He told my daughter ‘I don’t like you and I don’t want to be friends with you’

“I don’t want her to be humiliated one more second by them. I don’t want these mean kids to take her shine away,” Mum Shani says. 

Shani* heard giggling coming from her daughter’s room one night. 

Her mum said the nine-year-old, Lily*, has a heart of gold. She always takes time out to speak to kids who look left out and puts extra effort into making everyone feel welcome. 

One night she was chatting with her best friend, Gigi* about a boy Lily had a crush on at their American school, Tyler*. 

They were all in the same class, and Tyler lives down the road from Lily, so they all ride the school bus home together daily. 

RELATED: I told my friend it was her fault her 13yo was getting bullied - I’m not sorry

“My daughter got off the bus in tears because she felt something wasn’t right”

“My daughter asked [Gigi] to find out who [Tyler] liked but not to tell him that my daughter liked him,” Shani explained to Reddit. 

Shani thought nothing of this little crush and considered it nothing more than a “4th graded romance.” 

“The next day, her friend asked this boy in class who he liked, and he said he liked someone that they were both friends with, with all the same features as my daughter, it was someone that lived near him, etc-insinuating that he, in fact, liked my daughter too."

Lily was overjoyed by this and couldn’t stop giggling on the phone every night as she spoke to Gigi. 

The two kids spent each night discussing what they would wear to school the next day, so Lily could impress her crush. Shani even curled her daughter’s hair in the morning so Tyler could see she put extra effort into her appearance. 

After school, Lily, Gigi and Tyler were coming home from school just like any other day. Gigi began “acting weird” and told Lily, “Sorry, and I’ll miss you,” hinting something would happen between Lily and her crush, Tyler. 

“My daughter got off the bus in tears because she felt something wasn’t right and said her friend and crush kept talking about ‘the plan’ and that her crush might come to our house that afternoon to tell her something,” Shani wrote. 

Shani and her husband thought nothing of it, “thinking this nine-year-old boy would not have the courage to confess that he had a crush on her and that her best friend wouldn’t do anything to hurt her,” she said. 

“Boy, was I wrong.” 

RELATED: School kids that don’t have someone to play with at lunch finally will

RELATED: My daughter is such a vicious school bully, I'm wrecking the rest of her year

Shani was surprised to see Tyler ride up to their house on his bicycle “with a big grin on his face.” 

He asked Lily to come outside, and he told her four things. “I don’t like you,” he said. “I don’t want to be friends with you,” and “your bestie doesn’t like you.” He told her Gigi “doesn’t want to be friends anymore” and left. 

“As the boy proceeded to ride off on his bike, leaving my daughter standing outside-crying, confused and broken-hearted,” Shani said.  

Shani, who works from home most days, was devastated when she heard her daughter run into the house hysterically crying. “No parent wants their child to hurt, and I’d take it all away if I could,” she said. 

When work was finished for the day, Shani and Lily jumped in the car and blasted the nine-year-old’s favourite music and explained why “boys can be silly and immature.” 

But Shani and Lily couldn’t figure out why Gigi and Tyler would “gang up on her” and completely humiliate her this way. “We blocked the number of this ‘bestie’ who started calling nonstop after school to find out if this cruel joke had been carried through,” Shani wrote.

What has Shani worried is the next time her daughter takes the bus; she will be confronted by the bullies again. 

“I don’t want her to be humiliated one more second by them,” she said. “I don’t want these mean kids to take her shine away.” 

RELATED: ‘Washing machine’ bullying: My son was locked in a cabinet and urinated on

“Girl bullying is much different than boy bullying”

These were obvious signs of bullying and the people of Reddit immediately took to prevent it from happening again. 

Parents recommended Shani begin to read books about bullying and how it develops and changes with age. “The American Girl series has some excellent books on friendships and red flags for toxic behaviour and how to navigate stuff like this,” a parent suggested.

“I read [Queen Bees and Wannabees] when my daughter was around your daughter's age just to get some insight into girl dynamics because girl bullying is much different than boy bullying,” said a dad. 

Some suggested taking the issue to the school. “Please notify her school counsellor of what happened,” a teacher said. “Yes, it was off school grounds, but we like to keep tabs on these dynamics, and especially help emotionally support the victim as well as coach the antagonists.” 

“These sort of things tend to snowball if it’s kept under wraps,” they said. 

Others praised Shani for her response to the situation. “I think you’ve done everything you possibly could to boost your daughter’s confidence,” someone wrote. “She’ll just have to ignore them at school because they’re not worth her time if they’re going to treat her like that.”

“You’re a really good mum,” said another. 

*Names have been changed. 

Originally published as He told my daughter ‘I don’t like you and I don’t want to be friends with you’