I got an email telling me my daughter is a mean girl.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your email. I want to discuss this further, but am uncomfortable with it being anonymous. If you are an adult, I would encourage you to reach out, knowing that I will keep your identity confidential, so that I can understand this more fully and try to get to the bottom of this. If you are a kid, can you please consider taking this issue to a trusted adult who can approach me for a discussion? Perhaps a school counselor or parent.

I look forward to hearing more so I can address this, but I can't address it anonymously.

[Anonymous]

Once I was with my DD when we passed a classmate of hers. The other girl gave my daughter a big smile and a friendly greeting. My daughter blatantly ignored her. I smoothed things over as best I could in the moment and then tackled the issue when I was alone with DD.

It turns out that my charismatic, popular DD ignored the other girl simply because she didn’t want to be friends with this girl. I explained that DD’s behavior was mean and bullying and that I wouldn’t tolerate it. I explained that while she can’t be friends with everyone and is entitled to pick who will and won’t be a friend, that is different than being friendly. I further explained that every human being deserves basic respect and that everyone should be treated with common courtesy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for your email. I want to discuss this further, but am uncomfortable with it being anonymous. If you are an adult, I would encourage you to reach out, knowing that I will keep your identity confidential, so that I can understand this more fully and try to get to the bottom of this. If you are a kid, can you please consider taking this issue to a trusted adult who can approach me for a discussion? Perhaps a school counselor or parent.

I look forward to hearing more so I can address this, but I can't address it anonymously.

NO. This is terrible advice. Don't engage directly. Send this to the school counselor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah I very much believe this is true. I would be really crushed / upset to receive this news, and would talk to my daughter WITHOUT mentioning that the email was sent…she’ll likely know who sent the email and make their life even more of a living hell.

Agree with this. I would not mention the email to her but would tackle the subject. Would also call the guidance counselor to see if anything is going on. Do high school counselors even know about this stuff though? My sense is no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The description of your DD as a popular girl who is frustrated with expectations that she is friends with everyone is sending up red flags for me. Like Gretchen Wieners cluelessly saying I can’t help it that I’m popular.

OP here, and I will not lie, I also see those comment is a slightly different light.

I am inclined not to respond to the email, so I perhaps the best course is to talk to my daughter more generally about the issue?

FWIW, I am not ruling out the possibility this is true. But it’s my kid, so it’s really tough to think it could be true. I feel like I have always emphasized kindness and not gossiping.

I don't think there's any positives to sharing the email or how you got the information with your daughter. It will just drive her crazy trying to figure out who sent it. But I do think you should pay more attention in this area. A general discussion would be good.

Also, I have access to my 7th grader's phone and can read her texts. Have you checked her phone? Depending on her age and your rules regarding her phone, this would be a good time for you to do a deep dive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The description of your DD as a popular girl who is frustrated with expectations that she is friends with everyone is sending up red flags for me. Like Gretchen Wieners cluelessly saying I can’t help it that I’m popular.

+1. No one gets emails like this, OP. Your daughter is probably a mean girl and what is being said is probably true. Talk to her about it.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't tell your dd, but I would pay attention to her behavior and her phone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would be curious to find out, from those of you who think the email is creepy or stalkerish, what you think a tween or teen who was being bullied, gossiped about, unnecessarily excluded, teased, etc., should do to make that behavior stop?

Because the problem is that kids in that situation often have very few options. Teachers/administrators will often refuse to do anything or get involved unless a child is committing or threatening physical violence. So spreading a nasty rumor about how Larla is "weird" because of the way she dresses or because she just moved or doesn't have the right clothes or doesn't conform in some other way? This will be treated as a non-issue and someone complaining about it will be told to simply stay away from the perpetrators and "make other friends." But if the people doing it have a lot of social status and are vicious, which sometimes they are, they will escalate and Larla will become a pariah for no good reason. Social media might become involved, including finsta accounts that adults don't know about and can't see. The behavior will be carefully calibrated to ensure the perpetrators have plausible deniability?

