Mom Wants Accountability For Daughter's Bullies
DEAR HARRIETTE: My daughter came home from school the other day after getting into a fight with two other students. I was livid! I set up a meeting with the administration and the parents of the two other girls immediately. Apparently, my daughter has been bullied for nearly a year at her middle school. I can't believe I hadn't noticed anything wrong. Now that I know how bad things are and that this was not a stand-alone situation, I told the school that either the two girls need to be expelled, or I will be transferring my daughter to another school. I want to ensure my daughter's safety, but she insists that I am making things worse for her. She says she doesn't want to switch schools; she wants to finish what she started. I respect her courage, but as her mom, isn't it my job to do what I think is best? I feel torn. -- Tough Decision
DEAR TOUGH DECISION: Moving your daughter to a new school may not solve the issue. If she wants to stay, work with her and the administration on ways to support her. Press the administration to force disciplinary action on the perpetrators. Find out school policy on bullying, and if there isn't one in place, lobby to establish one.
Put your daughter in counseling so that she can learn how to defend herself in situations like this. Be gentle with her -- she is going through a lot.
DEAR HARRIETTE: My friend has been begging me to go on a trip together for over a year now. I have been putting it off because I knew she wouldn't be a good friend to travel with. She is extremely type B, and I knew she would leave a lot of the planning to me. I would consider myself somewhere between types A and B, but when it comes to vacationing, I need a type A friend who can help pick up their fair share of the planning.
Eventually, I gave in to her, but I made sure to set expectations and let her know that we both need to be putting in a lot of effort to make the trip worth our time and money. At the time, she completely agreed with me. She said she was excited to help plan and she didn't want me to feel like everything was on my shoulders. I felt reassured hearing that, so we started talking about possible destinations, budgets and types of things we wanted to do while we were away.
Unfortunately, the planning process has turned out exactly the way I feared it would. Every time I bring up booking flights, researching hotels or looking into activities, she says things like, "I trust whatever you want to pick." It's really frustrating me because I specifically said I didn't want to be the only one doing the work. How should I address this? Should we not go on the trip at all? -- All on Me
DEAR ALL ON ME: Stop being surprised by what you already knew. Your friend is being herself. She is a follower, not a leader. Go on the trip if you are willing to accept your role in the friendship. If not, cancel.
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(Harriette Cole is a lifestylist and founder of DREAMLEAPERS, an initiative to help people access and activate their dreams. You can send questions to askharriette@harriettecole.com or c/o Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)
Copyright 2026, Harriette Cole
COPYRIGHT 2026 Andrews McMeel Syndication. This feature may not be reproduced or distributed electronically, in print or otherwise without the written permission of Andrews McMeel Syndication.
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