Mean girls mean moms

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my experience, mean girls befriend before they start treating you poorly.

Like the worst bullying I've experienced wasn't done girl who just didn't want to be friends with me. That doesn't even register. Everyone experiences that and it's not that big a deal.

The mean girl experiences I've had have happened when I WAS part of a group, and then within the context of that friendship, one or more members of the group started making fun of me (but always under the cover of "it's a joke! We're kidding of course"), talking about me behind my back (often using things i had confided in them specifically because they were my friends as fodder), of excluding me from group activities (and going out of their way to let me know the rest of the group is doing something i had previously been invited to, but not this time).

This is why mean girl behavior is so insidious. It's not bullying from some random kid in a playground. It's bullying from the people who are, ostensibly, your friends. And who you might have trusted with sensitive info, or who might know things about you.

Also, it's not just the "popular girls" who engage in this. It can happen in just about any friend group where it's tolerated.

So I don't even understand what is being argued about on this thread but it doesn't seem to have much to do with how mean girl behavior actually works.

Oh, and yes-- often kids who do this have parents who do it. Especially the gossip, because when kids hear their parents gossiping about their friends, it normalizes that behavior.

This is the problem with these discussions. Everyone has a different idea of what’s “mean.” Toxicity, emotional abuse, narcissism exists in little girls, usually intergenerationally, but other people are talking about exclusion. One is not always a problem. The other won’t be fixed by a school or by conversation with an adult. You just have to teach your kid to find their healthy friendships, and there will be some trial and error involved. The errors will hurt, but it’s part of the process.

I'm the PP and I disagree. If it's low level and the kids can move on quickly okay. But what I just described should not be "part of the process." I once had a friend group turn on me, spread a vicious rumor that made me an outcast with everyone, not just my supposed friends, and literally pretend I didn't exist at school. It was excruciating and I started self-harming just to remind myself that I existed because the pain of cutting felt good compared to the pain of being made invisible every day. I think I may still have PTSD from this experience.

And yes, the school and adults could have intervened. I ultimately wound up switching schools and starting over, but that was a long and academically disruptive process. It should never have been allowed to escalate as it did.

Which is why the attitude that "mild" mean girl behavior should be ignored and accepted as normal bothers me. My experience was mild until it wasn't. The acceptance of gossip, teasing, and exclusion by the adults around us made it possible for my "friends" to keep escalating until my school life was a daily misery.

So yeah, if kids are intentionally excluding on the playground, it's a problem and you as an adult should explain why that behavior isn't okay. Kids are welcome to have whatever friends they want after school, but at school you have to be inclusive. Teasing and gossip are anti-social behaviors that should be discouraged.

Kids kill themselves over these behaviors. You'd think that would be enough to get you to care.

Your situation and to the degree you describing is an outlier and not what OP started a thread about. Otherwise she would have included it in her OP; not made a post about how moms are like their daughters.

DP I disagree. Most of this thread seems to be disagreeing with OP and people talking about how their daughters excluding others aren't really mean, they just have better social skills and don't want to be friends with everyone. But the reality is their methods of exclusion aren't exactly nice nor should they be tolerated while at school.

Some people on this thread think that if all the kids aren’t friends, that’s bullying / exclusionary behavior. It’s not.

Yes it is if they're like "we're not playing with you today!" and then want to be besties the next day. Stop talking about lived experiences that aren't your own. I know it when I see it.

I agree that is abusive behavior. When this exact scenario happened repeatedly to my child, I encouraged her to end the cycle and stop playing with the other girl. My DD agreed and became friends with other people. The bully then turned around and complained that my child was excluding her. DD wasn’t. DD didn’t tell anyone not to play with bully. All she did was ignore the bully herself. Bully’s mom complained to the school about my daughter. Bully’s mom is socially awkward. I am positive that she thinks I’m a mean mom with a mean child. I couldn’t care less. I had to try to protect my child from emotional abuse. I’ll proudly wear the badge of mean mom if that what it entails.

I'm the PP and I see this again and again. My daughter was the new girl at school and befriended some girls but a few were openly hostile to her and didn't want her in their group because they felt threatened. I talked about it with her and encouraged her to just find other girls to play with. So, now she is friends with another group of girls, and again, there is 1 or 2 who is hostile and jealous of her presence. Some girls just can't accept new people or a widening group of girls. So they tell her she can't play soccer, volleyball, four square, or whatever the recess game is. Seems like this dynamic exists in every group of girls she finds. It's frustrating. There are only so many groups of girls. And this isn't some popularity contest where she's desperately trying to horn in. She's genuinely friends with some of the girls: birthday parties, play dates, sports, etc. But a few can't handle the change and try to exclude her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my experience, mean girls befriend before they start treating you poorly.

Like the worst bullying I've experienced wasn't done girl who just didn't want to be friends with me. That doesn't even register. Everyone experiences that and it's not that big a deal.

The mean girl experiences I've had have happened when I WAS part of a group, and then within the context of that friendship, one or more members of the group started making fun of me (but always under the cover of "it's a joke! We're kidding of course"), talking about me behind my back (often using things i had confided in them specifically because they were my friends as fodder), of excluding me from group activities (and going out of their way to let me know the rest of the group is doing something i had previously been invited to, but not this time).

This is why mean girl behavior is so insidious. It's not bullying from some random kid in a playground. It's bullying from the people who are, ostensibly, your friends. And who you might have trusted with sensitive info, or who might know things about you.

Also, it's not just the "popular girls" who engage in this. It can happen in just about any friend group where it's tolerated.

So I don't even understand what is being argued about on this thread but it doesn't seem to have much to do with how mean girl behavior actually works.

Oh, and yes-- often kids who do this have parents who do it. Especially the gossip, because when kids hear their parents gossiping about their friends, it normalizes that behavior.

This is the problem with these discussions. Everyone has a different idea of what’s “mean.” Toxicity, emotional abuse, narcissism exists in little girls, usually intergenerationally, but other people are talking about exclusion. One is not always a problem. The other won’t be fixed by a school or by conversation with an adult. You just have to teach your kid to find their healthy friendships, and there will be some trial and error involved. The errors will hurt, but it’s part of the process.

I'm the PP and I disagree. If it's low level and the kids can move on quickly okay. But what I just described should not be "part of the process." I once had a friend group turn on me, spread a vicious rumor that made me an outcast with everyone, not just my supposed friends, and literally pretend I didn't exist at school. It was excruciating and I started self-harming just to remind myself that I existed because the pain of cutting felt good compared to the pain of being made invisible every day. I think I may still have PTSD from this experience.

And yes, the school and adults could have intervened. I ultimately wound up switching schools and starting over, but that was a long and academically disruptive process. It should never have been allowed to escalate as it did.

Which is why the attitude that "mild" mean girl behavior should be ignored and accepted as normal bothers me. My experience was mild until it wasn't. The acceptance of gossip, teasing, and exclusion by the adults around us made it possible for my "friends" to keep escalating until my school life was a daily misery.

So yeah, if kids are intentionally excluding on the playground, it's a problem and you as an adult should explain why that behavior isn't okay. Kids are welcome to have whatever friends they want after school, but at school you have to be inclusive. Teasing and gossip are anti-social behaviors that should be discouraged.

Kids kill themselves over these behaviors. You'd think that would be enough to get you to care.

Your situation and to the degree you describing is an outlier and not what OP started a thread about. Otherwise she would have included it in her OP; not made a post about how moms are like their daughters.

DP I disagree. Most of this thread seems to be disagreeing with OP and people talking about how their daughters excluding others aren't really mean, they just have better social skills and don't want to be friends with everyone. But the reality is their methods of exclusion aren't exactly nice nor should they be tolerated while at school.

Some people on this thread think that if all the kids aren’t friends, that’s bullying / exclusionary behavior. It’s not.

Yes it is if they're like "we're not playing with you today!" and then want to be besties the next day. Stop talking about lived experiences that aren't your own. I know it when I see it.

I agree that is abusive behavior. When this exact scenario happened repeatedly to my child, I encouraged her to end the cycle and stop playing with the other girl. My DD agreed and became friends with other people. The bully then turned around and complained that my child was excluding her. DD wasn’t. DD didn’t tell anyone not to play with bully. All she did was ignore the bully herself. Bully’s mom complained to the school about my daughter. Bully’s mom is socially awkward. I am positive that she thinks I’m a mean mom with a mean child. I couldn’t care less. I had to try to protect my child from emotional abuse. I’ll proudly wear the badge of mean mom if that what it entails.

