I wish the moms of the excluding kids could see the emails DD sends me
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Anonymous
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From school. They are heartbreaking. If you don’t receive emails like this from your child at school, you can’t understand how powerless and sad you feel as a parent.
She just wrote me the “friends” are nice enough but she’s still always left out and doesn’t fit in. They all hung out last weekend and are planning to do so again this weekend. She says she wishes she had friends that would think of her and choose her. She is a nice girl with normal maturity and interests. There is no obvious reason this is happening. I just don’t understand why or what to do about it. 7th grade, just turned 13 but it’s been an issue all of middle school. |
Anonymous
| Your kid emails you from school? What 13 yr old emails their parents? |
Anonymous
| I'm so sorry OP. My 13 YO has the same issues. It really is awful. It isn't always done with bad intentions, and you can't force friendships at this age. Fingers crossed that our girls find their people. |
Anonymous
Sad lonely ones. (OP.) If your child has never emailed you from school, maybe judge less and count your blessings. |
Anonymous
| Tell her to stop emailing you and stop chasing people who don't want to be her friends. Tell her to focus on other people who she's possibly ignoring while she's paying attention to these kids who don't include her in their weekend plans. |
Anonymous
She’s tried several other groups. At least this group talks to her at school. |
Anonymous
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Middle school can be the worst. It only gets better from here.
I would focus on building up her life and self-esteem outside of school. Fortunately, everything shakes out in the 9th grade even if you're at a prek->12. It's like a dagger to the heart as a parent, I know. But it will pass, she'll be stronger for it, and a silver lining is that she isn't one of the excluding girls or followers, right? |
Anonymous
| Why? What do you think they'd do? These kids are friendly enough to your daughter at school. Your daughter even admits that. By 7th grade kids are plenty old enough to choose who they spend their free time with. As long as they're being polite in school there's no problem. |
Anonymous
| This breaks my heart. My kids are often on the fringe -- well-liked enough, but not usually thought of for invitations or even opportunities at school. |
Anonymous
Op, we moved our DD to another school when this became too much. Outside interests just tore her away from her daily social circle and while she had friends within her teammates we were concerned about her daily social life and maturity at school. It was a process but she did quite well socially in middle school once we moved her and I think God I did not listen to my friends telling me this is just middle school. No, it is little girls being queen bees and their parents do not give two seconds thoughts about it, instead addressing it as normal teen behavior. Good luck. |
Anonymous
harsh but true, but I think it's fine for the kid to email OP about it. She's just venting and sharing. That's a good thing. I was at my DD's HS a few weeks ago during lunch. It's an open lunch, so kids are all outside. I saw a couple of kids sitting by themselves. I was outside in the middle of the lunch period so it wasn't like they were all waiting for their friends. DD has so much anxiety about losing her friends because she went through it 2x: once in MS and one in ES. I told DD that even if she did, that she would find another group or even a single friend, that there are lots of kids who don't have a lot of friends who would befriend you. It sucks. Hope it works out for your DD. |
Anonymous
| I feel bad for your daughter, it’s a difficult age. But aI encourage you to rethink this mindset that your daughter not being in a particular group of friends, or not beyond in-school friend level, means she is being excluded. People are allowed to have good, close friends. Not everyone has to be invited to every activity. It sounds like these girls just aren’t your daughter’s tribe, so maybe encourage her to try to befriend other girls? |
Anonymous
OP here. Thank you. This is what I keep hoping but it’s cold comfort to her in the meantime. She has very nice friends at her sport, but none go to her school. It makes the 7.5 school day feel very long and lonely. It’s been a long two years. And we’ve still got one more before high school. |
Anonymous
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My DS experienced something similar when he was in MS. He was part of a crowd one year, but then the next year he was frozen out and never knew why. It hurt my heart to see him struggling socially, and all I could do was encourage him to explore friendships with other people.
I'm sorry, OP. If there's a silver lining, it's heartwarming to see your DD has a relationship with you where she's comfortable sharing this with you. Listening and giving her encouraging words is something she'll always remember. |
Anonymous
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I mean this kindly, but is she chasing after the popular crowd?
So many kids bang their heads into the wall by doing this in middle school. Make sure she is actively friending the other kids who on the outside, looking in. There are definitely more. |