she was here I saw with my own eyes how she was rude, sarcastic, arrogant and just pretty unpleasant really towards my DD. Despite this my DD still wanted to continue meeting up, and recently went to stay there. The attitude from the friend changed from happy and excited to see her, to rude and sullen before I had even had a chance to leave!

Of course I checked with DD if she was sure she wanted to stay, offered to speak to the girls parents which she absolutely didn't want me to! She wanted to give her another chance, so I left her there at her insistence.

Sadly things didn't improve. The friend was off with her the whole time she was there. DD was calling me up upset and messaging me saying about how the friend had left the house without her and wouldn't tell her where she was, for example.

I have tried in the past to make her see this is not a good friendship, and that real friends don't treat people like that. But DD insists on remaining friends and continuing allowing this pattern to continue. I know an obvious answer would be for me to just refuse to facilitate the meet ups any more, but I have suggested this and she gets extremely upset. DD has a diagnosis of anxiety and depression and she finds the thought of ending things with the friend really unbearable.

Does anyone have any advice on how to talk to a teen about this sort of thing to get them to actually listen. It feels like DD is at a stage whereby anything I say is immediately dismissed because "I don't understand what it's like".

OP posts:
Bumdrops · 22/08/2023 22:24

that must be so hard for you to see playing out,
that’s really horrid for your dd
my DD has friendship issues, she would tell me that I don’t understand, can’t help etc
she now sees a therapist who she finds it much easier to talk to, and work out for herself the issues and the way forward, which in turn has helped our relationship

Lonelyandupset · 23/08/2023 11:53

Thanks for your reply, I'm sorry to hear your DD also has friendship issues and it's great that Counselling is helping her.

It is horrible to see yes. My DD has had extensive Counselling, recently ended, as she's now started CBT and the advice is not to receive both therapies at the same time.

Just don't know what to do for the best. She deserves much much better.

OP posts:
SiouxsieSiouxStiletto · 25/08/2023 08:22

Do you think The Teen Girl's Survival Handbook would help her at all?

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