agonyaunt | (no subject)

DEAR ABBY: My 11-year-old daughter, "Emma," has a group of six to eight friends she has played with at school, in scouts, parties, etc., for more than three years. Eight months ago, one of the girls, "Charlotte," had a sleepover, and Emma was not invited. She was very hurt and cried. I told her she would not always be invited to everything and maybe there was a limit Charlotte could invite.

Since then, whenever there is an event that Emma knows Charlotte will be at, my daughter refuses to go. For eight months she has purposely skipped some parties and scouting events. Otherwise, they all seem to still hang together at school. How can I help my daughter understand she is only hurting herself? -- EMPATHETIC MOM IN OHIO

DEAR MOM: It is time your daughter was taught that she doesn't have to "like" everyone she socializes with -- however, she may need to get along with them. If she can absorb that lesson, it will benefit her as she goes through school and beyond. Tell Emma you hate seeing her punish herSELF, thinking it will hurt Charlotte, when Charlotte may not notice her absence at all. Although Emma is just 11, the time has come for her to do some growing up.

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It really bugs me that LW claims to be empathetic, but apparently hasn't even considered the possibility that Emma isn't hurting herself or trying to "punish" Charlotte, that she's protecting herself because whatever went down between the two of them was a lot worse than she's willing to admit to Mom. Eleven year olds can be the best, but they can also be the fucking worst. Oftentimes it's the same damn kid being both those things at once.

Another hypothesis, eleven is also about the age when you'd expect things like anxiety to start coming into play. If this isn't a one-off, but is instead a pattern of avoiding things where she had a single not-great experience, then Emma may need an evaluation.

Yeah, bullying is the first thing that leapt to my mind, but I saw things like this with girls I knew at this age that were just thoughtless and bad manners as well. It's not bad for a kid this age to simply not want to invite someone, but it creates some very awkward and tense situations in a small group like this.

Yeah, it’s one of those ages where little kid friendships start getting weeded.

In my experience, "empathetic"/"empath" means "I have strong emotional reactions to other people's emotions (as perceived by me)," not "I am especially knowledgeable about how other people's emotions work."

It's also possible she meant "sympathetic".

“How can I help my daughter understand she is only hurting herself?”

By letting go of your theory that she’s only hurting herself and maybe actually asking her if she wants to talk about what happened and why she’s making the choice to avoid her former friend. And respecting her answer