How to Advise My Kiddo

You need to teach your daughter to place boundaries. Learning to place healthy boundaries in social situations is a skill that will help her for the rest of her life.

The book "Queen Bees and Wannabes" is an excellent resource for tween and teen girls when it comes to dealing with pushy girls and social circles. While it was really written for middleschoolers, I'd suggest checking it out from your local library and reading it. You'll find some good tools to help teach your daughter to set healthy boundaries, what social behavior is acceptable and what is not, and to work on her resiliency in accepting rejection from someone she really doesn't want to be around anyway.

Best of luck.

C. Lee

This is a good (as in, hard-to-answer) question. The only thing I'd add to the responses below is that it might be appropriate to have a quick sit-down with your daughter's teacher. Make it clear that you're not looking for a big intervention, just some skilled redirection. Good teachers are very, very good at this. However, they don't always pick up on these things right away, especially with girls, since their issues don't get physical (i.e., fighty) as quickly as boys' do.

Good luck!

Mira

If this situation was between an adult couple, it would be considered domestic violence. The typical pattern for and abuser, of any age, is to first isolate the victim from everyone. This makes it easier to maintain control of a person. This young girl wants control and she will manipulate your daughter to get it and keep it. You say your daughter can't stand for people to be upset with her, that makes it so much easier for another person to control her. I know it's easier said than done, but somehow you must teach your daughter that it's OK for people to be upset with her and to learn to ignore them. I would highly recommend a martial arts class. They will teach her disciple, confidence and self respect, and once she has that she will never be bullied again.

Good question! My daughter was BFFs with a little girl who was just nasty. She was this gorgeous child who was just horrible. Parents were going through a divorce but lived in the same house, mom would be going out a lot for girls nights, etc. Together they got in trouble for talking in class and had to be separated a lot. Then, magic happened! They sold their house and moved a town away! I was never so happy in my life. And so was their dance teacher!

My daughter would come home sometimes and say that this little girl was getting her into trouble, etc. And I would tell my daughter to stay away from her but they loved each other.

It's so difficult to keep your kid away from someone when they are with them all day and you are not there. The best you can do is to keep them apart. Ask the teacher to separate them and tell them they can not join up in team projects. Also, let the guy, music, art teachers know the same thing.

Tell your daughter to choose her friends and that the way this girl acts is not worthy of her friendship. You need to keep reinforcing this.

It's going to get worse, right?!?!?!?! Being a girl is tough!

Your daughter is not being bullied - please do not use that word in this instance. Every time one child is mean to another, is NOT bullying!

This is typical. Your daughter needs to learn that this is her friends problem, not hers and she should not give it any attention. Tell her to "leave the ball in her friend's court." In other words, she should not change anything. If the child wants to play with her, she will have to learn to play with all the other girls your daughter is playing with also. She is going to have to learn that she cannot have your daughter all to herself.

You should be explaining to your daughter that her friend has a hard home life and that this all stems from that and rather than to get mad or hurt, feel sorry for your friend and view her with sympathy. If your daughter can do that, then her feelings should not get hurt.

Teach empathy. It will take your daughter far in life.

To be honest, I am not fully sure how to go about this advice, but I am going to try.
Try to help your daughter be OK with someone being upset with her. Maybe read/tell her some stories with the moral of "You can't please all the people all the time"? Maybe help her understand that if she tries to, then she is going to end up unhappy.
Let her know that it is normal for someone to be upset with her from time to time. It is nothing that she is doing wrong.
I remember having a friend like that in elementary school, all the way through middle school. I lost out on a lot of good friendships because I was easily manipulated as a kid. Eventually I just got fed up with it, and cut ties in our early teens. We still saw each other from time to time, but it took months before she stopped trying to prevent me from talking to other people. She would go as far as to try to become friends with the girls I was friends with, and try to keep them from being friends with me.
Word to the wise, it can get messy and hurtful. Just keep reminding your daughter that it is not her fault, and she is not in the wrong.

I once had a similar situation. I talked to the teacher and ask that they never be in the same class again. And they weren't for the next 10 years.

It's early enough in the year to ask to be placed in a different class.