How to respond about the mean kid saying something mean

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tell your daughter to ignore. When the girl says something mean, have your daughter stare at her and then walk away. Teach your daughter that people are allowed to say whatever they want and she can not control that but she can control how she reacts. People tend to say mean things to get a reaction out of people so don’t give them a reaction.

Ignoring reaaaaaallly doesn’t work on bullies (although I like a good death stare). They will just escalate. She needs to give it back and show she’s not intimidated.

[Anonymous]

This is on a sports team. OP, you’re getting some very bad advice in here. Tread carefully. I’d take it to sports forum. You’re getting a lot of young parents or parents of unathletic kids.

[Anonymous]

How old are these girls? It really matters. Are they 9 or 16? My daughter is a senior player on her sports team, and the coaches have encouraged the girls to help taje on a leadership role. Some new girl joined the team and was boo-Hoo-ing to the coach that my daughter was telling her what to do and giving her advice on what to do better. The coach told her that’s the way this team works, but the family went up to the age level Director saying the coach was siding with my daughter! Everyone agreed my daughter was not being a bully for what it’s worth. Now my daughter feels like she can’t speak up. What we teaching these girls when they can’t step up and be a leader because I guess when you’re a girl it’s being a b11tch or bully.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD has a mean girl on her sports team. She is always saying mean things, criticizing players, cutting people down. My DD regularly comes home crying about it. At some point I just feel like “Yes, we know Larla is mean and says mean things. That does not mean what she says about you is true, it just means she’s not a nice person.”

But my DD takes it so personally. Like if this girl tells her she’s not good at her position, or she needs to try harder, or that she is “a lot.”

Is there any way I can help my DD not give this girl so much power over her?

You can’t change other people. It’s time that your daughter learns that now and to be honest she does sound like “a lot”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most of my kids inherited my dry,sarcastic humor, and they were capable of finding a way to flip it back to the bully with a subtext of, do it again and you will regret it for the rest of your life.

One of them is so sweet and kind that he just can’t summon that energy. I taught him to smile big and say things like, “Thanks! It’s cool that you’re so interested!”

They teach all of this social emotional learning but it only works when the other kids and parents buy in. There are always some nasty ones out there. I’d have a hard time with a coach allowing their authority to be undermined like that; teammates don’t coach.

+1 I’m surprised the coach is ok with this. Seems like they aren’t doing a good job of managing the team and encouraging a team atmosphere. This isn’t trash talk to an opponent, which should be expected - this is a teammate thing and the coach should be fostering a team atmosphere. Is there something else going on here, like the mean girl is the coach’s daughter or the daughter of someone high up in the league?

[Anonymous]

It's the coach's job to shut this down. If they won't do it, I would find a new coach.

This behavior is antithetical to building a cohesive and competitive team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is on a sports team. OP, you’re getting some very bad advice in here. Tread carefully. I’d take it to sports forum. You’re getting a lot of young parents or parents of unathletic kids.

Yep I agree. I coach a rec team. A few games ago my girls were all in tears over a mean player on the other team. I asked them what she said and it really wasn’t that bad. Something like, “learn to play” with a shove or two thrown in there. Certainly nothing like the trash talk you’d hear daily among high school boys playing street basketball. I basically said that’s not nice but they need to learn to not let it get to them.

Do you know what this girl is actually saying? It could be something that’s pretty innocuous and your daughter is just thin skinned. Or not. But if that’s the case, and your lesson is she should be even nastier back, it could backfire and maybe your daughter will actually be the one saying way worse things and creating drama.

You need to figure out specifically what’s being said and to whom and rule out that your daughter is not overreacting before you start to turn this into a thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How old are they?

Those don’t sound particularly mean to me. Perhaps not overly constructively critical but feedback in sports on things to improve on is normal and may be what this girl hears from her own parents / coach.

Does the coach give constructive feedback? Can you daughter take feedback from others?

Who is she to criticize? Your daughter doesn’t need to hear from her classmate who has her own weaknesses to work on telling her what to do. Tell her “ take care of yourself. I don’t need or want your criticism.”

lol. She’s going to sound like a dorky mom. Sports teams get really mean at this age. My daughter is naturally very kind and empathetic, but the spurts she plays does not attract nice girls, nor does it attract nice parents. I’ve told my daughter this comes with in it if she wants to play, this sport. I don’t wznt her to accept this treatment, but she has to put in a game face. Tell your daughter to keep a poker face (or rbf) and not be friendly to this girl. When she offers unsolicited feedback, your daughter either needs to act like she didn’t say anything or give it a few minutes and offer a similarly critical critique of her performance. Keep it business, don’t make it obviously mean, do the girl doesn’t have ammo to make mean girl behavior involving other teammates and your daughter. Just have your daughter make it very unattractive for this teammate to approach your daughter.

This is the correct response. Most players are still learning themselves and don't have the knowledge or context to correct another player, especially at the younger teen ages, and may be telling OP's daughter the wrong thing. If the coach won't step in, the bully's criticism should be ignored and the response should be offering critiques of the bully's playing until the bully keeps her comments to herself.

[Anonymous]

Is there any truth to what the girl is saying? Does your daughter fumble a lot at her position for example

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tell your daughter to ignore. When the girl says something mean, have your daughter stare at her and then walk away. Teach your daughter that people are allowed to say whatever they want and she can not control that but she can control how she reacts. People tend to say mean things to get a reaction out of people so don’t give them a reaction.

Ignoring reaaaaaallly doesn’t work on bullies (although I like a good death stare). They will just escalate. She needs to give it back and show she’s not intimidated.

Sorry, but this isn’t bullying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is on a sports team. OP, you’re getting some very bad advice in here. Tread carefully. I’d take it to sports forum. You’re getting a lot of young parents or parents of unathletic kids.

How you know my kid not athletic fool

I get it. You coach your ten year olds soccer team. You’ve got all the answers.

OP, if your daughter has her sights on club play and this girl is going up to be around for a while, you need to handle this diplomatically. Again, sports board will have better advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is on a sports team. OP, you’re getting some very bad advice in here. Tread carefully. I’d take it to sports forum. You’re getting a lot of young parents or parents of unathletic kids.

Agreed. Most of these comments sound like they are coming fro parents of 5 year olds on rec leagues and posters who have never played a sport. None of the comments were mean or bullying. People clearly don't even know what those words mean anymore.

[Anonymous]

Is this during the game/scrimmage or after? During, I definitely hear girls on my daughter’s team give pointers and give advice. They don’t do that afterwards though, especially in a targeted way.

Another PP is right if this is beyond that and bullying. People always come on here saying to ignore the bully. Never ever works. They escalate until they get a response. If she needs to respond, it should be casual but also something the girl is insecure about. Targetted. And I would honestly get more aggressive on the field a few times. Oops, did I step on you? So sorry! I know that’s not the most mature response.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is on a sports team. OP, you’re getting some very bad advice in here. Tread carefully. I’d take it to sports forum. You’re getting a lot of young parents or parents of unathletic kids.

Agreed. Most of these comments sound like they are coming fro parents of 5 year olds on rec leagues and posters who have never played a sport. None of the comments were mean or bullying. People clearly don't even know what those words mean anymore.

+1

At our club, they really encourage the girls to tell each other where they need to be and speak to each other in the field, but some girls just can’t handle it and think they’re being targeted/being targeted of bullying. How Are these kids going to thrive in the rail world? If someone keeps telling your kid they’re in the wrong spot/position, Maybe they need to stop having a victim mentality and figure out where they should actually be.

[Anonymous]

WHY won't OP come back and tell us how old this kid is?