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Hi, this is Janet Lansfury.

Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I'm going to be talking about a subject that can be pretty painful for us.

When our child has friends that aren't treating them right, maybe other children are

excluding them, rejecting them, saying unkind things, playing little emotional games with

them.

Most of us know that we don't want to intervene too much.

It's not the way to make friendships bloom.

Play works best when it belongs to the children.

So what can we do?

How can we empower our children in these situations?

What do they need from us? And how can we help them to be

effective with their friends? I have several notes that I received around this topic. So that's what

made me want to talk about this today. And interestingly, they're all about daughters. And they're all around five years old. So I always

find that interesting when I get these waves of notes that are all on one theme. It seems like a sign that

I'm supposed to be trying to talk about that. So that's what I'm going to do today. Here's the first note. Hi, Janet. Your work

has been such a lifeline for me. I found your work when my daughter was three months old and now she's

five and a half. She has a friend who she plays with at school and in the neighborhood. It's always been

great, but lately there's been more and more relational aggression from this friend to my child.

I know this behavior is common and typical, and I remember the same dynamic amongst me and my cousins as a child,

...