When does mean girl behavior start?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD experienced this in preschool (age 4). She was told by Girl A that she couldn't play with Girl B because Girl B was Girl A's best friend and my DD was not.

My observation is that often this behavior is learned from older siblings who are engaged in similarly competitive social dynamics.

I just always reiterate to my DD that a friend is someone who likes you and wants to spend time with you, and that if you feel bad when interacting with someone, that's a sign to find someone else to spend time with. She's gotten pretty resilient. She does play alone a lot, but also seems to be slowly making a variety of good friends (not a static group but just different friends so she has choices and can find someone to play with even if the first person she approaches rebuffs her).

It's hard.

I think girls are territorial, even at young ages. My daughter made a new friend A in preschool. Friend A and B used to be in the same class the previous year. Friend B got so jealous of my daughter and the mom kind of iced me out. I guess she didn’t want Friend A to play more with my daughter than Friend B.

I have had this happen to me in elementary, high school, college and even now as an adult.

Yes, I am the PP. I personally don't think girls are more territorial, I think they get the message that they need to be territorial to survive socially. Like in your example. I think parents often want to claim a "best friend" for their kid so then they can know their kid has a friend. But this inevitably leads to territorial behavior because if your confidence in your child's social development hinges on a friendship with one friend, and that friend starts spending time with someone else, it causes fear.

That's why it is useful to just encourage children to make different friends, and if they get turned out for playing with one person, to just move onto someone else. Creating these very intense friendships at a young age sounds appealing, but it actually sets your kid up for failure because then what happens if that one friendship fails, or that kid moves away? The lost their one friend. If instead you encourage your kid to develop friend-making skills, then it doesn't matter if they have a best friend because they have the develop to make new friends wherever they go. It's much more useful than having a best friend.

[Anonymous]

I feel mean behavior is more related to how parents educate their kids. If you’re good friend with the mean kid’s mom you have to teach your kid not to learn the bad behavior and keep the play date to minimum. If you don’t care about the mom stay away from them since the mean kid’s not nice to yours.

[Anonymous]

Stop using the term "mean girl". It is misogynistic. Girls are not uniquely mean. Girls who are mean are mean to other girls because it is their peer group. They are also mean to boys but less so because we have then socialized to defer to the boys. Last I checked the girls lacrosse team never raped a team mate with a broom handle. People are sometimes mean. Some of them are girls and some of them are girls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I used to teach preschool and by age 4-5 there is always at least one kid in each class that will begin directing who plays with who - we try to shut down this sort of behavior of course, but it is rarely a surprise as to who becomes the "mean girl" or cliquey girls'boys later in life.

The girl is a 'mean girl' the boy is called a leader. SMH

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD experienced this in preschool (age 4). She was told by Girl A that she couldn't play with Girl B because Girl B was Girl A's best friend and my DD was not.

My observation is that often this behavior is learned from older siblings who are engaged in similarly competitive social dynamics.

I just always reiterate to my DD that a friend is someone who likes you and wants to spend time with you, and that if you feel bad when interacting with someone, that's a sign to find someone else to spend time with. She's gotten pretty resilient. She does play alone a lot, but also seems to be slowly making a variety of good friends (not a static group but just different friends so she has choices and can find someone to play with even if the first person she approaches rebuffs her).

It's hard.

I think girls are territorial, even at young ages. My daughter made a new friend A in preschool. Friend A and B used to be in the same class the previous year. Friend B got so jealous of my daughter and the mom kind of iced me out. I guess she didn’t want Friend A to play more with my daughter than Friend B.

I have had this happen to me in elementary, high school, college and even now as an adult.

Yes, I am the PP. I personally don't think girls are more territorial, I think they get the message that they need to be territorial to survive socially. Like in your example. I think parents often want to claim a "best friend" for their kid so then they can know their kid has a friend. But this inevitably leads to territorial behavior because if your confidence in your child's social development hinges on a friendship with one friend, and that friend starts spending time with someone else, it causes fear.

That's why it is useful to just encourage children to make different friends, and if they get turned out for playing with one person, to just move onto someone else. Creating these very intense friendships at a young age sounds appealing, but it actually sets your kid up for failure because then what happens if that one friendship fails, or that kid moves away? The lost their one friend. If instead you encourage your kid to develop friend-making skills, then it doesn't matter if they have a best friend because they have the develop to make new friends wherever they go. It's much more useful than having a best friend.

Op here. Thank you for your helpful response. It is so different raising a daughter vs sons. I just spoke to my husband about this and he thinks it is not a problem because my daughter has other friends. He would only be concerned if she had no friends.

[Anonymous]

My normally very sweet girl did something similar in K! I reached out to the other girl’s mom, apologized, and set up a playdate. They became friends and it lasted a couple of years until they amicably drifted apart.

