[lovethesun]

Hey everyone. Wanted to run something by you all and ask for your input. My daughter is an athlete and participates on her school team. She formed a close bond with 4 other girls on this team. They are runners. Of this 4, my daughter happens to be the fastest. She does not brag or act pompous. In fact she is quite introverted and never wants anyone to make a big deal if she finishes first. I've heard her congratulate others. One girl in this group appears to be jealous of her (or at least that is what I think) and has started to ostracize her. This girl will do things with others but makes excuses not to hang out with my daughter.
How do you handle a situation like this? I hate to see a friendship get tarnished by pettiness.

[sarahsweets]

Originally Posted by lovethesun

Hey everyone. Wanted to run something by you all and ask for your input. My daughter is an athlete and participates on her school team. She formed a close bond with 4 other girls on this team. They are runners. Of this 4, my daughter happens to be the fastest. She does not brag or act pompous. In fact she is quite introverted and never wants anyone to make a big deal if she finishes first. I've heard her congratulate others. One girl in this group appears to be jealous of her (or at least that is what I think) and has started to ostracize her. This girl will do things with others but makes excuses not to hang out with my daughter.
How do you handle a situation like this? I hate to see a friendship get tarnished by pettiness.

Is she getting the other girls to do anything to your daughter ? Or is it just one girl ? It’s easier to learn how to ignore and even not be bothered by one person. It’s much harder when the queen bee gets others to rally around her toxicity.

[Open Eyes]

You know what lovethesun, this is a good question and worthy of getting advice in how to handle. I believe you when you say your daughter doesn't use her abilities to hold over others. She will need to learn how even though she doesn't do that and is supportive to her friends, often she may run into an individual who really feels threatened by her talents and successes and may look for ways to take from that. It's important that she understand how this is something that happens and that it's something all individuals who excel in any way will often deal with.

There are times we develop friendships and even though we are nice and care about our friends, there can be jealousies in others if we happen to do better at something than they do. IF this jealous individual begins to practice toxic ways of pulling others away like this, and other friends agree to accept her pull, then it may mean these friends may be a little bit jealous too. And sometimes, the other friends don't realize what is actually happening too. Younger individuals tend to just like to hang out and have fun and they don't really know what to do in a situation like this. Sometimes they can get pulled away like this because the person choosing to practice this behavior has a way of being on the charming side that they use as bait to pull others to them as a conquest against someone they are jealous of.

This is an IMPORTANT life lesson because when you want to do well and you are achieving, you have to realize that there will be others that will try to break your confidence. What it means is more about their own level of confidence that is weak, not yours. This is what all the stories your daughter has seen is showing too. It's in Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, The Wizard of Oz, Cinderella and many other fairy tales. It is telling us over and over again how when a person manages to stand out in some positive way, there is always going to be those who feel threatened by it. And this is one of the things they do. And it often does happen to "a nice person" too. It often happens to a person that has done nothing wrong and doesn't deserve it.

You need to explain to your daughter that understanding this is important because this challenge can happen throughout her life in different relationships. This challenge can happen even with a boyfriend down the road who has "jealousy" problems and may take it out on her. Truth is, they are not angry at you, but themselves and how they struggle to feel good about themselves. What she is experiencing is showing how in her little group of friends THIS kind of individual is present.

She will want to know "yeah but what to I do about it?". The answer is "be aware, be a nice person and continue to focus on being nice and doing well for herself". Tell, her, it's important to understand how this is the other person's problem and that she can't fix that FOR that other person, all she can do is be nice, and keep working on her own achievements and encourage others to do the same.

Also, explain to her that often toxic people like this look to single out and take from and get their target alone. Some of this is reflecting how THAT OTHER PERSON feels alone and is trying to get rid of it by using sneaky ways to put their own feelings on the person they feel threatened by. This is also shown in all these fairy tales too.

I call this kind of person a "Polly Mad Marcher". Polly Mad Marcher tends to NEED to interact in unhealthy ways, they tend to interact with POLLY, POLLY, POLLY and IF they don't get that then they tend to practice "THIS PERSON IS BAD, THIS PERSON IS A NARCISSIST, THIS PERSON HAS PROBLEMS" when in REALITY what they are REALLY talking about is in fact THEMSELVES.

What your daughter needs to realize is WHO is the one REALLY breaking up the group of friends. The person behaving this way tends to always be a "Polly Mad Marcher". And they always like to blame everyone else too.
Polly Mad Marchers like to feel they are special, and even have special powers too. A Polly Mad Marcher will choose to step over others in disrespectful ways and go right to the person they feel has the most power. A Polly Madmarcher will break the rules yet USE the rules when it suits THEM. A Polly Mad Marcher will tend to get upset anytime people listen to any other opinions than their own. Often, a Polly Mad Marcher will set up a sandbox of her own and will be ok as long as anyone that shares that sand box goes along with HER need to OWN that sandbox. A Polly Mad Marcher will sooth anyone that plays HER way in HER sandbox. So what happens is a lot of times people who play in HER sandbox, don't realize they are engaging a Polly Mad Marcher. It's important your daughter see this because this is a tactic this other girl is using with her friends too. What this friend is doing is trying to pull your daughter's friends into her own sandbox. And her friends don't realize this.

It's important that you explain to your daughter that experiencing "confused feelings" like this, usually means a Polly Mad Marcher has entered the picture or her group of friends. It's important for her to learn this because she needs to recognize the red flags and this can happen with friends and boyfriends who try to isolate her by pulling her into his private sandbox so he can control her. Polly Mad Marchers can be both a male or a female.

