ugh. Kindergarten Mean Girl B.S (long)

[DotAndBuzz]

So N has this "friend," call her Jamie.  Jamie is a very charismatic little girl (I've seen her in action at another kid's b-day party, she totally ran the show and was the "cool" ringleader).  N is drawn to her, and I've heard ALL about Jamie since day 1 of school.  However, Jamie raises big red flags to me.  She loves drama.  Like, about a month ago, N told me about how Jamie's apparent best friend, Sarah, decided that the 2 of them were no longer friends, and Jamie couldn't sit with her anymore.  Jamie was upset, and started trying to separate the other girls in the class (including N) to be her friends instead of Sarah's.  OMFG, THIS IS EFFING KINDERGARTEN, not 8th grade!  Both these girls live in our neighborhood, so will presumably be in school w/ N and E for the next, oh, 12 years.  Yay.  :?

So today, N gets off the bus and is acting weird.  Very clingy, whiny, something definitely off.  We aren't even home for 5 minutes before she breaks down in the kitchen, telling me that Jamie hurt her today.  A little probing reveals that while in line for the bus, Jamie grabbed N's wrist, and yanked it up over her head, towards her back.  She pointed to her wrist, shoulder, and tricep as what still hurt (nearly 40 minutes after school let out).  She said that Jamie did this because N bumped into her in line, and lifted her backpack off her back.  How that happened isn't exactly clear, so there may be more to this story, but I do know that N is not a physical kid.  She likes her personal space, and doesn't tend to instigate.  She will follow and react (so I could see this starting as some sort of "game,"), but doesn't generally start confrontation, even with her sister.  Apparently there wasn't time to tell an adult/no one saw what happened, so she just got on the bus and came home.

Tonight I told her that maybe she should stand next to someone else in line for her bus, and she said that she has to stand next to Jamie, because Jamie is her friend.  My response was that friends don't hurt each other (pointed out some of her other friends and how they behave with each other).  I reminded her that if someone uses a bad touch with her, or hurts her, she needs to tell a grown-up, but then she just started crying again, saying  she didn't want to get Jamie in trouble. 

I don't want to flat out say "stay away from Jamie," however, if i'm being completely honest, I don't want her hanging around this girl.  I mean, I want her to make her own friends, and I know I can't dictate this for her forever.  But at the same time, this girl (and Sarah, for that matter) seems to be causing a lot of drama and heartache, and it is only November.  How do I guide her away from this kid?  I hate that she has to deal with this in effing kindergarten.  I don't think I went through this until middle school.   

[angelaa73]

I would give jamie a chance. You instructed n. if this shit continues, pull the stay away card. But I tend to let kids work kid shit out.

[Deleted]

Yuck. DD is dealing with mean boys, but she isn't interested in being friends with them, so it's definitely less complicated. Just yesterday, I emailed her teacher about the situation and this morning her seat was moved to another table, away from the boy who had been hitting her and saying mean things. DD doesn't even know I had anything to do with it. So I think it's worth a call or email to her teacher with a head's up about what's going on.

ETA - I had been monitoring the mean boys situation from afar for a while, and DD has been trying different ways to get along with them, but when none of the techniques she tried worked, that's when I called in the teacher reinforcement.