My DDs is being bullied and being a bully! Help!?

[Princess Poppycock]

My oldest son is very similar.

Bring her over here, we'd love to be friends!

 

[Mattemma]

I won't tolerate mean behavoir in the home.Home is a haven I tell the kids,and we shouldn't let the emotions of the day follow us home.Bad moods require *letting the steam off* by talking about it,or vegging out in your room alone until you are feeling more relaxed. Nip the sibling issus in the bud.All I can think of for your dd is the queen bee wanna bee books.It is specifically for girls and talks about the treatment your dd has gone through. The emtional abuse girls fling on each other can sometimes be just as bad as the physical abuse boys often engage in.

I do remind my dd that when a girl talks about others it is only a matter of time before she is talking poorly about you too.She has a friend like that who seems to thrive on causing distrust and anger between the kids.By backing off and ignoring her former friend I hope the girl will not target her as a form of amusement.No sense talking to the other mom unless the girls involved continue to try and cause your dd discomfort.From what I have read about girls their bullying is so very sublte they can often get away with it.It is sublte,but very painful to the recipient.A giggle and pointing is nothing yet when it happens to us don't we get rattled?

Keep the lines of communication open.To many bullycides in the news all the way down to age 7 or 8.Keep a log.Seems silly and you may never use it,but helpful if things ever get worse.I pulled my child out of a public school over unreleting bullying.My only regret was waiting 4 months for things to get better.Sometimes trying a different school is the only option left when the bully,school,or parents of the bully can not/will not help make the situation better.

It is such a shame that people really can not simply move on when they do not want to be friends.Bullying is entertaining for many.Atleast you can stop the poor behavior in the home!

And I too wish you were close to me.Our girls would get along well.

 

[chickensducks&agoose]

Many people with aspergers are very, very intelligent. There's a movie out with Claire Danes called Temple Grandin, about a very, very smart woman with some autism/aspergers. She does the lecture circuit, and has invented a number of things, and has her doctorate degree... my niece is adopted, and she is developmentally delayed a bit, not anything you'd notice right away, but a harder time with school, and cannot appropriately interact with her peers. She stayed back a year, which was a blessing,since it put her in a class with kids a bit younger, she doesn't have aspergers, but she does have a social-delay... she's almost 18 and is a junior. she will live at home for the next few years at least. she has been the victim of bullying, and also brings it home and torments her younger sister, even going as far as to punch a hole in the door that the little sister was hiding behind.. she'd locked herself in the bathroom to get away, and the big sister ended up breaking some hand bones in the process. anyway, I hope your situation never gets as bad as this, but you may want to think about trying to help her understand what people mean when they say stuff, and steer her towards people who might be more her speed, instead of girls who will leave her in the dust. because that's just asking for trouble.

 

[SparksNV]

Perhaps get her involved in something in addition to scouts. We are looking into 4H and my youngest plays soccer. Perhaps something that the siblings can do together but separately (Olivia wants to do a goat and Taylor wants to do a different animal).

My youngest dd's are only 20 months apart and are as different in personalities as possible. One is very outgoing and one much more introverted. I did see around 6th grade the older one really picking on the younger one. But unless I saw it upsetting her or she complained, I didn't interfere too much - I let them work things out.

girls are tough to raise - I have a 27 yo dd, then a 13 yo dd and an 11 yo dd.

 

[mom'sfolly]

I know that the local girls scouts here have done "mean girl" units. It basically addresses the type of bullying that girls do, and helps girls with strategies to deal with it. What I've seen is that many of the girls who do the bullying are the type whose mothers were the same as girls. Those moms might not see this as any more than typical girl behavior; and probably wouldn't care that their girls are doing it.

I would suggest that you see if the scout group can address the issue. I might also give a heads up to the teacher, so she can look out for the behavior, and nip it. However, my guess is that most of it takes place in the playground, at lunch and before and after school; anyplace where the kids are less supervised.

 

[Dunkopf]

Even if the teacher can't see it happening she may be able to talk to the girl. My son had a girl telling him he was going to burn in h*ll because he didn't go to church. She also cussed at him quite often, no f bombs but the other words he has been taught not to say. At 8 years old this really upset him.

I discussed it with his teacher and it stopped.