I'm the PP and I see this again and again. My daughter was the new girl at school and befriended some girls but a few were openly hostile to her and didn't want her in their group because they felt threatened. I talked about it with her and encouraged her to just find other girls to play with. So, now she is friends with another group of girls, and again, there is 1 or 2 who is hostile and jealous of her presence. Some girls just can't accept new people or a widening group of girls. So they tell her she can't play soccer, volleyball, four square, or whatever the recess game is. Seems like this dynamic exists in every group of girls she finds. It's frustrating. There are only so many groups of girls. And this isn't some popularity contest where she's desperately trying to horn in. She's genuinely friends with some of the girls: birthday parties, play dates, sports, etc. But a few can't handle the change and try to exclude her.

I disagree that this is abusive. That aside, this is how I coached my daughter, which worked well: X can tell you she doesn’t want to play with you. If she does, you probably won’t want to play with X either, and everyone gets to choose who to play with. However X can’t decide that Y doesn’t want to play with you. If X, Y, and Z all don’t want to play, find someone else. You’re a lovely, likable girl who deserves to play with girls who want to play with you. If Y and Z want to play but X doesn’t, then you and X need to make a choice either to coexist or to walk away. If she wants to walk away, let her

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't give them an opportunity to be mean to you. Ignore them!

x100000

Come on. Don't be ridiculous. When your kids wants to join in a game at recess and the other girls say "NO!" and run away from you how do you ignore that? Is your solution that the kid who just wants to play should know their place and never even ask? Just sit there on a bench alone? No.

This reads like you really want your kid to be in the “in crowd” and are fighting reality. 2nd-3rd grade is old enough for kids to flock towards people they enjoy spending time with.

Can we agree to ignore this PP? Saying it’s ok for 7 and 8 year olds to be left out at school because others want to only play with kids they “flock towards” is insane.

Kids don’t have any choice over whether or not they are at school! A certain level of kindness and inclusion in a compulsory education environment should be required and expected by parents.

Girl, you are literally telling other posters to ignore me because you don’t like my messaging. You may need to go back to elementary school and get your head on straight. Practice what you preach! don’t hate the player, hate the game!

She is telling people to ignore a bully.
If you want to engage in this behavior and teach your kids to write mean notes or make fun of kids for having special needs, then go for it.

No one has to listen to you tell us why it’s okay.

You’re projecting. No one is saying that behavior is okay.

We are talking about:

- Excluding other girls
- Making fun of other girls or boys (verbally or in notes/pictures that are passed around the classroom)
- Telling kids not to play with or be friends with certain girls or boys.

Many people are saying that it’s okay, developmentally appropriate, and that it isn’t really “mean.”

And their moms are doing this to you also, as per the OP? Means girls and their mean mom?

What do you think, pp? What’s your experience with girls who engage in this behavior?
Are their moms volunteering at soup kitchens and trying to reach out to recent immigrants to teach them about PowerSchool?

Yes. I literally never had another mom from school be “mean” to me.

I haven’t either. I’m an attractive UMC white lady. Not a lot of people are mean to me. But I can recognize when they are mean to other people.

By doing what? Not saying hi at drop off? Not letting you bring the Frankenstein cookies to the Halloween party and telling you you have to bring the gross candy corn instead?

More or less. Maybe I will be talking to another mom, and a third mom will come over to say hi, and the person I’m chatting with will literally turn her back or walk away.
Or instead of putting out a sign up sheet or having the teacher send an email about volunteering for the Halloween party so anyone can participate, they only invite their friends.
Or gossiping about how another mom is dirty or gross in some way.
Or having a school party or fundraiser and only advertising it to certain people so the less desirable people don’t show.

This would honestly not register with me at all as mean- except the gossip. But I wouldn’t sit around talking long enough to even hear gossip, maybe you shouldn’t either

What if the people who were being mean were white, and the people being excluded were black. Would it register with you at all as racist?
I will copy and paste the examples:

- I will be talking to another mom, and a third mom will come over to say hi, and the person I’m chatting with will literally turn her back or walk away.

- instead of putting out a sign up sheet or having the teacher send an email about volunteering for the Halloween party so anyone can participate, they only invite their friends.

- gossiping about how another mom is dirty or gross in some way.

- Hosting a school party or fundraiser and only advertising it to certain people so the less desirable people don’t show.

Would not give any of these a second thought. Why are you stewing about some dumb volunteer list? Or someone turning around and talking to someone else? Who cares

I’m not stewing about it, but I’m not oblivious to it either.
I mean, let’s be clear. The moms who are not invited to volunteer at the classroom Halloween party and aren’t invited to the adult Halloween party that is supposedly a fundraiser for the school are either poor, brown, fat, too religious, or dealing with mental illness of some sort.
You really don’t notice this? You’re just like, “Look, Katie and Jennifer and Kristen are friends from cross-fit and they go to Starbucks every morning after drop off and live in the gated community together. They just don’t really know Kavitha and Margaret-Mary, so that’s why they never ever ever talk to them.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my experience, mean girls befriend before they start treating you poorly.

Like the worst bullying I've experienced wasn't done girl who just didn't want to be friends with me. That doesn't even register. Everyone experiences that and it's not that big a deal.

The mean girl experiences I've had have happened when I WAS part of a group, and then within the context of that friendship, one or more members of the group started making fun of me (but always under the cover of "it's a joke! We're kidding of course"), talking about me behind my back (often using things i had confided in them specifically because they were my friends as fodder), of excluding me from group activities (and going out of their way to let me know the rest of the group is doing something i had previously been invited to, but not this time).

This is why mean girl behavior is so insidious. It's not bullying from some random kid in a playground. It's bullying from the people who are, ostensibly, your friends. And who you might have trusted with sensitive info, or who might know things about you.

Also, it's not just the "popular girls" who engage in this. It can happen in just about any friend group where it's tolerated.

So I don't even understand what is being argued about on this thread but it doesn't seem to have much to do with how mean girl behavior actually works.

Oh, and yes-- often kids who do this have parents who do it. Especially the gossip, because when kids hear their parents gossiping about their friends, it normalizes that behavior.

This is the problem with these discussions. Everyone has a different idea of what’s “mean.” Toxicity, emotional abuse, narcissism exists in little girls, usually intergenerationally, but other people are talking about exclusion. One is not always a problem. The other won’t be fixed by a school or by conversation with an adult. You just have to teach your kid to find their healthy friendships, and there will be some trial and error involved. The errors will hurt, but it’s part of the process.

I'm the PP and I disagree. If it's low level and the kids can move on quickly okay. But what I just described should not be "part of the process." I once had a friend group turn on me, spread a vicious rumor that made me an outcast with everyone, not just my supposed friends, and literally pretend I didn't exist at school. It was excruciating and I started self-harming just to remind myself that I existed because the pain of cutting felt good compared to the pain of being made invisible every day. I think I may still have PTSD from this experience.

And yes, the school and adults could have intervened. I ultimately wound up switching schools and starting over, but that was a long and academically disruptive process. It should never have been allowed to escalate as it did.

Which is why the attitude that "mild" mean girl behavior should be ignored and accepted as normal bothers me. My experience was mild until it wasn't. The acceptance of gossip, teasing, and exclusion by the adults around us made it possible for my "friends" to keep escalating until my school life was a daily misery.

So yeah, if kids are intentionally excluding on the playground, it's a problem and you as an adult should explain why that behavior isn't okay. Kids are welcome to have whatever friends they want after school, but at school you have to be inclusive. Teasing and gossip are anti-social behaviors that should be discouraged.

Kids kill themselves over these behaviors. You'd think that would be enough to get you to care.

Your situation and to the degree you describing is an outlier and not what OP started a thread about. Otherwise she would have included it in her OP; not made a post about how moms are like their daughters.

DP I disagree. Most of this thread seems to be disagreeing with OP and people talking about how their daughters excluding others aren't really mean, they just have better social skills and don't want to be friends with everyone. But the reality is their methods of exclusion aren't exactly nice nor should they be tolerated while at school.

Some people on this thread think that if all the kids aren’t friends, that’s bullying / exclusionary behavior. It’s not.

Yes it is if they're like "we're not playing with you today!" and then want to be besties the next day. Stop talking about lived experiences that aren't your own. I know it when I see it.

I agree that is abusive behavior. When this exact scenario happened repeatedly to my child, I encouraged her to end the cycle and stop playing with the other girl. My DD agreed and became friends with other people. The bully then turned around and complained that my child was excluding her. DD wasn’t. DD didn’t tell anyone not to play with bully. All she did was ignore the bully herself. Bully’s mom complained to the school about my daughter. Bully’s mom is socially awkward. I am positive that she thinks I’m a mean mom with a mean child. I couldn’t care less. I had to try to protect my child from emotional abuse. I’ll proudly wear the badge of mean mom if that what it entails.

