Remind me why we’re not supposed to get involved

[Anonymous]

I get that it’s middle school drama but I would really want to be told if my dd was bullying, harassing, spreading rumors. She doesn’t want me to reach out to anyone but I don’t understand how we should expect them to learn how to behave. Am I the only one?

[Anonymous]

The problem is that it's learned behavior and the parents are unlikely to care. I would focus on teaching your dd skills to cope, and report to the school administration if it becomes necessary.

[Anonymous]

Because they will retaliate. Sorry but it's true.

[Anonymous]

When I was in middle school there was some drama and the girl's parents did get involved and it made the rest of us madder. It made the situation worse for her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem is that it's learned behavior and the parents are unlikely to care. I would focus on teaching your dd skills to cope, and report to the school administration if it becomes necessary.

Usually the behavior is modeled by an older sibling or parent, but sometimes a family inexplicably has a bad seed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was in middle school there was some drama and the girl's parents did get involved and it made the rest of us madder. It made the situation worse for her.

What was the drama?

[Anonymous]

Everytime you want to rescue your kid, think about what will happen next time when you aren't there.

Social politics are complex.

[Anonymous]

I would want to be told too but most parents are defensive and can be immature themselves.

[Anonymous]

Bullying, IMO, requires adult intervention, but it has to be handled carefully to make things not get worse. IME, school counselors by and large lack nuance, and make things worse.

Short of extreme behavior, I am for allowing kids to work things out themselves. For instance, DD was good friends with 3 other girls in ES. In MS, she started making new friends, one of the other girls started making new friends, a third girl didn't, but liked that just fine, and a fourth wanted to make friends, but did not know how to go about it, and in the process alienated her existing 3 friends. It turned out that there was a whole another party in the middle meddling (feeding bad information to the girl, showing her photoshopped texts). Once that was figured out, the 2 of 3 girls patched up (the other is still hurt by everything that transpired), and while they're not as close as they used to be, they're on decent terms.

Even in the midst of it all, when the girl was telling her mom she wanted to switch schools, she did not want adults involved, because adult involvement makes things worse. Now everyone involved has a better sense of how things can go south quickly, and how people that are seemingly friends really are not. They're all a little bit wiser, although it was exhausting and quite emotional while all the drama was going on.

[Anonymous]

I also don’t get it op, how are they supposed to learn if no adults are like hey cut it out that isn’t ok. Sometimes it feels like the let them work it out themselves has gone too far

[Anonymous]

Learn? how to behave ??
Most people are good
Have a conscience

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because they will retaliate. Sorry but it's true.

This. Karla’s mom will tell her that you contacted her and Larla will have it in for your kid even more.

I get it - and my husband is totally the type of “Let’s just call the parents, they are reasonable, I’m SURE they would want to know…” and I’m always having to talk him out of it. It’s shocking how many middle schoolers are a-holes. It’s not a tiny percentage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was in middle school there was some drama and the girl's parents did get involved and it made the rest of us madder. It made the situation worse for her.

What was the drama?

I mean typical middle school drama, I assume - dumb stuff that wouldn’t happen to me now but happened when I was 13 and cared about being cool - something I don’t care about now. A girl told me a secret. I told two of our mutual girl friends the secret (even though I shouldn’t have). Then they told a few other people and word got back to the original girl. Then she got mad at me for telling the secret. Then we all got mad at her for getting mad at me and didn’t want to hang out with her. And then her dad tried to get involved and it made it worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I get that it’s middle school drama but I would really want to be told if my dd was bullying, harassing, spreading rumors. She doesn’t want me to reach out to anyone but I don’t understand how we should expect them to learn how to behave. Am I the only one?

Because you're robbing your child of nor.alnhuman developmental experience just to make yourself feel better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was in middle school there was some drama and the girl's parents did get involved and it made the rest of us madder. It made the situation worse for her.

What was the drama?

I mean typical middle school drama, I assume - dumb stuff that wouldn’t happen to me now but happened when I was 13 and cared about being cool - something I don’t care about now. A girl told me a secret. I told two of our mutual girl friends the secret (even though I shouldn’t have). Then they told a few other people and word got back to the original girl. Then she got mad at me for telling the secret. Then we all got mad at her for getting mad at me and didn’t want to hang out with her. And then her dad tried to get involved and it made it worse.

LOL I remember stuff like that. It taught me a valuable lesson to NEVER tell a secret to a friend from school. That dad sounds like the good kind of dad tho. In the short term she lost a lot socially, but in the long term I bet she always remembers her dad stuck up for her.