Seeing your kids failing to make meaningful friendships can be so painful. But one dad wondered if he was wrong for telling his daughter that she's kind of the reason why she doesn't have any buddies. Even though it seems like his daughter's bratty behavior is costing her besties, now he's wondering if that's something a parent should ever tell their kids.
According to the dad, his 12-year-old is "very sassy and quite rude."
In a post on Am I the A–hole, the dad admitted that he can't really explain where she got her attitude from "because her mom and I are very introverted and fairly kind to each other."
His daughter only has two "friends."
They're two siblings who live close to their family and guess what?
"My daughter and these two children fight and argue ALL. THE. TIME," he wrote.
If the dad's being honest, this is mostly because his daughter is straight-up rude.
For instance, if her two "friends" can't play or they have to go home, his daughter will "deliberately try to hurt their feelings by hurling insults at them."
"Usually I have to contact the mom or dad of said children to get their side of the story because my daughter 'doesn't know why' they are mad at her or 'can't remember what she said' to the kids and I apologize for what my daughter says to their children," he explained.
He gets along with his daughter's friends' parents, so the dad goes to great lengths to keep peace between their kids.
That was standard operating procedure until a few weeks ago, when his daughter got in a huge "blowout fight" with her two pals.
"And my daughter once again was hurling insults at said children, calling them names and saying stuff about their family," he recalled.
This time it was serious.
"The children told my daughter that they will not be her friend anymore," he wrote.
His daughter came home in tears and told her dad that she had "no idea" why the kids wanted to stop being friends with her.
She swore that she didn't say anything to them to provoke it either — but that's sadly not the truth.
"I asked the dad and he told me what my daughter had said to his kids," the dad wrote. "I apologized and I haven't heard from them since."
As in, they haven't heard from them in weeks and his daughter is still "distraught and acting the victim.
The dad is tired of his daughter's antics. He felt like it was time to tell her the truth.
He didn't want to feed into her pity party, "so I informed her that the reason she has no friends is because she cannot control her irrational behavior when someone does something she doesn’t like," he recalled.
"That she needs to think before she gets mad and starts hurling insults at people she should care about," he told her.
His daughter didn't take the confrontation well -- she ran into her room in tears and slammed her door.
His wife thinks he was too harsh, but he believes it's time "my daughter got a dose of reality in the situation."
"I refuse to hold her hand and be the one who mends her friendships anymore," he wrote. "If she doesn't want to have friends, I'm not going to force it."
He also noted that his daughter has been in counseling for a year "and her therapist said he thinks she's fine."
"He said it’s just 'normal female hormones,'" the dad wrote.
Some people thought he needed to get his daughter a new therapist -- ASAP.
"NTA [Not the A–hole], but you need a different therapist, that one was [expletive]," one commenter wrote.
"A sexist [expletive] at that," someone else agreed. "Her behavior is not normal."
"I would report him," a third commenter advised. "A therapist is a scientist. He's being sexist as h— and letting his personal opinion out instead of an actual scientific opinion."
Other people thought this dad needed to rethink his tactics.
"NTA for saying something now, but it sounds like you guys have been taking a back seat to her behavioral problems for awhile," one person wrote. "She needs help learning better strategies. This takes active parenting. If you don't know a lot about this stuff, it's time to seek out some experts and get a game plan here."
"Long conversations don’t help enough," someone else chimed in. "Monitoring play dates more closely so you can step in would be good. Role playing with her so she can handle being upset could help. Exercise and meditation can help her learn to focus her anger."
A third person felt this way about the situation:
"NTA for being honest with your daughter. But you are doing something very wrong here, which is apologizing for her. She is old enough to meet the consequences of her acts and you have been enabling her for god knows how long. No surprise she is distraught now, for what you said this might be the first time she sees real consequences."
The hardest part about this situation is that the dad hoped his harsh words would have helped his daughter realize she needs to change her behavior.
Later in the thread, however, he shared that now "she just sits around bored all day."
"It's tough because I want her to have friends but it’s not my job to maintain her friendships for her," he added.
The best thing this dad can do is get his daughter a new therapist who will work with both her and him and his wife. It will take a team effort, but it might be possible that with the right doctor, his daughter might get the help she clearly needs.
