Mean girls

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:sadly st. andrew has mean girl issue too and school does not do much about it.

This is so true. It's horrifying, given how the school wants to grow and brand itself as the nicer alternative. Hope your family is doing ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have experience (3 kids) in DCPS and top privates, including Holton/NCS.
I will say that the mean kid behavior is significantly less in public than in private, likely in part because the cohorts are larger at each step of the way.
A larger cohort means a kid can find her people and can escape any mean kid behavior.
It can be much harder in the small private school grades and classes.

That said, one key to not falling victim to the mean kid stuff is to not get sucked into the mean kid drama. Teach your look to kids other than the popular kids
to be their friends. I have a girl at NCS/Holton and there are some mean girls in the grade and associated drama girls getting excluded and hurt. But there are also many girls quietly doing their own thing and avoiding this drama entirely.

What does NCS/Holton (which one?) do about it?

I'm curious as I hear this a lot.. what does "quietly doing your own thing" mean?.can a genuinely social kid adopt this approach - what would it look like?

In my experience with daughters at NCS/Holton, there are always about 5 girls in a grade who are the popular/drama girls. In general, stay clear of them. Don't attempt friend them, don't invite them to your birthday parties, etc.
The girls who do end up in the endless circle of drama.
Find a few girls who are studious and friend them. Work on building a few solid, true friendships with girls who are outside of the epicenter of things.
Stay off social media.
Get involved with things outside of school.

But mainly, just stay clear of the popular/drama girls. There are always girls who chase after them and they just torture themselves. 99% of the time they are not opening up their circle to more members.

+1. My DD just finished 8th grade in APS. She said no girls were mean to those outside of the popular group/clique, but she said if you were "in" then it was vicious. Lots of fat shaming of already incredibly skinny girls, and other down right meanness. DD befriended a few of the girls separate from the group, and they all complained but couldn't leave. I've met a few of their moms, who are more meek than one would expect, and according to DD, these girls are mean to their moms too.

My DD went from an APS middle school to a Big 3 HS partly to get away from the mean girl clique some of her longtime friends had been absorbed into. The Big 3 school definitely had a group of higher status girls who would play the exclusion game, but by 10th grade they seem to have outgrown that, and my DD became good friends with a couple of them.

[Anonymous]

Girls can be mean…private AND public schools, no discriminating

[Anonymous]

PP added nothing to the conversation - trying to get something off the first page?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an issue in certain grades at SSSAS, usually a problem in middle school.

This has been our experience, as well.

I know two families that have pulled their children out of SSSAS due to bullying.

[Anonymous]

Yes, my DD experienced this at an all-girls school in Bethesda.

I do commend the school administration as being very helpful in trying to mitigate the problem.

BTW, one helpful tip is to try to keep your daughter off of group texts among middle school girls. IME, nothing good can come from it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would you not expect this at a small private school?

OP here. I didn’t say I wouldn’t expect this at a small private school. I asked if it’s usual to have it in LS already, even before middle school.

Mean Girl behavior can start as early as 3rd/4th grade, so yes, it's usual. In EVERY school.

We saw it in kindergarten at our well known K-8

It started started in my DD's K-4 class. The girls, who generally got along, would pick one girl per day that couldn't play with the rest!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:sadly st. andrew has mean girl issue too and school does not do much about it.

I have found the school to be very welcoming and responsive. Have you meet with the head of school? I can't imagine that Mr. Kosasky would not act. My DD had issues at a previous school, so I sympathize with you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:sadly st. andrew has mean girl issue too and school does not do much about it.

This is so true. It's horrifying, given how the school wants to grow and brand itself as the nicer alternative. Hope your family is doing ok.

We find St. Andrew's to be an incredibly welcoming school. If your DD is being treated poorly, talk to the administration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, my DD experienced this at an all-girls school in Bethesda.

I do commend the school administration as being very helpful in trying to mitigate the problem.

BTW, one helpful tip is to try to keep your daughter off of group texts among middle school girls. IME, nothing good can come from it.

+1