I'm the PP and I see this again and again. My daughter was the new girl at school and befriended some girls but a few were openly hostile to her and didn't want her in their group because they felt threatened. I talked about it with her and encouraged her to just find other girls to play with. So, now she is friends with another group of girls, and again, there is 1 or 2 who is hostile and jealous of her presence. Some girls just can't accept new people or a widening group of girls. So they tell her she can't play soccer, volleyball, four square, or whatever the recess game is. Seems like this dynamic exists in every group of girls she finds. It's frustrating. There are only so many groups of girls. And this isn't some popularity contest where she's desperately trying to horn in. She's genuinely friends with some of the girls: birthday parties, play dates, sports, etc. But a few can't handle the change and try to exclude her.

I disagree that this is abusive. That aside, this is how I coached my daughter, which worked well: X can tell you she doesn’t want to play with you. If she does, you probably won’t want to play with X either, and everyone gets to choose who to play with. However X can’t decide that Y doesn’t want to play with you. If X, Y, and Z all don’t want to play, find someone else. You’re a lovely, likable girl who deserves to play with girls who want to play with you. If Y and Z want to play but X doesn’t, then you and X need to make a choice either to coexist or to walk away. If she wants to walk away, let her

I didn't really call it abusive, just relating what I see. And I gave that speech to my daughter but, being the new girl, X had more sway and the girls didn't stand by my daughters side. So, on to girls A, B and C and again, A did the same thing, and the cycle repeats. When A or X are not there for whatever reason, the girls play together nicely, but then those girls come back and the drama starts. There's one in every group it seems. Some of these girl groups have been together since preschool and it seems the girls like A and X desperately want to keep the group exclusive. I'm just waiting for a few years when I think the girls outgrow these groups which are also firmly held together by the parents, who are not so coincidentally, very close.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't give them an opportunity to be mean to you. Ignore them!

x100000

Come on. Don't be ridiculous. When your kids wants to join in a game at recess and the other girls say "NO!" and run away from you how do you ignore that? Is your solution that the kid who just wants to play should know their place and never even ask? Just sit there on a bench alone? No.

This reads like you really want your kid to be in the “in crowd” and are fighting reality. 2nd-3rd grade is old enough for kids to flock towards people they enjoy spending time with.

Can we agree to ignore this PP? Saying it’s ok for 7 and 8 year olds to be left out at school because others want to only play with kids they “flock towards” is insane.

Kids don’t have any choice over whether or not they are at school! A certain level of kindness and inclusion in a compulsory education environment should be required and expected by parents.

Girl, you are literally telling other posters to ignore me because you don’t like my messaging. You may need to go back to elementary school and get your head on straight. Practice what you preach! don’t hate the player, hate the game!

She is telling people to ignore a bully.
If you want to engage in this behavior and teach your kids to write mean notes or make fun of kids for having special needs, then go for it.

No one has to listen to you tell us why it’s okay.

You’re projecting. No one is saying that behavior is okay.

We are talking about:

- Excluding other girls
- Making fun of other girls or boys (verbally or in notes/pictures that are passed around the classroom)
- Telling kids not to play with or be friends with certain girls or boys.

Many people are saying that it’s okay, developmentally appropriate, and that it isn’t really “mean.”

And their moms are doing this to you also, as per the OP? Means girls and their mean mom?

What do you think, pp? What’s your experience with girls who engage in this behavior?
Are their moms volunteering at soup kitchens and trying to reach out to recent immigrants to teach them about PowerSchool?

Yes. I literally never had another mom from school be “mean” to me.

I haven’t either. I’m an attractive UMC white lady. Not a lot of people are mean to me. But I can recognize when they are mean to other people.

By doing what? Not saying hi at drop off? Not letting you bring the Frankenstein cookies to the Halloween party and telling you you have to bring the gross candy corn instead?

More or less. Maybe I will be talking to another mom, and a third mom will come over to say hi, and the person I’m chatting with will literally turn her back or walk away.
Or instead of putting out a sign up sheet or having the teacher send an email about volunteering for the Halloween party so anyone can participate, they only invite their friends.
Or gossiping about how another mom is dirty or gross in some way.
Or having a school party or fundraiser and only advertising it to certain people so the less desirable people don’t show.

This would honestly not register with me at all as mean- except the gossip. But I wouldn’t sit around talking long enough to even hear gossip, maybe you shouldn’t either

What if the people who were being mean were white, and the people being excluded were black. Would it register with you at all as racist?
I will copy and paste the examples:

- I will be talking to another mom, and a third mom will come over to say hi, and the person I’m chatting with will literally turn her back or walk away.

- instead of putting out a sign up sheet or having the teacher send an email about volunteering for the Halloween party so anyone can participate, they only invite their friends.

- gossiping about how another mom is dirty or gross in some way.

- Hosting a school party or fundraiser and only advertising it to certain people so the less desirable people don’t show.

Would not give any of these a second thought. Why are you stewing about some dumb volunteer list? Or someone turning around and talking to someone else? Who cares

I’m not stewing about it, but I’m not oblivious to it either.
I mean, let’s be clear. The moms who are not invited to volunteer at the classroom Halloween party and aren’t invited to the adult Halloween party that is supposedly a fundraiser for the school are either poor, brown, fat, too religious, or dealing with mental illness of some sort.
You really don’t notice this? You’re just like, “Look, Katie and Jennifer and Kristen are friends from cross-fit and they go to Starbucks every morning after drop off and live in the gated community together. They just don’t really know Kavitha and Margaret-Mary, so that’s why they never ever ever talk to them.”

School fundraisers are not invitation only, private events. It is posted on the school Fb page, in newsletter, etc…so I really don’t know what kind of dynamic you are talking about. I do not care who does or doesn’t volunteer in class and take zero notes about it. Why do you? Nor do I care which moms are friends outside of school. You are way too invested in what other moms are doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my experience, mean girls befriend before they start treating you poorly.

Like the worst bullying I've experienced wasn't done girl who just didn't want to be friends with me. That doesn't even register. Everyone experiences that and it's not that big a deal.

The mean girl experiences I've had have happened when I WAS part of a group, and then within the context of that friendship, one or more members of the group started making fun of me (but always under the cover of "it's a joke! We're kidding of course"), talking about me behind my back (often using things i had confided in them specifically because they were my friends as fodder), of excluding me from group activities (and going out of their way to let me know the rest of the group is doing something i had previously been invited to, but not this time).

This is why mean girl behavior is so insidious. It's not bullying from some random kid in a playground. It's bullying from the people who are, ostensibly, your friends. And who you might have trusted with sensitive info, or who might know things about you.

Also, it's not just the "popular girls" who engage in this. It can happen in just about any friend group where it's tolerated.

So I don't even understand what is being argued about on this thread but it doesn't seem to have much to do with how mean girl behavior actually works.

Oh, and yes-- often kids who do this have parents who do it. Especially the gossip, because when kids hear their parents gossiping about their friends, it normalizes that behavior.

This is the problem with these discussions. Everyone has a different idea of what’s “mean.” Toxicity, emotional abuse, narcissism exists in little girls, usually intergenerationally, but other people are talking about exclusion. One is not always a problem. The other won’t be fixed by a school or by conversation with an adult. You just have to teach your kid to find their healthy friendships, and there will be some trial and error involved. The errors will hurt, but it’s part of the process.

I'm the PP and I disagree. If it's low level and the kids can move on quickly okay. But what I just described should not be "part of the process." I once had a friend group turn on me, spread a vicious rumor that made me an outcast with everyone, not just my supposed friends, and literally pretend I didn't exist at school. It was excruciating and I started self-harming just to remind myself that I existed because the pain of cutting felt good compared to the pain of being made invisible every day. I think I may still have PTSD from this experience.

And yes, the school and adults could have intervened. I ultimately wound up switching schools and starting over, but that was a long and academically disruptive process. It should never have been allowed to escalate as it did.

Which is why the attitude that "mild" mean girl behavior should be ignored and accepted as normal bothers me. My experience was mild until it wasn't. The acceptance of gossip, teasing, and exclusion by the adults around us made it possible for my "friends" to keep escalating until my school life was a daily misery.

So yeah, if kids are intentionally excluding on the playground, it's a problem and you as an adult should explain why that behavior isn't okay. Kids are welcome to have whatever friends they want after school, but at school you have to be inclusive. Teasing and gossip are anti-social behaviors that should be discouraged.

Kids kill themselves over these behaviors. You'd think that would be enough to get you to care.

Your situation and to the degree you describing is an outlier and not what OP started a thread about. Otherwise she would have included it in her OP; not made a post about how moms are like their daughters.

