I have a lot of empathy for your daughter. When I was 9, I had the option of coming home during the lunch/recess hour, which I did, rather than wander around the playground alone.

Pardon me for asking you this, but are you really aware of your child's plight? Like you, my mother used to tell me to go make some friends. I don't believe any child chooses solitude on a playground. I mean . . . how does a 9 year old "play" alone.

Your child is not being bullied - a word that's getting to have a loose meaning. Bullied means "coerced into something by threat or force." (Everyone should look that word up.) But your daughter is being mentally tortured, which can be equally as awful. And you are "tired" of her coming home upset? . . . after a week?

So you advise her to find "people who are respectful" to play with. She doesn't know how. That's why she "plays" alone. Shy children are troubled at some level, I believe. They feel uncomfortably "different." Sounds odd to me that you would advise her to evaluate her peers on their "respectfulness." What kid effuses, "I have this great new friend, and she is so respectful."

You made her look you in the eye while you grilled her on her innocence. She convinced you she was pure as new-fallen snow. And I'll just bet she is. Do you, perhaps, hold her to a very, very high moral standard? Kids can so over-internalize that that they can't act spontaneously for fear of making a mistake.

A week is too soon for you to solve this problem for her. If it continues, it may be that you should schedule a meeting with the teacher, bringing your daughter along. It shouldn't be all on her to have to snitch. Still children don't grow from having adults solve everything. Your daughter needs an expanded repertoire of behavior . . . some techniques that fall outside the realm of always being restrained and nice as pie.

This creepy kid is definitely targeting your daughter because she is alone, without allies. That is the way bigger issue to be very concerned about. It shouldn't be all on you either. I think it's monstrous that teaching staff at schools leave shy children to languish in solitude.

This is a developmental problem, like dyslexia. But the kids slow at reading get special help. Their mothers demand it. But the socially awkward children marinate in their misery unsympathized with. These kids are seen as not being a problem to adults. They get "A"s in behavior. Some find solitary pursuits they can excell at (like getting homework done really well,) so adults are even happier that they be just as they are.

Maybe a responsible teacher would request the help of some very well-adjusted classmates and ask that they consider helping out a struggling peer, by inviting her to play with them. Maybe our schools should be pro-actively inculcating social skills in children. Not just in the shy kids. The socially at ease kids could be taught that, when you are in a setting, where someone who is required to be there finds themselves alone, it is simple good manners to try and draw them in and engage them. 9 years old is not too young to be taught that social responsibility.

I was quite lucky. I recall hardly ever being victimized. And, much to my own surprise, there were those among my peers at school who did notice my isolation and did reach out to me. I was fortunate to be cared about in this way in high school too, when one classmate decided that it was foolish for me to sit in the cafeteria by myself and spent days just about dragging me to the table where she ate with friends, until I had the courage to just seat myself there.

Maybe you could get to know other mothers and ask mothers of nice children to suggest to their daughters that your girl needs some help.

Never mind psychoanalyzing what family financial dysfunction this mean kid is "acting out" over the past week. Your kid is a product of family influences that you might want to give some thought to.