We had something similar. I told my son that young children begin to try out manipulation skills on each other, so that was part of it, but that also one has to realize that sometimes people are just jerks (I used a word starting with an "a" instead, but that was the basic message). I told him that he wasn't well-served by feeding into the behavior in either situation, and that he should have enough self-respect to just let such people be. It seems to have worked.

Striving to increase my rate of flow, and fight forum gloopiness. sick