DP I disagree. Most of this thread seems to be disagreeing with OP and people talking about how their daughters excluding others aren't really mean, they just have better social skills and don't want to be friends with everyone. But the reality is their methods of exclusion aren't exactly nice nor should they be tolerated while at school.

Some people on this thread think that if all the kids aren’t friends, that’s bullying / exclusionary behavior. It’s not.

I don't now why you keep going on and on about this. The ONLY person who has said anything about everyone being friends with everyone else is you. The rest of us just want our kids to be nice and be mindful of other kids' feelings. It's super weird that you still understand the difference.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Don't give them an opportunity to be mean to you. Ignore them!

x100000

Come on. Don't be ridiculous. When your kids wants to join in a game at recess and the other girls say "NO!" and run away from you how do you ignore that? Is your solution that the kid who just wants to play should know their place and never even ask? Just sit there on a bench alone? No.

This reads like you really want your kid to be in the “in crowd” and are fighting reality. 2nd-3rd grade is old enough for kids to flock towards people they enjoy spending time with.

Can we agree to ignore this PP? Saying it’s ok for 7 and 8 year olds to be left out at school because others want to only play with kids they “flock towards” is insane.

Kids don’t have any choice over whether or not they are at school! A certain level of kindness and inclusion in a compulsory education environment should be required and expected by parents.

Girl, you are literally telling other posters to ignore me because you don’t like my messaging. You may need to go back to elementary school and get your head on straight. Practice what you preach! don’t hate the player, hate the game!

She is telling people to ignore a bully.
If you want to engage in this behavior and teach your kids to write mean notes or make fun of kids for having special needs, then go for it.

No one has to listen to you tell us why it’s okay.

You’re projecting. No one is saying that behavior is okay.

We are talking about:

- Excluding other girls
- Making fun of other girls or boys (verbally or in notes/pictures that are passed around the classroom)
- Telling kids not to play with or be friends with certain girls or boys.

Many people are saying that it’s okay, developmentally appropriate, and that it isn’t really “mean.”

And their moms are doing this to you also, as per the OP? Means girls and their mean mom?

What do you think, pp? What’s your experience with girls who engage in this behavior?
Are their moms volunteering at soup kitchens and trying to reach out to recent immigrants to teach them about PowerSchool?

Yes. I literally never had another mom from school be “mean” to me.

I haven’t either. I’m an attractive UMC white lady. Not a lot of people are mean to me. But I can recognize when they are mean to other people.

By doing what? Not saying hi at drop off? Not letting you bring the Frankenstein cookies to the Halloween party and telling you you have to bring the gross candy corn instead?

More or less. Maybe I will be talking to another mom, and a third mom will come over to say hi, and the person I’m chatting with will literally turn her back or walk away.
Or instead of putting out a sign up sheet or having the teacher send an email about volunteering for the Halloween party so anyone can participate, they only invite their friends.
Or gossiping about how another mom is dirty or gross in some way.
Or having a school party or fundraiser and only advertising it to certain people so the less desirable people don’t show.

This would honestly not register with me at all as mean- except the gossip. But I wouldn’t sit around talking long enough to even hear gossip, maybe you shouldn’t either

What if the people who were being mean were white, and the people being excluded were black. Would it register with you at all as racist?
I will copy and paste the examples:

- I will be talking to another mom, and a third mom will come over to say hi, and the person I’m chatting with will literally turn her back or walk away.

- instead of putting out a sign up sheet or having the teacher send an email about volunteering for the Halloween party so anyone can participate, they only invite their friends.

- gossiping about how another mom is dirty or gross in some way.

- Hosting a school party or fundraiser and only advertising it to certain people so the less desirable people don’t show.

Would not give any of these a second thought. Why are you stewing about some dumb volunteer list? Or someone turning around and talking to someone else? Who cares

I’m not stewing about it, but I’m not oblivious to it either.
I mean, let’s be clear. The moms who are not invited to volunteer at the classroom Halloween party and aren’t invited to the adult Halloween party that is supposedly a fundraiser for the school are either poor, brown, fat, too religious, or dealing with mental illness of some sort.
You really don’t notice this? You’re just like, “Look, Katie and Jennifer and Kristen are friends from cross-fit and they go to Starbucks every morning after drop off and live in the gated community together. They just don’t really know Kavitha and Margaret-Mary, so that’s why they never ever ever talk to them.”

School fundraisers are not invitation only, private events. It is posted on the school Fb page, in newsletter, etc…so I really don’t know what kind of dynamic you are talking about. I do not care who does or doesn’t volunteer in class and take zero notes about it. Why do you? Nor do I care which moms are friends outside of school. You are way too invested in what other moms are doing.

+1 Also can't relate to that PPs post. Does the school not use a signup genius or something to organize volunteers? Why is it on a wait to be invited basis? Also not understanding a private party which is also a fundraiser that you have to be invited to. Is it really a fundraiser? How did you find out about this party if you weren't invited?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:In my experience, mean girls befriend before they start treating you poorly.

Like the worst bullying I've experienced wasn't done girl who just didn't want to be friends with me. That doesn't even register. Everyone experiences that and it's not that big a deal.

The mean girl experiences I've had have happened when I WAS part of a group, and then within the context of that friendship, one or more members of the group started making fun of me (but always under the cover of "it's a joke! We're kidding of course"), talking about me behind my back (often using things i had confided in them specifically because they were my friends as fodder), of excluding me from group activities (and going out of their way to let me know the rest of the group is doing something i had previously been invited to, but not this time).

This is why mean girl behavior is so insidious. It's not bullying from some random kid in a playground. It's bullying from the people who are, ostensibly, your friends. And who you might have trusted with sensitive info, or who might know things about you.

Also, it's not just the "popular girls" who engage in this. It can happen in just about any friend group where it's tolerated.

So I don't even understand what is being argued about on this thread but it doesn't seem to have much to do with how mean girl behavior actually works.

Oh, and yes-- often kids who do this have parents who do it. Especially the gossip, because when kids hear their parents gossiping about their friends, it normalizes that behavior.

This is the problem with these discussions. Everyone has a different idea of what’s “mean.” Toxicity, emotional abuse, narcissism exists in little girls, usually intergenerationally, but other people are talking about exclusion. One is not always a problem. The other won’t be fixed by a school or by conversation with an adult. You just have to teach your kid to find their healthy friendships, and there will be some trial and error involved. The errors will hurt, but it’s part of the process.

I'm the PP and I disagree. If it's low level and the kids can move on quickly okay. But what I just described should not be "part of the process." I once had a friend group turn on me, spread a vicious rumor that made me an outcast with everyone, not just my supposed friends, and literally pretend I didn't exist at school. It was excruciating and I started self-harming just to remind myself that I existed because the pain of cutting felt good compared to the pain of being made invisible every day. I think I may still have PTSD from this experience.

And yes, the school and adults could have intervened. I ultimately wound up switching schools and starting over, but that was a long and academically disruptive process. It should never have been allowed to escalate as it did.

Which is why the attitude that "mild" mean girl behavior should be ignored and accepted as normal bothers me. My experience was mild until it wasn't. The acceptance of gossip, teasing, and exclusion by the adults around us made it possible for my "friends" to keep escalating until my school life was a daily misery.

So yeah, if kids are intentionally excluding on the playground, it's a problem and you as an adult should explain why that behavior isn't okay. Kids are welcome to have whatever friends they want after school, but at school you have to be inclusive. Teasing and gossip are anti-social behaviors that should be discouraged.

Kids kill themselves over these behaviors. You'd think that would be enough to get you to care.

Your situation and to the degree you describing is an outlier and not what OP started a thread about. Otherwise she would have included it in her OP; not made a post about how moms are like their daughters.

DP I disagree. Most of this thread seems to be disagreeing with OP and people talking about how their daughters excluding others aren't really mean, they just have better social skills and don't want to be friends with everyone. But the reality is their methods of exclusion aren't exactly nice nor should they be tolerated while at school.

Some people on this thread think that if all the kids aren’t friends, that’s bullying / exclusionary behavior. It’s not.

Yes it is if they're like "we're not playing with you today!" and then want to be besties the next day. Stop talking about lived experiences that aren't your own. I know it when I see it.

I agree that is abusive behavior. When this exact scenario happened repeatedly to my child, I encouraged her to end the cycle and stop playing with the other girl. My DD agreed and became friends with other people. The bully then turned around and complained that my child was excluding her. DD wasn’t. DD didn’t tell anyone not to play with bully. All she did was ignore the bully herself. Bully’s mom complained to the school about my daughter. Bully’s mom is socially awkward. I am positive that she thinks I’m a mean mom with a mean child. I couldn’t care less. I had to try to protect my child from emotional abuse. I’ll proudly wear the badge of mean mom if that what it entails.

