My 13 YO daughter has a greedy friend, what would you do?

saterkey

Might be worth a general chat with your daughter about things, make sure she knows its not acceptable to give money to people, if you chat you might find that the friend lends her stuff instead etc, or you might find out reasons behind it. I have tended to sit down with my daughter whos 15 now, and just talk about her day, ask her how her sleepover went etc do you think it could be improved next time.

ie sit at the dining table with her friends, pizza shared out before dishing up so everyone gets the same amount, pop poured etc, joke that anything left of the easter eggs after the night goes into your mouth! chuckle.

my daughter so wanted a sleepover etc, then when she did, one friend had a tiny room, who didnt tidy up for her to be able to sleep properly by the side of the bed, the friend was a bit of a pig, clothes everywhere etc, food in the bed. yuck, suffice to say she had a reasonable time but doesnt want to go back, Rebecca wouldnt dream of not tidying her room if a friend was coming over. we chatted about it and i put suggestions to her of how to do things, various options of how to deal with things that i might have experienced, and gradually she makes up her own mind about things, hopefully in the right direction.

This behaviour is not acceptable though so what you are feeling is okay.

Ich_2

Or is it the case that the friend as she has 3 other siblings has to share all the time so is desperate for some things to be hers?

londonsurrey

Emmarillo wrote: »

She wanted a shower and I put some towels and my large bottle of Lush shower gel in the bathroom for her to use. None of this stuff has ever been seen again! I'm pretty sure the girl must have thought the things were a gift but you would have thought her mum would have noticed - the towels at any rate.

ROFL. After all these decades, I've finally seen the point of monogrammed towels!

CRANKY40

The fact that your daughter and other other friend are protective towards this girl makes me wonder. She may have a blackberry, kindle etc and her parents may be well off, but your daughter and friends share their lunches with her and pay her bus fare. This suggests to me that while mummy and daddy are good at handing over the expensive stuff, they don't actually care enough to make sure the girl has dinner money and bus fare.

It's easy to buy a mobile phone. It's not so easy to take time to walk round a supermarket and let someone pick things that they really like, such as their own choice of pizza and sweets. The child may appear to have everything she could want and be greedy, but maybe your daughter and her friends recognise that they are the lucky ones here because their parents actually care about their day to day happiness and welfare, and you love them.

Whatever the reason, your daughter shows care and empathy towards her friend. You must be proud of her.

chewynut

Wow, that's made me realise that I'm like that. I always bag my own stuff separately and almost guard it...but I am type 1 diabetic and coeliac so it's not like I can just share, unless everything is sugar and gluten free. And that never happens.

Your daughter is aware of it. From my own experience, I imagine your daughter and her friends will confront the other girl if it gets too annoying. Once the hormones got involved, my friends never stopped confronting each other over the dumbest of things that didn't even matter once everybody grew up and left school.

mountainofdebt

I must admit I think the situation is an odd one especially if the girl won't share yet the OP's daughter and the other friend are protective of her.

I think if I was the OP I would be probing a little deeper .....I don't think you need need to make it a battle as such but I would be asking leading questions to find out why the daughter and the friend are so protective.

meritaten

it could be that this child has learned to jealously guard HER things. otherwise they get taken from her in some way. I wouldnt interfere hun - just have a little chat with your child about the concept of sharing - tho it appears that her and her OTHER friends understand that. I wonder if they know whats behind this other childs apparent selfishness?????? me thinks they do - otherwise they wouldnt put up with it.

BigBlackcat

I don't think there is much you can do about it now, OP. If you choose to have her over again, limit her choices, have food and drink already purchased NO alternatives.

She doesn't really sound greedy, she sounds more like she has control issues and who knows what would cause this? Might be a natural personality trait, might not. No point in speculating and reading too much into it. But under your supervision, you, as an adult should be the one in control of the situation. I don't get why you didn't speak up when she refused to share her pizza. Teaching 13 year olds certainly shouldn't be "beyond your resources". They are children, and under your roof what you say goes.


Your DD seems happy for now to be friends with her so, again, not much you can do about that. But you can certainly tell your DD that there will be no more lending of clothes or money. You have way more power than you think.

ETA: Oh and it's an absolute myth that only children have no concept of sharing, if anything the opposite is true.

marywooyeah

Mrs_Arcanum wrote: »

Is she an only child? Just that maybe she has not been taught to share with other children whilst at the same time having parents who share everything with her?

I was thinking the same, she sounds like she's used to getting her own way and doesn't know how to share. Surprised that your daughter has had to pay her bus fare before though - you would think that her own parents ensured she had the correct fare. I'd encourage your daughter to give her a wide berth for a while, or their friendship might fizzle out on it's own once your daughter sees what she's actually like.

rachhh

I'm sort of similar to this girl... not in the way of taking money, but I like to have my own things and get a fair share. I think it's some kind of compulsion or something, because I for some reason get panicky if someone's going to take my 'share' of something.

I've had a good upbringing, have one little brother and have always been taught to share. I'm generous in other ways like buying things for friends and doing favours for them, just have a weird thing about always getting an equal portion of something shared compared to everyone else.

Now is this just me or is anyone else like this? (Sorry to take the thread slightly off track but it really got me thinking!)