Is my daughter causing friends’ anxiety?

[Heavyhat]

My SD10 is the only child of her narc mother and spends nearly 50% of her time at our house. She and my  DS10 have always been tight but he has struggled for years dealing with her entitlement and bragging. Lately it has looked more like her putting him down and gaslighting him about it. For example she'll say "oh, haha, you spelled that word wrong, hahahaa, who spells like that?" But then quickly add "but it's ok to spell things wrong sometimes." It's very confusing for him and he tends to cling onto the first critical comment of course.

My son has periodically refused to go to school bc of anxiety and it has gotten to the point now where he hasn't gone for four months. We are doing everything we can to help him with his anxiety short of medication, but that may be where we end up.

I noticed that my SD's two best friends also have school refusal, and another one of her best friends just left the school altogether. I can't help but wonder if she is causing anxiety in her friends with her behavior. Is she mimicking her mom? It's a terrible thought to have but maybe it's exactly what is happening and I've been naive to it.

[square]

My understanding is that school refusal is on the rise, along with anxiety in children in general. I suspect you are seeing a larger trend.

[notrightinthehead]

I am amazed that a 10 year old child gets to decide if they want to go to school or not.  In my mind school is  not optional for kids. Consider the disadvantages a child has when they lack education.
It seems that you think that your stepdaughter influences other kids to refuse to go to school. But even if that is so, ultimately the parents make the decision if a minor skips school or not. So it's the other kids parents who decide if their kids go or not.

[BeautifulCrazy]

Heavyhat, I can understand how you might suspect your SD is causing anxiety to other children with her behaviors. It may be true in a general sense. She may be adding some stress to an already difficult situation for the other kids. I suspect if she were a major factor or a root cause though, you would be aware of it already through other parents or the school. 

In my experience, the comments you describe SD making to DS are not out of the ordinary for a child that age. My youngest is 12 and has said things like that to his peers and to his brother. It really isn't nice, but I don't think he's got a latent PD.

I think you are right about SDs behavior being undesirable and not something you want to continue into adulthood. If it were me, I would be addressing the teasing that SD is engaging in because, in my opinion, that's just not how we should treat people when they make a mistake and drawing attention to it in that way is unkind. How do you handle that when it happens?