I'm the PP and I see this again and again. My daughter was the new girl at school and befriended some girls but a few were openly hostile to her and didn't want her in their group because they felt threatened. I talked about it with her and encouraged her to just find other girls to play with. So, now she is friends with another group of girls, and again, there is 1 or 2 who is hostile and jealous of her presence. Some girls just can't accept new people or a widening group of girls. So they tell her she can't play soccer, volleyball, four square, or whatever the recess game is. Seems like this dynamic exists in every group of girls she finds. It's frustrating. There are only so many groups of girls. And this isn't some popularity contest where she's desperately trying to horn in. She's genuinely friends with some of the girls: birthday parties, play dates, sports, etc. But a few can't handle the change and try to exclude her.

I disagree that this is abusive. That aside, this is how I coached my daughter, which worked well: X can tell you she doesn’t want to play with you. If she does, you probably won’t want to play with X either, and everyone gets to choose who to play with. However X can’t decide that Y doesn’t want to play with you. If X, Y, and Z all don’t want to play, find someone else. You’re a lovely, likable girl who deserves to play with girls who want to play with you. If Y and Z want to play but X doesn’t, then you and X need to make a choice either to coexist or to walk away. If she wants to walk away, let her

I didn't really call it abusive, just relating what I see. And I gave that speech to my daughter but, being the new girl, X had more sway and the girls didn't stand by my daughters side. So, on to girls A, B and C and again, A did the same thing, and the cycle repeats. When A or X are not there for whatever reason, the girls play together nicely, but then those girls come back and the drama starts. There's one in every group it seems. Some of these girl groups have been together since preschool and it seems the girls like A and X desperately want to keep the group exclusive. I'm just waiting for a few years when I think the girls outgrow these groups which are also firmly held together by the parents, who are not so coincidentally, very close.

Girl, I'm living through this right now with my girls, they just started at a new school and are running into these groups of BFFs whose parents are BFFs because they've all lived in the "cool neighborhood" that makes up 90% of the school since their kids were babies (we did not move into the cool neighborhood, we live one neighborhood over). I'm feeling it myself as the mom on the sidelines who will chat with the only mom there if we both arrive early, but then the mom will literally turn her back to me and create a circle to chat with her friends who just walked up. It's happened three times with three different people. Only once so far has the mom I was talking to introduced to me to someone who has walked up to say to her. Deeply regretting moving where we moved.

If I could give a word of advice to anyone with elementary-aged kids, it would be to live in the cool neighborhood that feeds into your kids' school.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Don't give them an opportunity to be mean to you. Ignore them!

x100000

Come on. Don't be ridiculous. When your kids wants to join in a game at recess and the other girls say "NO!" and run away from you how do you ignore that? Is your solution that the kid who just wants to play should know their place and never even ask? Just sit there on a bench alone? No.

This reads like you really want your kid to be in the “in crowd” and are fighting reality. 2nd-3rd grade is old enough for kids to flock towards people they enjoy spending time with.

Can we agree to ignore this PP? Saying it’s ok for 7 and 8 year olds to be left out at school because others want to only play with kids they “flock towards” is insane.

Kids don’t have any choice over whether or not they are at school! A certain level of kindness and inclusion in a compulsory education environment should be required and expected by parents.

Girl, you are literally telling other posters to ignore me because you don’t like my messaging. You may need to go back to elementary school and get your head on straight. Practice what you preach! don’t hate the player, hate the game!

She is telling people to ignore a bully.
If you want to engage in this behavior and teach your kids to write mean notes or make fun of kids for having special needs, then go for it.

No one has to listen to you tell us why it’s okay.

You’re projecting. No one is saying that behavior is okay.

We are talking about:

- Excluding other girls
- Making fun of other girls or boys (verbally or in notes/pictures that are passed around the classroom)
- Telling kids not to play with or be friends with certain girls or boys.

Many people are saying that it’s okay, developmentally appropriate, and that it isn’t really “mean.”

And their moms are doing this to you also, as per the OP? Means girls and their mean mom?

What do you think, pp? What’s your experience with girls who engage in this behavior?
Are their moms volunteering at soup kitchens and trying to reach out to recent immigrants to teach them about PowerSchool?

Yes. I literally never had another mom from school be “mean” to me.

I haven’t either. I’m an attractive UMC white lady. Not a lot of people are mean to me. But I can recognize when they are mean to other people.

By doing what? Not saying hi at drop off? Not letting you bring the Frankenstein cookies to the Halloween party and telling you you have to bring the gross candy corn instead?

More or less. Maybe I will be talking to another mom, and a third mom will come over to say hi, and the person I’m chatting with will literally turn her back or walk away.
Or instead of putting out a sign up sheet or having the teacher send an email about volunteering for the Halloween party so anyone can participate, they only invite their friends.
Or gossiping about how another mom is dirty or gross in some way.
Or having a school party or fundraiser and only advertising it to certain people so the less desirable people don’t show.

This would honestly not register with me at all as mean- except the gossip. But I wouldn’t sit around talking long enough to even hear gossip, maybe you shouldn’t either

What if the people who were being mean were white, and the people being excluded were black. Would it register with you at all as racist?
I will copy and paste the examples:

- I will be talking to another mom, and a third mom will come over to say hi, and the person I’m chatting with will literally turn her back or walk away.

- instead of putting out a sign up sheet or having the teacher send an email about volunteering for the Halloween party so anyone can participate, they only invite their friends.

- gossiping about how another mom is dirty or gross in some way.

- Hosting a school party or fundraiser and only advertising it to certain people so the less desirable people don’t show.

Would not give any of these a second thought. Why are you stewing about some dumb volunteer list? Or someone turning around and talking to someone else? Who cares

I’m not stewing about it, but I’m not oblivious to it either.
I mean, let’s be clear. The moms who are not invited to volunteer at the classroom Halloween party and aren’t invited to the adult Halloween party that is supposedly a fundraiser for the school are either poor, brown, fat, too religious, or dealing with mental illness of some sort.
You really don’t notice this? You’re just like, “Look, Katie and Jennifer and Kristen are friends from cross-fit and they go to Starbucks every morning after drop off and live in the gated community together. They just don’t really know Kavitha and Margaret-Mary, so that’s why they never ever ever talk to them.”

School fundraisers are not invitation only, private events. It is posted on the school Fb page, in newsletter, etc…so I really don’t know what kind of dynamic you are talking about. I do not care who does or doesn’t volunteer in class and take zero notes about it. Why do you? Nor do I care which moms are friends outside of school. You are way too invested in what other moms are doing.

+1 Also can't relate to that PPs post. Does the school not use a signup genius or something to organize volunteers? Why is it on a wait to be invited basis? Also not understanding a private party which is also a fundraiser that you have to be invited to. Is it really a fundraiser? How did you find out about this party if you weren't invited?

Yes. Most classrooms use signup genius, but some people don’t want to invite just anyone to volunteer.
And you don’t find out about the party if you aren’t invited.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]In my experience, mean girls befriend before they start treating you poorly.

Like the worst bullying I've experienced wasn't done girl who just didn't want to be friends with me. That doesn't even register. Everyone experiences that and it's not that big a deal.

The mean girl experiences I've had have happened when I WAS part of a group, and then within the context of that friendship, one or more members of the group started making fun of me (but always under the cover of "it's a joke! We're kidding of course"), talking about me behind my back (often using things i had confided in them specifically because they were my friends as fodder), of excluding me from group activities (and going out of their way to let me know the rest of the group is doing something i had previously been invited to, but not this time).

This is why mean girl behavior is so insidious. It's not bullying from some random kid in a playground. It's bullying from the people who are, ostensibly, your friends. And who you might have trusted with sensitive info, or who might know things about you.

Also, it's not just the "popular girls" who engage in this. It can happen in just about any friend group where it's tolerated.

So I don't even understand what is being argued about on this thread but it doesn't seem to have much to do with how mean girl behavior actually works.

Oh, and yes-- often kids who do this have parents who do it. Especially the gossip, because when kids hear their parents gossiping about their friends, it normalizes that behavior.[/quote]

This is the problem with these discussions. Everyone has a different idea of what’s “mean.” Toxicity, emotional abuse, narcissism exists in little girls, usually intergenerationally, but other people are talking about exclusion. One is not always a problem. The other won’t be fixed by a school or by conversation with an adult. You just have to teach your kid to find their healthy friendships, and there will be some trial and error involved. The errors will hurt, but it’s part of the process.[/quote]

I'm the PP and I disagree. If it's low level and the kids can move on quickly okay. But what I just described should not be "part of the process." I once had a friend group turn on me, spread a vicious rumor that made me an outcast with everyone, not just my supposed friends, and literally pretend I didn't exist at school. It was excruciating and I started self-harming just to remind myself that I existed because the pain of cutting felt good compared to the pain of being made invisible every day. I think I may still have PTSD from this experience.

