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Our daughter is also prone to social issues, although she is getting much better.
I think that she finds comfort in being a martyr ("none of the kids like me. They are all mean. They always tattle on me for no reason.") She often complains about being treated wrongly. However, when we go to school events, girls run up and hug her and they all filled out forms to come to her new housewarming party and have been calling to make sure they are invited and we didn't forget. I think a lot of it is her projecting her own low self-esteem in others feelings. She will also accuse other girls of doing the same things that I know she has trouble with, like being bossy or making up rules in the middle of the game. Sometimes she'll say they won't play with her for no reason. We'll talk about what she may have done to upset them, but she absolutely will not accept any responsibility for peer problems. I blame it on being 8 years old and hope it will improve with age.
One thing that I've done that has helped T. though is to point out my own social issues and what I need to do to handle it. For example, I am a designer with a degree in fine art, so when I do an art project with the family, I get a little superior complex and want to be in charge of everything and tell everyone exactly what they should make and how they should work. I even annoy myself with that. So, I'll tell T. that I need to keep my eyes on my own work and have my own space when we are working, because I get too bossy with art projects and it isn't fair to the rest of the family. Seeing me admit that I have an issue I need to deal with has helped her realize that we can admit our problems and find ways to control them, so that everyone can get along. When we have game and movie night, we make sure everyone gets a turn to pick the game and we model being good sports about winning or losing. This has helped, but it does take time.
I don't know how to say this in a way that sounds at all decent, but I also remember how shallow girls were at her age. I try to make sure our daughter always has nice clothes and her hair is as cute as our time in the morning allows. It's not the priorities we want to teach our kids and in fact we advize her that it's what's on the inside that counts, but having a cute new outfit, hairdo or a little sparkly nail polish never hurts in the little girl world. It makes her feel better about herself and gets the other little girls interested. Shallow and wrong I know, but it helps.
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