Parents might not care either, and since kids are more likely to become targeted if they appear weak or nonconformist in other ways, it's often the case that victims of this kind of relational bullying have parents who might be abusive or absent, which is part of what marks them as a target to begin with.

There's no other place to appeal. If you met the perpetrators mom in passing or got the sense that they might be horrified to discover how their child was behaving, I don't think it's weird or creepy or stalkerish to try appealing to that person. I think it's desperate, but I think these situations can be desperate.

Yep to this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for your email. I want to discuss this further, but am uncomfortable with it being anonymous. If you are an adult, I would encourage you to reach out, knowing that I will keep your identity confidential, so that I can understand this more fully and try to get to the bottom of this. If you are a kid, can you please consider taking this issue to a trusted adult who can approach me for a discussion? Perhaps a school counselor or parent.

I look forward to hearing more so I can address this, but I can't address it anonymously.

thus is good advice. I would also take a look at my kids social media and see what she is posting and listen in on any conversations she is having wi tr h her friends. if my DD was the culprit and I asked her if it was true, chances are she would deny and I would hate that she hurt a fellownstude t so much that the kid does something drastic. Take it seriously. the kid reaching out could be at their wits end and are afraid to let a school employee k ow about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Once I was with my DD when we passed a classmate of hers. The other girl gave my daughter a big smile and a friendly greeting. My daughter blatantly ignored her. I smoothed things over as best I could in the moment and then tackled the issue when I was alone with DD.

It turns out that my charismatic, popular DD ignored the other girl simply because she didn’t want to be friends with this girl. I explained that DD’s behavior was mean and bullying and that I wouldn’t tolerate it. I explained that while she can’t be friends with everyone and is entitled to pick who will and won’t be a friend, that is different than being friendly. I further explained that every human being deserves basic respect and that everyone should be treated with common courtesy.

This.

Something people seem not to understand is that schools are a community, which means even if you don't want to be friends with someone, you are still part of a group with them and if you engage in exclusionary, hurtful behavior in that setting, it's bullying.

There's a difference between choosing not to invite someone to your home for a party (normal, you really don't have to be friends with everyone) and refusing to sit next to someone in class or in the lunch room because you aren't friends with them. There's a difference between not texting or friending someone on social media (totally okay, you are not required to communicate with someone outside of school they aren't your friend) and acting as though a classmate simply does not exist. There's a difference between silently thinking "ugh, I find Larla annoying and think her hair looks greasy" (everyone is entitled to their thoughts and opinions) and sharing that thought with Larla or with other kids at the school you and Larla attend together.

So much of this is just basic courtesy that people have decided is no longer necessary unless you actively like someone. But that's not true. You are still expected to exercise basic courtesy EVEN to peopel you don't like and don't want to be friends with. All children should be taught this. It's actually really important for society to function.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The description of your DD as a popular girl who is frustrated with expectations that she is friends with everyone is sending up red flags for me. Like Gretchen Wieners cluelessly saying I can’t help it that I’m popular.

OP here, and I will not lie, I also see those comment is a slightly different light.

I am inclined not to respond to the email, so I perhaps the best course is to talk to my daughter more generally about the issue?

FWIW, I am not ruling out the possibility this is true. But it’s my kid, so it’s really tough to think it could be true. I feel like I have always emphasized kindness and not gossiping.

Push past this. I see this blind spot in so many parents.

Yep.

As a rule, with raising my kids from the very beginning, I went in with I'll "never say never" about something my kid would or would not do (or act), etc. I saw far too many people that had no idea who or what their kids were really like outside the home.

I also knew (from watching siblings and friends with older kids) that they change. I never wanted to be eating crow after my kid did something I profusely told people he 'would never do'.