[Anonymous]

^ So maybe it’s not a bad idea to respond to the playdate invite. Make sure the other mom comes too.

[Anonymous]

My boys started experimenting with saying so and so is not their friend and they aren’t invited to their birthday party around age 4 or 5. It’s completely normal as a part of social development. Obviously we didn’t encourage it and they were friends again in a day or two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My normally very sweet girl did something similar in K! I reached out to the other girl’s mom, apologized, and set up a playdate. They became friends and it lasted a couple of years until they amicably drifted apart.

Should I mention to the mom what her daughter said to my daughter?

I have already encouraged my daughter to invite the girl to her party. I was going back and forth about inviting just 2-3 class friends (not including the mean girl) and family friends, neighbors, etc or all the girls in the class or the entire class.

[Anonymous]

I actually have an Evite ready to go inviting the full class. My daughter was pretty clear she didn’t want to invite a girl who clearly told her she wasn’t her friend. My daughter doesn’t want to invite this girl.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was a kid I found girls began getting mean around 3rd grade. Definitely by 4th.

agree. 8 yo girls are the worst (having been an 8 yo girl)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My normally very sweet girl did something similar in K! I reached out to the other girl’s mom, apologized, and set up a playdate. They became friends and it lasted a couple of years until they amicably drifted apart.

You were a reasonable parent too. In my experience the mean girl’s mom deflected and blamed the victim instead of her own daughter. She has done it to other children her kid had bullied so I am not making it up. Most parents are defensive of their own children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was a kid I found girls began getting mean around 3rd grade. Definitely by 4th.

agree. 8 yo girls are the worst (having been an 8 yo girl)

DP here. I moved when I was 8. I wonder if I escaped a lot of this behavior because I was new. I didn’t even know I was not included since I was new. I was happy when anyone just spoke to me at school. I moved again in middle and thought middle school was rough. No one was specifically mean to me but no one included me either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My normally very sweet girl did something similar in K! I reached out to the other girl’s mom, apologized, and set up a playdate. They became friends and it lasted a couple of years until they amicably drifted apart.

You were a reasonable parent too. In my experience the mean girl’s mom deflected and blamed the victim instead of her own daughter. She has done it to other children her kid had bullied so I am not making it up. Most parents are defensive of their own children.

I am no longer friends with a mom because of this. I witnessed her daughter making fun of my daughter and making her cry. It could have been a nothing situation but the mom doubted me and questioned me. She didn’t believe that her daughter did this and treated me like I was a liar. It was bizarre. Our mutual friend was also present and her kids and my kids all collaborated that this girl was teasing my daughter. The mom later investigated and blamed the other boy and the mom believed her over me and my crying daughter.

Then Covid happened. I was glad to be rid of the mom friend and daughter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok so just a note that this stuff happen with boys, but everyone is so quick to label it "mean girl" that it often gets ignored.

Kids are sometimes jerks. Please don't boil this down to queen bee nonsense. It *COULD* be that, but it most likely is a 5/6 year old kid feeling overwhelmed at school.

Does your DD have friends who do enjoy her? Great, focus on them. Have a smaller party without the mean girl (but not everyone BUT her) and just help support your DD having friends.

I know what you are going for here, but I will politely disagree. The exclusion stuff does not happen with boys at this age, at least not as frequently. Boys in early elementary tend to do a lot of group play and there is way less focus on "best friends", which just means there are fewer opportunities to exclude or to compete over friends. It can happen some, but usually the solution is "let's just all play together" and except in rare instances, that's the end of it. Girls do more 1:1 play. Also, it's hard to say whether the best friend thing is something the kids push or parents push on them, but it's definitely real. My DD's K class had three sets of "best friends" -- their parents did lots of 1:1 playdates, they would dress alike on twin day, they gravitated towards each other during all free play times. It was really hard on the other girls (my DD included) because it's like it just eliminates friend options for them because all the girls are "taken".

And I totally agree with PPs that when you see overt exclusion or teasing, it's almost always from kids with older siblings -- they are mimicking their sibling. Who is often in 2nd/3rd/4th grade and absolutely is in the thick of these mean girl behaviors. They don't "feel overwhelmed" -- they are imitating learned behaviors that are negative and socially unkind.

I would never write off a kid for any of this stuff (in K or in older grades). Like I said -- learned behaviors. But I also wouldn't write off the behavior. Mean girl dynamics are real and we have to address them. Because you know what is overwhelming at school? Having no friends because one or two girls told everyone else you're "weird". Or developing friendships and then being told you aren't allowed to have those friends anymore because another girl says so. This stuff happens constantly among girls, not boys. We have to actually address it and not pretend it isn't happening or that boys and girls are having the same experiences. They aren't.

+10000. Have 2 older boys and a toddler girl, and am already seeing vastly different friendship behaviors among the girl cohort in preschool.