 

[newfoundland]

What a great mum Cindiloohoo is! How refreshing to hear of parents who actually care about the impact that their child's behaviour has on other children. My son is dyslexic and I found when he was young that he was a bit 'full on' which other children disliked, perhaps were even a bit intimidated by. For some of us social skills don't come easily but they can be learned and it pays dividends! Children can learn not to invade personal space by making sure they stand no closer than they could reach out and touch the other person by just the tips of their fingers at full stretch. Also they can learn to let the other person speak first and wait to be included in the conversation, by being asked for an opinion etc. In all the schools I worked in in England, time was set aside each week when the class sat in a circle with the teacher and she held a doll. The rules were that only the person holding the doll may speak and it was passed round the circle. Each week a different topic was discussed involving social inclusion, friendship, honesty, loyalty, the kind of good citizen topics. The children were encouraged to talk about their feelings in front of the others. Another thing that they did was each child was given the name of another class member at random. They had to write on a paper, 'the best thing about .... whoever's name they had, is ...' This never failed to bring forth such positive comments for each and every child in the class. This idea was very hard to introduce into English schools where traditionally children are not encouraged to push themselves forward for attention, and talking about feelings is not commonly done even amongst adults, but I think it has good results and would ask if that could be included in your little girl's school.

 

[PineappleMama]

Not saying that all the kids involved don't need a lesson in manners, absolutely do.

But trying to force someone to be your friend just doesn't work. And that sounds like maybe what DD has been doing. For a month? it's been clear she wasn't welcome in that little circle and yet she keeps on walking into it. While those snotty ones absolutely don't have to be jerks about it, they also shouldn't be forced to hang out with someone they, for whatever reason, don't like. They'll have to deal with that when older, lab partners in school, same school team, later in their job. That's work stuff... teaching them now that they HAVE to include someone in their personal lives that they don't want to isn't a good idea.

I think about the little snot next door... when no one else is around he'll play with those he considers lesser... but when anyone else shows up it's back to being a jerk. He's rather abrasive, even with adults, needs a serious lesson in basic manners... but it's not my job to give him that lesson... that's his parents' job. MY job is to teach my kids to be decent... and how to protect themselves (physically and emotionally) from threats. I out told DS if he's acting like that, you know he's going to, then don't set yourself up to be hurt. Play with the other neighbor instead... read a book... whatever. But if you know he's going to be a jerk, and you go force yourself on him, and whattayaknow he acts like a jerk... don't come whining because you set yourself up for it.

Generally speaking I'm not going to try and hurt someone, physically or emotionally, but if you back me into a corner it is not going to be pretty. Be sure that if you set the teacher on these girls for 'being mean' that you also tell your kiddo that they wouldn't have the opportunity TO be mean if she didn't go around them. They weren't following her around and taunting her... didn't seek her out for cruelty in any way... she hunted THEM. If that's what's been going on for the last month, I'd probably have gotten fed up by now too. No way to know, but it's entirely possible that in the beginning they weren't mean... not interested in hanging out true, but not mean about it... and that it's only after this "invasion" over and over that they're finally showing claws... or they could have been being jerks from day one... I don't know, wasn't there... and we've only got your DD's side of things to draw from. If you called up this gal's mom you might just find that she's been thinking of calling you because her DD has been coming home with all kinds of dramatic stories about your kiddo. But then, it also might be that the gal (and mom?) are just snots. No way to know unless you ask. But that's a catch-22 as well. If your calling gets a guilty girl punished, she might take it out on your DD later. If your calling gets a NOT guilty girl punished, she might take it out on your DD later. Risk you take when you stick your nose into another household.

Hence my chickeny way of handling a PITA... telling DS to stay the heck away.

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

Get her into sports, where she could be part of a team and burn off some extra energy.

 

[HeatherLynn]

She needs a different outlet to find friends who are more like she is. My son had such a hard time in school with making friends. He started scouts and has made some really close friends and I am thrilled that we happened to find a group of boys just as into weird stuff as he is. I never met another kid who is into reading an atlas until he joined scouts. What a relief to find kids he had something in common with. He is much less angry and frustrated now.

Sometimes our kids do need us to help them sort out social clues. My son is the same way, he doesn't seem to notice when some people are not interested in being friends. In as gentle a way as I could I would point out the clues he needed to be seeing. They need to know that not everyone will be a friend or stay a friend. Its hurtful at first but there are lots of people out there they can be friends with. Obviously this was just not the right person. I personally feel my best revenge in these instances is to move on and have a really great time. Usually if you can do that, the person who did the snubbing doesn't feel so superior or might even regret acting the way they did. Since I am evil of course I am not forgiving but she can if she wants to.