[lovethesun]

Some of you may have seen my previous post regarding my strained relationship with my neighbor (whom I call "Sandy") and her daughter (whom I call "Debbie"). To summarize, I contacted the school about 2 months ago after continual rude and disrespectful behavior from Debbie towards my daughter on the school bus and school grounds. The school addressed it, and Debbie stayed away from my daughter. Recently, my daughter started hanging out with a girl (I'll call "Pam"). Pam also lives on our street and is close friends with the troublemaker, Debbie. Debbie does not like the fact that my daughter has become friends with her close friend and is very jealous. Debbie is very controlling of Pam and wants her all for herself, even going so far as to read Pam's messages on her cell phone to see who she talks to. Needless to say, Debbie has now started lashing out at my daughter again because of her friendship with Pam. She tells my daughter snotty things like, "why do you send weird text messages?", "you act weird", etc. Of course, my daughter has not sent any weird messages, so these are lies. I know because I monitor my daughter. Up to this point, my daughter has kept her cool and just told her to "bug off, and it's none of her business". Should I tell my daughter to be more aggressive towards Debbie and tell her to tell Debbie something like, "why are you so obsessed with Pam? That's what's weird! Now shut up!" ??? Or would that just fuel Debbie's fire and give her something to fight with my daughter about all over again?? What do you all think??

[Artchic528]

Hmmm. This is a tricky situation. My neighbor had gone through a similar situation with their son and a neighborhood boy who was nothing short of a bully. Long story short, they decided to move away from the neighborhood and have their son change schools to get away from the boy.

[hvert]

I think the 'it's none of your business' line is a good one.

Your daughter may also want to think about how much she wants to share with Pam given her relationship to Debbie. If Debbie exerts that much control over Pam, your daughter should expect that any secrets she shares with Pam will eventually wind up in Debbie's hands.

[healingme4me]

I like the strike back with pointing out the control behavior.

Sent from my LGMS323 using Tapatalk

[toolman65]

Debbie is obsessed with your daughter, not Pam. Debbie wants your daughter play a certain role (admirer). When she doesn't play the part, frustration erupts.

Engaging Debbie, even on a negative level, is still attention.

When Debbie says "you act weird", etc. respond with stuff like;

"Yep" or "whatever" or "did you say something? i wasn't listening" or "you go though Pam's phone? that's creeeepy" or " Booooorrrring!!!"

Deflect. Fighting with Debbie only fuels her fragile ego.

[JJBX]

The snotty girl will eventually give up. This is an endurance game and Pam is not really going to like being in the middle of a cat fight. I think for your daughter and Pam's sanity, your daughter should stick to the classic "butt out, bug off, mind your own business" lines. The snotty girl is annoying Pam for certain and you don't want to subject this poor girl to anymore of the snotty girl's stupid antics. Your daughter steps up her zingers, snotty girl resorts to meaner things, Pam is driven to a life of hard drugs... (Joking) Where does it end?! Snotty girl will EVENTUALLY learn that acting snotty gets her butt shunned. Your daughter will learn the same lesson without being shunned herself.

[JeanneDoe]

I used to get picked on as a kid until I started changing the way i handled it. When someone would say "you are creepy" or whatever I would say "oh reallllyyy? You think so? Thank you soooo much!!" With a really nice and condescending kind of tone. The bully would always get really upset and walk away because they were not getting the reaction they were looking for.