I want my daughter to be happy but this is one thing I can’t live with…
My daughter has had the same best friend since she was in Kindergarten. They are now nine. And I desperately want them to break up.
Her best friend isn’t the sort of girl I am comfortable with my daughter spending time with because she is incredibly bossy and overbearing.
She’s nice enough and they seem to have fun together but because she has such a strong personality, my daughter has become weaker and more easily led.
My daughter has always been a little shy and at first I thought having a best friend with such a strong personality would help her come out of her shell but it has had the opposite effect.
In Kindergarten her best friend would do things like instruct my daughter not to eat her lunch so they could play a game for the entire time.
I'd ask her, "Why didn't you eat your lunch?" She'd just tell me that her friend told her not to. This happened several times until I forced my daughter to tell her friend that I had said she had to eat it. But my daughter just isn't a fighter.
They've been friends for over four years and are as thick as thieves. Each school holidays they have play dates. I'm friends with her mother. I really don't know how to do this, how to force them apart. I'd even be happy just to have them spend less time together.
When they are both at our house I can monitor their play and intervene when needed but her best friend is on her best behaviour at our house. The real bossiness comes out at school. I want my daughter to be happy but I don't know if I can deal with anymore.
