girly issues already!?
My vibrant and social daughter has been having troubles with one friend or another for weeks now. All is well in our home and she is very open with her daily activities and encounters with school. She claims "the friend" all of a sudden starts to be mean and excluding at recess and then feelings become hurt. We are trying to figure out a way to get through these times and right now it feels as if my daughter is the only one struggling with this "friendship" stuff. Any insight or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. :-)
Posted by:
sushimi
Reply from:
Kat Eden
Date: May 13, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Reply from:
Boys Town National Hotline
Date: May 14, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Unfortunately this is a very common behavior among girls- although that fact does not make it any easier for you as a parent. I'm not sure how old your daughter is, but it sounds like you have a good relationship with her in that she feels comfortable sharing her day with you. Open communication and acceptance of her feelings will help her tremendously through rocky times with her friends.
There are several things that you may want to keep in mind as you help your daughter.
1. Listen to her stories & empathize with her feelings.
2. Be careful not to get too emotionally caught up in it yourself. Discuss what happened that day, then try and let it go & set her up for a positive day the next day.
3. Avoid making any judgmental comments about the other girls, it is likely that your daughter will be friends with them again in a couple days or so.
4. Give your daughter lots of hugs, praise, spend time together, and let her know how much you love her.
5. Use her experiences as a teaching tool to talk about how she treats others.
Unfortunately, we can't protect our kids from having their feelings hurt by others, but we can help them to feel good about themselves. If the behavior from the other girls is making her feel bad, make sure that home is a place that she can relax and feel good about herself. Helping her work though this situation will set her up for success in the future and strengthen your relationship as well. Hopefully things will work out soon, it is great that you are reaching out to best help her through this time!
Boys Town National Hotline
1-800-448-3000
Reply from:
familyalc Date: May 14, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Hi-Im new to this "community" thing, but Im at a lose with my 8 year old daughter. We are having similar problems with "friends" being mean. She has this one 'best" friend that she has known since kindergarten that is mean to her almost all the time (this whole school year (2nd grade). Ive had this girl over my house hundreds of times and started to care for this kid like my own. All of a sudden she doesnt speak to my daughter and when she does something nasty comes out. This friend also ignores her at school. Other girls in her class are mean to her. She comes home almost everyday crying about how she has no friends. I just dont understand why? She is a really good kid, there had never been any friend problems before this year. It's heartbreaking to see her sad.
Reply from:
rosie Date: May 14, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Girls are much meaner than boys in my experience. When we recently moved to the area, my daughter was invited to a sleepover. She was ten. One of the girls peed in a cup and then poured the urine into some lemondae and gave it to my daughter to drink. The rest of the night, the other girls teased her about it. My daughter did not tell me but another girl told her mother what happened. I talked to the offender's mother and also called the counselor at school where both girls attended because I thought this was really mean and I was afraid my daughter would get teased at school about the experience. The counselor talked to the offender but I was distressed at how the mother's of the offender handled the situation. She made her daughter drink urine from a cup as punishment. I really thought this was terrible. We did not really have contact with the family after that and I explained to my daughter that you will encounter unpleasant people in this world and you have to not let it bother you too much. We had other "girl troubles" but this was the worse experience.
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