And yes, the school and adults could have intervened. I ultimately wound up switching schools and starting over, but that was a long and academically disruptive process. It should never have been allowed to escalate as it did.

Which is why the attitude that "mild" mean girl behavior should be ignored and accepted as normal bothers me. My experience was mild until it wasn't. The acceptance of gossip, teasing, and exclusion by the adults around us made it possible for my "friends" to keep escalating until my school life was a daily misery.

So yeah, if kids are intentionally excluding on the playground, it's a problem and you as an adult should explain why that behavior isn't okay. Kids are welcome to have whatever friends they want after school, but at school you have to be inclusive. Teasing and gossip are anti-social behaviors that should be discouraged.

Kids kill themselves over these behaviors. You'd think that would be enough to get you to care.[/quote]

Your situation and to the degree you describing is an outlier and not what OP started a thread about. Otherwise she would have included it in her OP; not made a post about how moms are like their daughters. [/quote]

DP I disagree. Most of this thread seems to be disagreeing with OP and people talking about how their daughters excluding others aren't really mean, they just have better social skills and don't want to be friends with everyone. But the reality is their methods of exclusion aren't exactly nice nor should they be tolerated while at school.[/quote]

Some people on this thread think that if all the kids aren’t friends, that’s bullying / exclusionary behavior. It’s not. [/quote]

Yes it is if they're like "we're not playing with you today!" and then want to be besties the next day. Stop talking about lived experiences that aren't your own. I know it when I see it.[/quote]

I agree that is abusive behavior. When this exact scenario happened repeatedly to my child, I encouraged her to end the cycle and stop playing with the other girl. My DD agreed and became friends with other people. The bully then turned around and complained that my child was excluding her. DD wasn’t. DD didn’t tell anyone not to play with bully. All she did was ignore the bully herself. Bully’s mom complained to the school about my daughter. Bully’s mom is socially awkward. I am positive that she thinks I’m a mean mom with a mean child. I couldn’t care less. I had to try to protect my child from emotional abuse. I’ll proudly wear the badge of mean mom if that what it entails.[/quote]

I'm the PP and I see this again and again. My daughter was the new girl at school and befriended some girls but a few were openly hostile to her and didn't want her in their group because they felt threatened. I talked about it with her and encouraged her to just find other girls to play with. So, now she is friends with another group of girls, and again, there is 1 or 2 who is hostile and jealous of her presence. Some girls just can't accept new people or a widening group of girls. So they tell her she can't play soccer, volleyball, four square, or whatever the recess game is. Seems like this dynamic exists in every group of girls she finds. It's frustrating. There are only so many groups of girls. And this isn't some popularity contest where she's desperately trying to horn in. She's genuinely friends with some of the girls: birthday parties, play dates, sports, etc. But a few can't handle the change and try to exclude her.[/quote]

I disagree that this is abusive. That aside, this is how I coached my daughter, which worked well: X can tell you she doesn’t want to play with you. If she does, you probably won’t want to play with X either, and everyone gets to choose who to play with. However X can’t decide that Y doesn’t want to play with you. If X, Y, and Z all don’t want to play, find someone else. You’re a lovely, likable girl who deserves to play with girls who want to play with you. If Y and Z want to play but X doesn’t, then you and X need to make a choice either to coexist or to walk away. If she wants to walk away, let her[/quote]

I didn't really call it abusive, just relating what I see. And I gave that speech to my daughter but, being the new girl, X had more sway and the girls didn't stand by my daughters side. So, on to girls A, B and C and again, A did the same thing, and the cycle repeats. When A or X are not there for whatever reason, the girls play together nicely, but then those girls come back and the drama starts. There's one in every group it seems. Some of these girl groups have been together since preschool and it seems the girls like A and X desperately want to keep the group exclusive. I'm just waiting for a few years when I think the girls outgrow these groups which are also firmly held together by the parents, who are not so coincidentally, very close.[/quote]

Girl, I'm living through this right now with my girls, they just started at a new school and are running into these groups of BFFs whose parents are BFFs because they've all lived in the "cool neighborhood" that makes up 90% of the school since their kids were babies (we did not move into the cool neighborhood, we live one neighborhood over). I'm feeling it myself as the mom on the sidelines who will chat with the only mom there if we both arrive early, but then the mom will literally turn her back to me and create a circle to chat with her friends who just walked up. It's happened three times with three different people. Only once so far has the mom I was talking to introduced to me to someone who has walked up to say to her. Deeply regretting moving where we moved.

If I could give a word of advice to anyone with elementary-aged kids, it would be to live in the cool neighborhood that feeds into your kids' school.[/quote]

I don’t know that I agree. My husband and I have lived all over the world. When we got married, we invited one girl who somehow didn’t know anyone else. Everyone else was busy catching up with people they didn’t get to see often. They’re all nice people but making a new friend or someone who came alone feel a little less awkward wasn’t a priority to anyone, even my grandma.

Not to worry. This girl is quite literally a UES socialite. Social issues don’t bother her. She sat at the edge of dance floor and mostly watched. Then walked up to a group of fun girls and stood on the edge. Then occasionally made a few jokes. Eventually a few lucky people got to know how great she was. She got absorbed into a small group. We heard all about it later.

Whenever you’re new, it’s not unusual to take a year to find your groove (we’ve lived all over the world. We’ve done this a lot). It stinks to be new. Take deep breaths, stay open, don’t rush to judge. Eventually you’ll find your people, and your kids will too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't give them an opportunity to be mean to you. Ignore them!

x100000

Come on. Don't be ridiculous. When your kids wants to join in a game at recess and the other girls say "NO!" and run away from you how do you ignore that? Is your solution that the kid who just wants to play should know their place and never even ask? Just sit there on a bench alone? No.

This reads like you really want your kid to be in the “in crowd” and are fighting reality. 2nd-3rd grade is old enough for kids to flock towards people they enjoy spending time with.

Can we agree to ignore this PP? Saying it’s ok for 7 and 8 year olds to be left out at school because others want to only play with kids they “flock towards” is insane.

Kids don’t have any choice over whether or not they are at school! A certain level of kindness and inclusion in a compulsory education environment should be required and expected by parents.

Girl, you are literally telling other posters to ignore me because you don’t like my messaging. You may need to go back to elementary school and get your head on straight. Practice what you preach! don’t hate the player, hate the game!

She is telling people to ignore a bully.
If you want to engage in this behavior and teach your kids to write mean notes or make fun of kids for having special needs, then go for it.

No one has to listen to you tell us why it’s okay.

You’re projecting. No one is saying that behavior is okay.

We are talking about:

- Excluding other girls
- Making fun of other girls or boys (verbally or in notes/pictures that are passed around the classroom)
- Telling kids not to play with or be friends with certain girls or boys.

Many people are saying that it’s okay, developmentally appropriate, and that it isn’t really “mean.”

And their moms are doing this to you also, as per the OP? Means girls and their mean mom?

What do you think, pp? What’s your experience with girls who engage in this behavior?
Are their moms volunteering at soup kitchens and trying to reach out to recent immigrants to teach them about PowerSchool?

Yes. I literally never had another mom from school be “mean” to me.

I haven’t either. I’m an attractive UMC white lady. Not a lot of people are mean to me. But I can recognize when they are mean to other people.

By doing what? Not saying hi at drop off? Not letting you bring the Frankenstein cookies to the Halloween party and telling you you have to bring the gross candy corn instead?

More or less. Maybe I will be talking to another mom, and a third mom will come over to say hi, and the person I’m chatting with will literally turn her back or walk away.
Or instead of putting out a sign up sheet or having the teacher send an email about volunteering for the Halloween party so anyone can participate, they only invite their friends.
Or gossiping about how another mom is dirty or gross in some way.
Or having a school party or fundraiser and only advertising it to certain people so the less desirable people don’t show.

This would honestly not register with me at all as mean- except the gossip. But I wouldn’t sit around talking long enough to even hear gossip, maybe you shouldn’t either

What if the people who were being mean were white, and the people being excluded were black. Would it register with you at all as racist?
I will copy and paste the examples:

- I will be talking to another mom, and a third mom will come over to say hi, and the person I’m chatting with will literally turn her back or walk away.

