Confession Tuesday 8/4/15 DAUGHTER'S FRIEND CHANGING & TREATING HER POORLY

It is a confession. Tuesday Local life coach Rebecca silence inspired results. Coach.com returns. Good morning.

Good morning.

So we are through with the with the updates and stuff and we are now back to helping people.

Let's go.

We're back to coaching. If you have an issue, if you have something going on, go to cnykiss.com and let us know what's up. We'll handle it for free confidentially right here every single Tuesday. Are you ready?

Ready.

Okay. Dear Rebecca, my 14 year old daughter has had a close friend for several years. I've also become close with her mother. Two years ago, my friend discovered her husband was having a long term affair and they divorced. It was a very difficult time for all of them. Sometimes I would get calls six, seven times a day and I was always there to listen. Since that time, I have witnessed her daughter's behavior change dramatically. She began to self harm, her grades dropped and she just stopped caring about things that used to be important to her. My. My friend did start her daughter in counseling, but things have not improved. She's developed a relationship with another girl that is more than a friendship. That girl does not like my daughter for some reason and has been aggressive at her. I'm sorry, has been aggressive at times toward her. Over the past six months, my friend's daughter has been very nasty to my daughter, spreading lies about her, intentionally excluding her from their group of friends. I've spoken to my friend about it and she does nothing. She doesn't ever discipline her kid in fear that they'll get mad at her. This past weekend, after we were away with my friend and her two daughters, we were in their hotel room making plans for them when my friend's daughter began texting. She then whispered in her mother's ear and quickly left the room. My daughter followed. Turned out she got asked to go to the movie with another girl and they just ditched my daughter. She tried to send my daughter off somewhere else so she could sneak out the door, but my daughter didn't go. I found my daughter in the hall crying. I was very upset and told my friend that I couldn't believe she lets her daughter crap all over my daughter all the time. It's not right. She said she had no idea what was going on, which I knew was a lie. Since then I tried to discuss the situation with her and was told I get too involved with their problems. My daughter got several text messages saying she has no friends, calling her immature and to stop crying to her mother. She has texted all of their mutual friends and told them an attempt to turn them against my daughter. It has happened. Off I found out her mother did the same thing to me. She texted several of our mutual friends and told them a mini version of what had happened, only stating that I was getting involved in their problems and needed to stay out of it completely leaving out the fact that I was standing right where right there when it occurred. She was even telling another mother about it while I was at the same event. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do at this point. I know I was a great friend to her and I would never treat her this way, nor did I ever allow my daughter to treat anyone this way either. I don't want to be uncomfortable, especially for my daughter, but I don't want her to be a doormat either. What should I do?

Yeah, thank you so much for this email. And I'm sure so many listeners can relate to caring so much about someone and then feeling helpless. And you've got a few different layers of that going on. You have your daughter who's the primary focus. Then you have your friend's daughter who you love like your own and your friend and yourself. I didn't hear you talking about how you're taking care of yourself in this email, so we want to address that too. Let's start with your daughter. If I were working with her, I would be coaching her to become someone who can't get pushed around and to take the power back. I would be coaching her. Who cares if this girl's your friend or not? Is this friendship material? Is this someone who respects you? Is this someone who you're better when you're around? If the answer's no, next doesn't mean that you have to throw the entire relationship away or the baby out with the bathwater. But the more this daughter gets her own life handled, the more attractive she'll become. And then if this other person is going down a road that the daughter isn't interested in going down, we don't have to force this, right? And I'm feeling a lot of force coming from the mother of this email. Trying to force her friend to do certain things, trying to force her friend's daughter to do certain things, and even forcing her own daughter. So let's get force and throw it out the window right now. And when you say I've been a good friend, I want you to think about, and I'm not making you wrong, but I want you to think about if you are in someone else's business, telling them that they're royally screwing up their life and their child's life. Is that a good friend? And energetically, is your friend going to be able to receive what you're saying? I think.

And, and before you go any further, and because the beginning of the email was about what had happened in the past and the fact that she was there for her, and maybe the way you handled the situation before was really good, but, you know, the situation has changed and maybe just the way that they're handling it is changing. Is that fair to say?