Anything is possible. And, OP, she's young. If she is like this--wouldn't you much rather know and turn it around??? IF my kid were a bully or a jerk or a gossiper or a drinker or a shoplifter--my god--I'd want to know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The description of your DD as a popular girl who is frustrated with expectations that she is friends with everyone is sending up red flags for me. Like Gretchen Wieners cluelessly saying I can’t help it that I’m popular.

+1. No one gets emails like this, OP. Your daughter is probably a mean girl and what is being said is probably true. Talk to her about it.

+2, the fact that someone felt the need to send this is a huge red flag. There is some chance that it is being sent by someone who has it out for your DD and is trying to get her unfairly labeled as a mean girl in order to hurt her. But the risk of getting caught pulling something like that is really high (if your DD is both popular and not a mean girl, then other people would back her up and defend her and this would only make the sender look bad). It's far more likely that your DD is actually doing the things alleged in the email, or is participating in a group that does these things, and this person sent the email out of desperation.

Bullying is serious and I would take this seriously and assume there is at least some truth to it, until proven otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would be curious to find out, from those of you who think the email is creepy or stalkerish, what you think a tween or teen who was being bullied, gossiped about, unnecessarily excluded, teased, etc., should do to make that behavior stop?

Because the problem is that kids in that situation often have very few options. Teachers/administrators will often refuse to do anything or get involved unless a child is committing or threatening physical violence. So spreading a nasty rumor about how Larla is "weird" because of the way she dresses or because she just moved or doesn't have the right clothes or doesn't conform in some other way? This will be treated as a non-issue and someone complaining about it will be told to simply stay away from the perpetrators and "make other friends." But if the people doing it have a lot of social status and are vicious, which sometimes they are, they will escalate and Larla will become a pariah for no good reason. Social media might become involved, including finsta accounts that adults don't know about and can't see. The behavior will be carefully calibrated to ensure the perpetrators have plausible deniability?

Parents might not care either, and since kids are more likely to become targeted if they appear weak or nonconformist in other ways, it's often the case that victims of this kind of relational bullying have parents who might be abusive or absent, which is part of what marks them as a target to begin with.

There's no other place to appeal. If you met the perpetrators mom in passing or got the sense that they might be horrified to discover how their child was behaving, I don't think it's weird or creepy or stalkerish to try appealing to that person. I think it's desperate, but I think these situations can be desperate.

There are a few options here. If this email came from a child — and from the wording I absolutely do not think it does, I think it is a boundary-transgressive and inappropriate adult — the child needs to go to a school counselor first. If it is an adult, then it needs to be non-anonymous to have further conversation.

I would never, ever engage with an anonymous email like this. It is shocking to me that anyone thinks it is appropriate, to be honest.

[Anonymous]

That email reads like it was crafted by a stalker.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would discuss it with your daughter. I don't know why you'd worry about it upsetting her -- as long as you stay empathetic and supportive of her, this is just something she should be able to deal with.

I also think there's a vast difference between being expected to "be everyone's friend" and being expected to treat everyone with kindness, and I'd have a conversation about that. Being popular does in fact come with some responsibilities, and one of them is that your behavior and opinions carry more weight. Even if your daughter does not mean to be gossipy or exclusionary, it can happen very easily. Sometimes teenagers (and adult women) normalize behaviors like talking about other girls when they aren't around, or keeping certain activities "secret" in order to avoid inviting certain people. These are unkind behaviors and there are better ways to handle them. I think you need to be talking with your daughter about what those better ways are.

As is always the case with this subject on DCUM, I remain disappointed in the attitude so many people have that kids who are less popular should simply accept being treated poorly by their peers even if that treatment is unnecessary and harmful.

Personally I’m shocked by the number of people who seem to think that an anonymous creepy email should be taken at face value. It is actually insane to me.

If I responded, the only response I would have is “I do not engage with anonymous correspondents.”

PP here. I am shocked at the imbalance too. Of course the expectation is that your child needs to be kind out in the world, etc., but I think this situation is equally likely to be a personal beef between the daughter and the anonymous letter writer.