You can use what I have shared here with you and you can call this kind of individual a "Polly Mad Marcher" too.

I had to deal with this challenge with my own daughter too. She tended to run into this challenge as well. My daughter tended to stand out in horse riding competitions. There tend to be a lot of this kind of toxic behaviors in that horse show competitive world. Even adults engaged in it too. Learning to see the red flags early can help a lot when it comes to handling it in so many different life situations.

[Buffy01]

Originally Posted by lovethesun

Hey everyone. Wanted to run something by you all and ask for your input. My daughter is an athlete and participates on her school team. She formed a close bond with 4 other girls on this team. They are runners. Of this 4, my daughter happens to be the fastest. She does not brag or act pompous. In fact she is quite introverted and never wants anyone to make a big deal if she finishes first. I've heard her congratulate others. One girl in this group appears to be jealous of her (or at least that is what I think) and has started to ostracize her. This girl will do things with others but makes excuses not to hang out with my daughter.
How do you handle a situation like this? I hate to see a friendship get tarnished by pettiness.

Just be there for her. Ask her how she feels. It get worst report the girl.

[lovethesun]

Thank you all for your input. So far this girl is not getting the other girls to do it with her. The girl that is jealous is just focusing all her attention on another girl in the group. The other girls are not turning against my daughter, at least not yet. I get the feeling the jealous girl is a one-man band with this. She has decided to turn a cold shoulder towards my daughter, but is has gotten very close to another one of the girls in the group. The jealous girl will only interact with this other girl and is ignoring my daughter and the others.

I've been thinking about having my daughter handle this as a diplomat would. I thought about telling my daughter to politely confront the jealous girl and straight out ask her about her behavior and inquire as to what the problem is in an effort to salvage the friendship and to let the jealous girl know that her behavior has been noticed and make her account for it. What do you all think of that?

[Open Eyes]

I see, well, sometimes what this can mean is that this girl fears your daughter and is just connecting to one of the other girls because she is shy. IF this girl tried to pull the others away from your daughter though, she is most likely doing so out of jealousy. And sometimes what can happen is focusing on what girl responds to her, hoping she can eventually pull the others towards her as well. Everyone has a right to have a closer friend, it just happens sometimes. It's when it's something that is pulling that one individual away from others that becomes a problem. It's called singling out, and it's not innocent, it's claiming instead.

[Open Eyes]

One of the challenges I found when it came to groups is when the group suddenly decided "we don't like Becky so she is not in our group so don't be nice to her ok?". I don't like to just suddenly reject someone that never did anything to me but isn't somehow "good enough" for the group. It made me wonder "well, do I have to worry about experiencing that same rejection?". I personally prefer to be free to like whomever I want to like.

This, for me, stems from how my older sister tended to need me to not like anyone she did not like and even wanted me to be mean to whomever she did not like. My sister is the type that needs to own the sandbox otherwise she doesn't like you. That never changed about her either.

So, with a group, it's nice to have friends, but we don't own anyone and everyone should be free to like who they like without feeling they have to only like whomever the group tells them to like. However, it is different if someone joins a group and is jealous and tries to exclude someone who is part of the group that has been getting along well too. The goal is for everyone to get along, like a team that supports and helps each other.

From what you shared, your daughter interacts in a healthy way, doesn't use her wins and abilities to intimidate but prefers to want others to strive to do well too. It's not unusual for a jealous individual to have a problem with the healthy group member. Often, sadly, the individual doesn't realize this about herself either. Most of the time, this person doesn't know how to have a healthy relationship and they don't understand why they are jealous.

are we talking hs, hr high, college? I think it depends on the age group.

basically I would let things sort them out. support your daughter. you can't really fight her battles...teach her to accept her skills and wins graciously .

some athletes get frustrated losing, it's hard. especially if it happens often..but that's part of competing. where is the coach in all of this? if your daughter is a gracious winner and athlete then there is not much she can do. athletics can be difficult for young competitors. sportsmanship isn't taught as it used to be, and that is a shame.

[divine1966]

Unless your daughter is bullied and it needs to be dealt with, let her navigate ins and outs of friendships/jealousy etc You can suggest of course that she confronts that girl but honestly you can’t live your daughters life for her. At some point you got to step back and let them live their lives.

I do understand worrying of course and being protective. That’s what parents do. But we got to keep it in check as we can’t control their every move

[Bill3]

What do you all think of that?

I think that the best thing to do given what you are describing is to listen to your daughter and support her but not give her specific suggested solutions. Have confidence in her: Have the confidence that she can learn to handle things on her own.

[Open Eyes]

It sounds like your daughter may be in high school? It's good that your daughter talked about this with you. We don't have that many years when we can have a chance to help our young teens understand these challenges. They are older and getting more hormonal and independent, but they are still very young in a lot of ways yet.

I used the "Polly Mad Marcher" because it's easier for young teens to think about challenges this way. They tend to still be at the age where they can picture characters and think about behaviors that may confuse them. What you are trying to help them identify is a personality type that they will run across even when they are older. And you want them to ask these questions because they are now really developing their own identities and confidences. In essence you are preparing them for when they go off to college and WANT to handle more on their own.

High School is a much more intimate environment then our children encounter in college. We WANT our children to feel comfortable sharing their concerns with us as long we can before they venture to college. Even before High School, it's important to be able to be accessible to them. We do want them to feel they can learn to handle different situations on their own. But it's really nice when they share.

Often these Polly Mad Marchers did not have that kind of relationship with a parent. That is often the root to their developing their poor relationship behaviors.

[Fuzzybear]