It is. But I'm gonna suggest just being that shoulder to cry on is one thing, and then enabling someone's drama because you answer the phone every time it rings six or seven times a day is another.

Very true.

That's not necessarily being a great friend. If I'm enabling you to be crying in your beer every 10 minutes, every couple of hours, all day, every day, then I'm helping you stay stuck. So I'm just suggesting. And again, I'm not making her wrong because I'm sure her intentions are pure and wonderful and she really cares about these people. I want you to think about what being a real good friend is. And holding people capable and giving them the space to pick themselves up when they fall down, that's being a good friend. And sometimes we really have to go through dark times and it doesn't look pretty. I mean, what I'm going through right now with cancer, it's not looking pretty. But I guarantee this is making my life better long term. Guarantee it. You could be seeing your friend as winning and her daughter and your daughter and you in this scenario. I know that's probably not the easy, you know, way to see this, but why not? What if you're all winning? What if you're outgrowing the dynamics of the relationship the way they were and moving into something new? Your friend is letting you know that your strategy right now doesn't work for her. She's emailing her friends or texting her friends. Frustrated. Of course she's frustrated. Already she's got her daughter harming herself and making some, you know, very difficult decisions. Not to mention part of it's age appropriate. They went through a divorce, fine. But she's 14 years old. So it's almost like the perfect storm right now for these girls to figure out who they actually are. Don't get in the way of them learning who they are by rescuing them poor babies, trying to make this better for them, give them skills to learn how to help themselves. And if you're going to a counselor and it's not working, pick another counselor. Don't drag out the same strategy hoping for a new result. Pick a different counselor. And I would be, number one, focused on you telling your daughter how amazing she is. You letting your daughter know that no matter what's going on in her life, you're there for her. How can you be there to support her and then quit making people wrong in this scenario because they're only gonna fight back louder and harder. They're not gonna be interested in a resolution if you're. Why are you screwing this up? Why aren' you doing this? Why aren't you doing that? Don't play God here. Just focus on staying in your business. What do you want from a friendship? And how can you use this as an opportunity to get closer to your daughter?

And I would imagine just. Just, you know, taking a step back from. And it's. It's baby steps because, you know, they're so used to doing a bunch of stuff together. And that's. That's, again, that's how it sounded. But maybe a good starting point. Point is just to take a step back a little bit and, you know, not be in that pressure cooker of them being together all the time and.

Being well, and it's not your fight, and you're jumping in the boiling water with them, and then you're gonna be the one that gets burned. So my coaching would be to write your friend a love letter. Just tell her how much she means to you. Tell her how much you respect her and what she's going through, and ask, what can I do to be here for you? I feel like I've been trying to do things my way, and that's not working. What do you need from. And then with your daughter, just be really encouraging her to be in her own power and never pushed around by anyone, because you're almost the way this letter sounds, trying to get your daughter to get her friend back. Why? If this friend is going down a road right now of self destruction, why let that friend go? And eventually, maybe she'll come back eventually, maybe she won't. But you don't need to be pushing your daughter to be jumping in that boiling pot of hot water too.

Right. And you know, your daughter doesn't necessarily need that friend to be happy.

Absolutely.

And I think that. I think that needs to be said.

Absolutely.

Because of the pressure to be like, oh, yeah, you know what I'm saying?

Right. Yeah. And if this friend is pushing her away, she's giving her some signs, and it's real. So we don't want to pretend like what's real isn't happening. And get your daughter some new friends. Encourage her to get her own new friends and encourage you to stay more in your own business because you're getting sucked in to all this drama, and it's only hurting you and your family.

Local life coach Rebecca silence inspired results. Coach.com back at it on a confession Tuesday. Cnykiss.com tell us your story and we'll take care of it right here next week.

Yes, please email us. We want to hear from you. We want to know what's going on with you. And I can't wait for next Tuesday.

God, I missed you.

I missed you, too. This is so great.

We're going to break comeback confession Tuesday. Rebecca silence in studio here on KISS fm.