I had a conversation with a girlfriend today about her 4th grade daughter. She told me how some of her friends are being mean to her. The meanness are things like when there are three of them together, two of them will be ignore the daughter. Other mean things include not answering when the daughter asks a question or makes a comment. And it only gets worse from there. A total stranger noticed this behavior while the girls were in a store together and even made a comment about it to my friend. There was also another time when two girls had the discussion of one not attending a party if some other girl attends. Then the daughter comments that this is not a nice thing to do, and ever since, these girls hardly speak to her anymore.

After school today, my friend took her daughter to the doctor because she has been having stomach aches. She has no physical problems. Yet after the doctor asked how things were in school and friends, the discussion of the actions of these girls took place. The doctor determined that her stomach problems were due to the stress of these relationships.

It pains my girlfriend to see this happening to her daughter. This girl is very sweet and to hear of this treatment is sad. My friend has even approached one mom, sugar coating the mean treatment. Now this mom is upset with my friend.

What do you do? Have you come across these issues of kids getting ill over mental anguishes? Do you approach other parents when you see this happening? The only good thing that has come out of all of this is that the daughter knows how NOT to behave. But that doesn’t quite make up for the pain.

---

---