Advice please

How well do you know the girl/friend and her family?

It sounds pretty “normal” to me. It sounds like the friend is trying to “fit in” with someone different and sadly it is not going well. I know my kids and their friends have gone through different periods of time when they didn’t act as nice, or maybe a friend was not acting as nice. They are trying to figure out friendships and who they are, their own “person” and they often “flip” back and forth between attitudes depending on who they are around.

If you know the friends family well, closer friendship, you could bring it up. My kids have some friends who I am good friends with the mom’s and we approach things differently than with just an acquaintance. We can be more “frank” and honest because our kids have grown up together and we see the changes in friendships as they have grown up, we have talked about our kids attitudes and challenges they are having when it comes to friendships. When my kids have a “tough” encounter with a friend, who I don’t know the family well (at for example a group event), I encourage them to play with someone else, expand their friendships with other kids. Don’t ignore, but don’t seek that child out for right now.

I would not necessarily cut off the friendship for my child, but sort of “monitor” it, check in with my child and make sure everything is going ok with her friend. If it is not going well, let her friend’s mom know that she is taking a break from play dates for the moment. I know our schedule is often busy, so it is easy to truly want to take a break from get together times. It could be that her friend is trying something different, but it might not last, it could just be a phase and sad to loose a friend over growing “pains” of childhood.

Not sure if that makes sense 🙂 Trying to navigate childhood friendships is tough! The kids are growing and maturing at such different rates and their thoughts and ideas are all over the place, hard to know when to step in and when to let things take their course.

Personally growing up I remember going through phases where I had friends that did not seem to be that nice, or had issue with a different friend in our “group” and then weeks later it would change who was “mad” at who and yet we were all friends, LOL.

I agree with the above comments.  With your supervision at play dates, your daughter can be the “light” this other child needs.  Starting with 1 play date gives you the chance to take the friendship 1 step at a time.

This little girl sounds insecure and she needs to be shown love and acceptance.

HTH