Getting Rid of Your Daughter's Mean Friends and Building Self-Confidence

You've worked hard at building self-confidence in your daughter during the first decade of her life, but suddenly you're noticing that years of careful parenting aren't holding up under the weight of your daughter's new mean friend.
So how do you help your daughter stand up for herself..

.especially when she doesn't seem to think she's being treated badly? Read on for tips to help her deal with her mean friends..

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without becoming the bad guy yourself.
Tip # 1: Think twice before forbidding your daughter from seeing her mean friend.

Although your instinct might be to control the situation yourself, learning how to recognize and deal with unhealthy friendships is a skill your daughter needs to learn for herself. Tip #2: Help your daughter understand the differences between healthy and unhealthy relationships by asking her what she values in a friend, and how she thinks a friend should make you feel.
Share your own views, too. You want to get her thinking about what friendship means so that she can then draw her own conclusions about her mean friend.
Tip #3: Share stories from your own preteen years about friendships that you found confusing or hurtful.

Maybe you had a friend who always put you down or insisted on always having her way.
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Share what you learned about friendship from that experience, but without comparing it to your daughter's situation.

Again, let her draw her own conclusions.
Tip #4: Use friendship problems as an opportunity to problem-solve with your daughter.

This will teach her lasting skills that will stay with her as she encounters difficult and "mean" people throughout her life. For example, if your daughter is upset because a close friend spilled an important secret, encourage her to tell the friend how it made her feel rather than ignoring it.

Tip #5: Put your daughter in sports and activities that will help her branch out and meet new people.
Common interests, such as hobbies and sports, can be an excellent friendship starter and are also great for building self-confidence! Tip #6: Help your daughter learn to be less shy, so that she'll find herself more easily making new friends and less dependent on the friendships she already has.

Shyness is sometimes a sign of low self-esteem, and low self-esteem can contribute to her acceptance of a negative friendship.
Help your daughter be less shy by modeling confident behavior, encouraging her in areas where she is most shy, and teaching her to have tolerance of herself and others.

Building self-confidence in your daughter doesn't have to stop just because it seems like your influence is waning as she approaches adolescence.

Use her mean friends as a teaching opportunity to coach your daughter to make good friendship choices, and you'll be setting her up for a future full of healthy relationships.