I would encourage your daughter to participate on the cheer team in spite of the fact that there is someone on the team she doesn't like or doesn't like her. If I avoided activities or events just because I didn't get along with someone or to avoid being bullied I would end up not attending any activities. Additionally, having your daughter involved on the cheer team will give her plenty of opportunity to exercise the friendship skills.
When your daughter disengages from activities because of the presence of a bully, she is giving the bully power and control over her. The more control the bully has, the more he/she will bully her. Once the bully sees that his/her victim is unaffected by the bullying, the bullying will end!
Thank you Mark..
I'm going to show my Hanna your feedback to let her know that we think alike. I always tried to be an aunt to Gracie and give her advise of what behavior was good/bad since her mother saw no wrong in her actions.
Hanna doesn't want to be on the cheer team any longer since Gracie is on there but I find it is a good structure and exercise. Should I allow her avoid cheer because of this one girl or push her to to learn not to run from obstacles ?
By teaching your daughter friendship skills, you need to teach her that she should confront friends who treat her wrong by telling them, "If you continue to behave this way towards me, we will no longer be friends". If her friends continue to treat her bad, your daughter must disengage from them until they change their behavior. This is somethings one of the most difficult skills for kids to master especially when their number of friends are limited. However by exercising this skill, she will be conveying to others that her self-respect is high enough to not tolerate being abused by others. This in turn, will allow her to make friends with others who do not abuse her.
Two years is way too long to be best friends with someone who isn't nice.