- instead of putting out a sign up sheet or having the teacher send an email about volunteering for the Halloween party so anyone can participate, they only invite their friends.

- gossiping about how another mom is dirty or gross in some way.

- Hosting a school party or fundraiser and only advertising it to certain people so the less desirable people don’t show.

Would not give any of these a second thought. Why are you stewing about some dumb volunteer list? Or someone turning around and talking to someone else? Who cares

I’m not stewing about it, but I’m not oblivious to it either.
I mean, let’s be clear. The moms who are not invited to volunteer at the classroom Halloween party and aren’t invited to the adult Halloween party that is supposedly a fundraiser for the school are either poor, brown, fat, too religious, or dealing with mental illness of some sort.
You really don’t notice this? You’re just like, “Look, Katie and Jennifer and Kristen are friends from cross-fit and they go to Starbucks every morning after drop off and live in the gated community together. They just don’t really know Kavitha and Margaret-Mary, so that’s why they never ever ever talk to them.”

School fundraisers are not invitation only, private events. It is posted on the school Fb page, in newsletter, etc…so I really don’t know what kind of dynamic you are talking about. I do not care who does or doesn’t volunteer in class and take zero notes about it. Why do you? Nor do I care which moms are friends outside of school. You are way too invested in what other moms are doing.

+1 Also can't relate to that PPs post. Does the school not use a signup genius or something to organize volunteers? Why is it on a wait to be invited basis? Also not understanding a private party which is also a fundraiser that you have to be invited to. Is it really a fundraiser? How did you find out about this party if you weren't invited?

Yes. Most classrooms use signup genius, but some people don’t want to invite just anyone to volunteer.
And you don’t find out about the party if you aren’t invited.

Omg. I would celebrate if I got left the ridiculous “volunteer” request emails

[Anonymous]

Mean boys and mean moms too.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Don't give them an opportunity to be mean to you. Ignore them!

x100000

Come on. Don't be ridiculous. When your kids wants to join in a game at recess and the other girls say "NO!" and run away from you how do you ignore that? Is your solution that the kid who just wants to play should know their place and never even ask? Just sit there on a bench alone? No.

This reads like you really want your kid to be in the “in crowd” and are fighting reality. 2nd-3rd grade is old enough for kids to flock towards people they enjoy spending time with.

Can we agree to ignore this PP? Saying it’s ok for 7 and 8 year olds to be left out at school because others want to only play with kids they “flock towards” is insane.

Kids don’t have any choice over whether or not they are at school! A certain level of kindness and inclusion in a compulsory education environment should be required and expected by parents.

Girl, you are literally telling other posters to ignore me because you don’t like my messaging. You may need to go back to elementary school and get your head on straight. Practice what you preach! don’t hate the player, hate the game!

She is telling people to ignore a bully.
If you want to engage in this behavior and teach your kids to write mean notes or make fun of kids for having special needs, then go for it.

No one has to listen to you tell us why it’s okay.

You’re projecting. No one is saying that behavior is okay.

We are talking about:

- Excluding other girls
- Making fun of other girls or boys (verbally or in notes/pictures that are passed around the classroom)
- Telling kids not to play with or be friends with certain girls or boys.

Many people are saying that it’s okay, developmentally appropriate, and that it isn’t really “mean.”

And their moms are doing this to you also, as per the OP? Means girls and their mean mom?

What do you think, pp? What’s your experience with girls who engage in this behavior?
Are their moms volunteering at soup kitchens and trying to reach out to recent immigrants to teach them about PowerSchool?

Yes. I literally never had another mom from school be “mean” to me.

I haven’t either. I’m an attractive UMC white lady. Not a lot of people are mean to me. But I can recognize when they are mean to other people.

You’re a grown woman. Why would someone be mean to you? People might snicker behind your back but no one would be mean to you.

The mean moms are the ones that ridicule other children. They are mean when they speak badly about other children in front of their children. They dictate every move their child makes.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:In my experience, mean girls befriend before they start treating you poorly.

Like the worst bullying I've experienced wasn't done girl who just didn't want to be friends with me. That doesn't even register. Everyone experiences that and it's not that big a deal.

The mean girl experiences I've had have happened when I WAS part of a group, and then within the context of that friendship, one or more members of the group started making fun of me (but always under the cover of "it's a joke! We're kidding of course"), talking about me behind my back (often using things i had confided in them specifically because they were my friends as fodder), of excluding me from group activities (and going out of their way to let me know the rest of the group is doing something i had previously been invited to, but not this time).

This is why mean girl behavior is so insidious. It's not bullying from some random kid in a playground. It's bullying from the people who are, ostensibly, your friends. And who you might have trusted with sensitive info, or who might know things about you.

Also, it's not just the "popular girls" who engage in this. It can happen in just about any friend group where it's tolerated.

So I don't even understand what is being argued about on this thread but it doesn't seem to have much to do with how mean girl behavior actually works.

Oh, and yes-- often kids who do this have parents who do it. Especially the gossip, because when kids hear their parents gossiping about their friends, it normalizes that behavior.

This is the problem with these discussions. Everyone has a different idea of what’s “mean.” Toxicity, emotional abuse, narcissism exists in little girls, usually intergenerationally, but other people are talking about exclusion. One is not always a problem. The other won’t be fixed by a school or by conversation with an adult. You just have to teach your kid to find their healthy friendships, and there will be some trial and error involved. The errors will hurt, but it’s part of the process.

I'm the PP and I disagree. If it's low level and the kids can move on quickly okay. But what I just described should not be "part of the process." I once had a friend group turn on me, spread a vicious rumor that made me an outcast with everyone, not just my supposed friends, and literally pretend I didn't exist at school. It was excruciating and I started self-harming just to remind myself that I existed because the pain of cutting felt good compared to the pain of being made invisible every day. I think I may still have PTSD from this experience.

And yes, the school and adults could have intervened. I ultimately wound up switching schools and starting over, but that was a long and academically disruptive process. It should never have been allowed to escalate as it did.

Which is why the attitude that "mild" mean girl behavior should be ignored and accepted as normal bothers me. My experience was mild until it wasn't. The acceptance of gossip, teasing, and exclusion by the adults around us made it possible for my "friends" to keep escalating until my school life was a daily misery.

So yeah, if kids are intentionally excluding on the playground, it's a problem and you as an adult should explain why that behavior isn't okay. Kids are welcome to have whatever friends they want after school, but at school you have to be inclusive. Teasing and gossip are anti-social behaviors that should be discouraged.

Kids kill themselves over these behaviors. You'd think that would be enough to get you to care.

Your situation and to the degree you describing is an outlier and not what OP started a thread about. Otherwise she would have included it in her OP; not made a post about how moms are like their daughters.

DP I disagree. Most of this thread seems to be disagreeing with OP and people talking about how their daughters excluding others aren't really mean, they just have better social skills and don't want to be friends with everyone. But the reality is their methods of exclusion aren't exactly nice nor should they be tolerated while at school.

Some people on this thread think that if all the kids aren’t friends, that’s bullying / exclusionary behavior. It’s not.

Yes it is if they're like "we're not playing with you today!" and then want to be besties the next day. Stop talking about lived experiences that aren't your own. I know it when I see it.

I agree that is abusive behavior. When this exact scenario happened repeatedly to my child, I encouraged her to end the cycle and stop playing with the other girl. My DD agreed and became friends with other people. The bully then turned around and complained that my child was excluding her. DD wasn’t. DD didn’t tell anyone not to play with bully. All she did was ignore the bully herself. Bully’s mom complained to the school about my daughter. Bully’s mom is socially awkward. I am positive that she thinks I’m a mean mom with a mean child. I couldn’t care less. I had to try to protect my child from emotional abuse. I’ll proudly wear the badge of mean mom if that what it entails.

I'm the PP and I see this again and again. My daughter was the new girl at school and befriended some girls but a few were openly hostile to her and didn't want her in their group because they felt threatened. I talked about it with her and encouraged her to just find other girls to play with. So, now she is friends with another group of girls, and again, there is 1 or 2 who is hostile and jealous of her presence. Some girls just can't accept new people or a widening group of girls. So they tell her she can't play soccer, volleyball, four square, or whatever the recess game is. Seems like this dynamic exists in every group of girls she finds. It's frustrating. There are only so many groups of girls. And this isn't some popularity contest where she's desperately trying to horn in. She's genuinely friends with some of the girls: birthday parties, play dates, sports, etc. But a few can't handle the change and try to exclude her.

