I might get shot down for this, but I am just wondering how other parents help their teenagers navigate toxic friendships?
My DD (13) has a friend she has known for most of her life. In the early years it was a lovely, happy relationship but fast forward to the early teen years and the friend has some challenging mental health issues and their parents are burying their heads in the sand.
I am trying to strike the careful balance between allowing DD to be a supportive friend, but also encourage her to be her own person. From conversations with DD the friend is trying to manipulate DD into doing more and more for her including school work, doesn't like DD to have her own friends, and is also into having some fairly extreme views. For context this friend is also now off school and seems to be spending most of their time on social media following up on some fairly dubious content which is influencing their behaviour. Meanwhile the Mother seems to think she can use my DD as a sounding board for all the issues she is having with her own DD. And any time I have tried to discuss it gently, the parents don't want to listen.
I don't want to stop the friendship as I think this would be counter productive, but I am thinking we should probably be "less available" when DD is being asked to go round etc.
Any advice or shared experiences very gratefully received!