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7993272 tn?1396890904

A Passive Aggressive child

My daughter who is 10 years old who was on a cheer team. Her "used to be" best friend Gracie, also the same age used to do everything together. About two yrs ago, Gracie started acting condescending towards my daughter. I would address the issue with Gracie's mother only for her to minimize the matter. Gracie then would tell her mother that my daughter could play if she wanted too, then tell Hanna to "go away". This progressively became more passive aggressive and now my daughter's feelings are so hurt she questions herself asking "what did she do so wrong?" I did tell my daughter that not everyone is nice and that most likely she is jealous of Hanna for what ever reason; that is unknown to us as well. How can I help my daughter know, how to address that type of person in the future?


This discussion is related to 4 year old girl  passive aggressive bully.
4 Responses
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5914096 tn?1399918987
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!
Helpful - 0
7993272 tn?1396890904
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 ?
Helpful - 0
5914096 tn?1399918987
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.
Helpful - 0
13167 tn?1327194124
Two years is way too long to be best friends with someone who isn't nice.

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