I disagree that this is abusive. That aside, this is how I coached my daughter, which worked well: X can tell you she doesn’t want to play with you. If she does, you probably won’t want to play with X either, and everyone gets to choose who to play with. However X can’t decide that Y doesn’t want to play with you. If X, Y, and Z all don’t want to play, find someone else. You’re a lovely, likable girl who deserves to play with girls who want to play with you. If Y and Z want to play but X doesn’t, then you and X need to make a choice either to coexist or to walk away. If she wants to walk away, let her

I didn't really call it abusive, just relating what I see. And I gave that speech to my daughter but, being the new girl, X had more sway and the girls didn't stand by my daughters side. So, on to girls A, B and C and again, A did the same thing, and the cycle repeats. When A or X are not there for whatever reason, the girls play together nicely, but then those girls come back and the drama starts. There's one in every group it seems. Some of these girl groups have been together since preschool and it seems the girls like A and X desperately want to keep the group exclusive. I'm just waiting for a few years when I think the girls outgrow these groups which are also firmly held together by the parents, who are not so coincidentally, very close.

Girl, I'm living through this right now with my girls, they just started at a new school and are running into these groups of BFFs whose parents are BFFs because they've all lived in the "cool neighborhood" that makes up 90% of the school since their kids were babies (we did not move into the cool neighborhood, we live one neighborhood over). I'm feeling it myself as the mom on the sidelines who will chat with the only mom there if we both arrive early, but then the mom will literally turn her back to me and create a circle to chat with her friends who just walked up. It's happened three times with three different people. Only once so far has the mom I was talking to introduced to me to someone who has walked up to say to her. Deeply regretting moving where we moved.

If I could give a word of advice to anyone with elementary-aged kids, it would be to live in the cool neighborhood that feeds into your kids' school.

I hear you. We moved when she was in first grade. It didn’t occur to me that the friend groups would be closed at that age. My son was in 4th and had a much easier time integrating into the social scene. My DD is now in 4th and most of her friends are the other new girls who have been there several years now, but these neighborhood cliques are a tough but to crack for girls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my experience, mean girls befriend before they start treating you poorly.

Like the worst bullying I've experienced wasn't done girl who just didn't want to be friends with me. That doesn't even register. Everyone experiences that and it's not that big a deal.

The mean girl experiences I've had have happened when I WAS part of a group, and then within the context of that friendship, one or more members of the group started making fun of me (but always under the cover of "it's a joke! We're kidding of course"), talking about me behind my back (often using things i had confided in them specifically because they were my friends as fodder), of excluding me from group activities (and going out of their way to let me know the rest of the group is doing something i had previously been invited to, but not this time).

This is why mean girl behavior is so insidious. It's not bullying from some random kid in a playground. It's bullying from the people who are, ostensibly, your friends. And who you might have trusted with sensitive info, or who might know things about you.

Also, it's not just the "popular girls" who engage in this. It can happen in just about any friend group where it's tolerated.

So I don't even understand what is being argued about on this thread but it doesn't seem to have much to do with how mean girl behavior actually works.

Oh, and yes-- often kids who do this have parents who do it. Especially the gossip, because when kids hear their parents gossiping about their friends, it normalizes that behavior.

This is the problem with these discussions. Everyone has a different idea of what’s “mean.” Toxicity, emotional abuse, narcissism exists in little girls, usually intergenerationally, but other people are talking about exclusion. One is not always a problem. The other won’t be fixed by a school or by conversation with an adult. You just have to teach your kid to find their healthy friendships, and there will be some trial and error involved. The errors will hurt, but it’s part of the process.

I'm the PP and I disagree. If it's low level and the kids can move on quickly okay. But what I just described should not be "part of the process." I once had a friend group turn on me, spread a vicious rumor that made me an outcast with everyone, not just my supposed friends, and literally pretend I didn't exist at school. It was excruciating and I started self-harming just to remind myself that I existed because the pain of cutting felt good compared to the pain of being made invisible every day. I think I may still have PTSD from this experience.

And yes, the school and adults could have intervened. I ultimately wound up switching schools and starting over, but that was a long and academically disruptive process. It should never have been allowed to escalate as it did.

Which is why the attitude that "mild" mean girl behavior should be ignored and accepted as normal bothers me. My experience was mild until it wasn't. The acceptance of gossip, teasing, and exclusion by the adults around us made it possible for my "friends" to keep escalating until my school life was a daily misery.

So yeah, if kids are intentionally excluding on the playground, it's a problem and you as an adult should explain why that behavior isn't okay. Kids are welcome to have whatever friends they want after school, but at school you have to be inclusive. Teasing and gossip are anti-social behaviors that should be discouraged.

Kids kill themselves over these behaviors. You'd think that would be enough to get you to care.

Your situation and to the degree you describing is an outlier and not what OP started a thread about. Otherwise she would have included it in her OP; not made a post about how moms are like their daughters.

DP I disagree. Most of this thread seems to be disagreeing with OP and people talking about how their daughters excluding others aren't really mean, they just have better social skills and don't want to be friends with everyone. But the reality is their methods of exclusion aren't exactly nice nor should they be tolerated while at school.

Some people on this thread think that if all the kids aren’t friends, that’s bullying / exclusionary behavior. It’s not.

Yes it is if they're like "we're not playing with you today!" and then want to be besties the next day. Stop talking about lived experiences that aren't your own. I know it when I see it.

I agree that is abusive behavior. When this exact scenario happened repeatedly to my child, I encouraged her to end the cycle and stop playing with the other girl. My DD agreed and became friends with other people. The bully then turned around and complained that my child was excluding her. DD wasn’t. DD didn’t tell anyone not to play with bully. All she did was ignore the bully herself. Bully’s mom complained to the school about my daughter. Bully’s mom is socially awkward. I am positive that she thinks I’m a mean mom with a mean child. I couldn’t care less. I had to try to protect my child from emotional abuse. I’ll proudly wear the badge of mean mom if that what it entails.

I'm the PP and I see this again and again. My daughter was the new girl at school and befriended some girls but a few were openly hostile to her and didn't want her in their group because they felt threatened. I talked about it with her and encouraged her to just find other girls to play with. So, now she is friends with another group of girls, and again, there is 1 or 2 who is hostile and jealous of her presence. Some girls just can't accept new people or a widening group of girls. So they tell her she can't play soccer, volleyball, four square, or whatever the recess game is. Seems like this dynamic exists in every group of girls she finds. It's frustrating. There are only so many groups of girls. And this isn't some popularity contest where she's desperately trying to horn in. She's genuinely friends with some of the girls: birthday parties, play dates, sports, etc. But a few can't handle the change and try to exclude her.

I disagree that this is abusive. That aside, this is how I coached my daughter, which worked well: X can tell you she doesn’t want to play with you. If she does, you probably won’t want to play with X either, and everyone gets to choose who to play with. However X can’t decide that Y doesn’t want to play with you. If X, Y, and Z all don’t want to play, find someone else. You’re a lovely, likable girl who deserves to play with girls who want to play with you. If Y and Z want to play but X doesn’t, then you and X need to make a choice either to coexist or to walk away. If she wants to walk away, let her

I didn't really call it abusive, just relating what I see. And I gave that speech to my daughter but, being the new girl, X had more sway and the girls didn't stand by my daughters side. So, on to girls A, B and C and again, A did the same thing, and the cycle repeats. When A or X are not there for whatever reason, the girls play together nicely, but then those girls come back and the drama starts. There's one in every group it seems. Some of these girl groups have been together since preschool and it seems the girls like A and X desperately want to keep the group exclusive. I'm just waiting for a few years when I think the girls outgrow these groups which are also firmly held together by the parents, who are not so coincidentally, very close.

Girl, I'm living through this right now with my girls, they just started at a new school and are running into these groups of BFFs whose parents are BFFs because they've all lived in the "cool neighborhood" that makes up 90% of the school since their kids were babies (we did not move into the cool neighborhood, we live one neighborhood over). I'm feeling it myself as the mom on the sidelines who will chat with the only mom there if we both arrive early, but then the mom will literally turn her back to me and create a circle to chat with her friends who just walked up. It's happened three times with three different people. Only once so far has the mom I was talking to introduced to me to someone who has walked up to say to her. Deeply regretting moving where we moved.

If I could give a word of advice to anyone with elementary-aged kids, it would be to live in the cool neighborhood that feeds into your kids' school.

This right here is the issue. There IS NO cool neighborhood, cool pool, etc. Some of you have so much insecurity that you literally think these women are basing their interactions with you on your neighborhood not being cool. THEY DONT CARE. I don’t know if this is unresolved trauma from being bullied or just run of the mill insecurity but the majority of you crying about mean mom behavior honestly need to grow up. You’re imagining almost all of it because of some inferiority complex.