Hello,

I have a 9 year old who is discovering, unfortunately, that people are not always nice. Over the course of the last week, she has come home every day from school upset because another girl in her class keeps repeatedly coming up to her during the school day and accusing her of things that are not true, such as "I told my mom that you hate me", "I told the teacher on you and the teacher is going to call your mother", "I heard you were saying mean things about me at lunch", etc. I sat my child down, had her look me in the eye and I asked her to be honest and tell me if there was something she did to this girl, something she said that she shouldn't have, or anything else that could have caused this girl to target her. She said "no", that she had not done anything and I could tell that she was being truthful. I can tell when my kid is lying. My child tends to be shy and plays by herself at recess, maybe that is causing her to be a target. I also know the family of the girl who is being aggressive has been having some financial problems, maybe this girl is acting out. Either way, I am tired of my child coming home from school upset. My child has stood up for herself by telling this child to stop lying and go away, but it has not stopped the behavior. I told my child to find a few people that are respectful and start playing with them at recess as being alone is not good. But in addition to that......should my child just ignore the aggressive girl or should she tell the aggressive girl she's had enough of her rude behavior and tell the teacher? Thanks for your help on this.