Are most girls just mean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's mean parents.

The few girls we had over seem to have good parents. They are academically and professionally successful. I obviously don’t know how they are at home.

The single meanest girl has two very passive parents. She is so disrespectful to her mom and dad. I’m surprised they let her treat them so poorly. We have seen the girl throw things, hit and have massive tantrums and she excludes different people on a daily basis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just told DH that maybe we should switch to private school and he thinks the girls may be worse in private.

Safe bet.

And it's harder to get away from the mean girls in a small school compared to a larger one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, girls aren’t just mean. I have known some unhappy girls who act mean because they are unhappy. But happy girls are not mean. I raised two girls and only a few of their friends acquaintances were mean. And those were some pretty unhappy kids.

There are a few girls we have gotten to know better recently and they all seem to have mean and possibly anger management issues.

One girl comes from such a nice family. Parents are awesome. The girl is awful to my daughter, to her parents and to others. She is pretty and seems pleasant enough until you spend time with her. I hate to call a little girl crazy but this girl is crazy! I don’t even want to do a slow fade. We will be avoiding her altogether.

Another girl was such a sore loser over a board game and hurt my daughter. She twisted and bruised her arm. I was surprised at her violent behavior. She had massive rage over a game.

Then one girl came over and obviously thought we lived in a nice house. She hates my daughter now. She is always giving her the evil eye. Her mom also gives me the evil eye. So weird. DD says this girl constantly criticizes her at school and makes negative comments. She did not do this before she came over.

This makes you sound a little crazy. It is more likely that something happened between the kids or they just didn’t mesh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's mean parents.

The few girls we had over seem to have good parents. They are academically and professionally successful. I obviously don’t know how they are at home.

The single meanest girl has two very passive parents. She is so disrespectful to her mom and dad. I’m surprised they let her treat them so poorly. We have seen the girl throw things, hit and have massive tantrums and she excludes different people on a daily basis.

I'm familiar with this passive parent dynamic. where the parents are totally silent when their kid misbehaves and is unkind to them and to other kids.

I don't actually think these parents are always passive though. I think sometimes they display these same behaviors at home (are extremely judgmental and unkind, as well as demanding and rude) but because they are adults, know you can't act like that in public. However their kids don't know that and they have no skills for stopping it when it happens because their child is mirroring their own behavior. They can's say "No Layla -- you may not put down other kids" because at home these parents probably say this exact same stuff about these kids.

[Anonymous]

No. I think most of the girls my DD is friends with are pretty sweet. The ones who seem "mean" are usually kids with older sisters or unfettered access to TV content aimed at teens. She is in third grade. Maybe it's coming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. I think most of the girls my DD is friends with are pretty sweet. The ones who seem "mean" are usually kids with older sisters or unfettered access to TV content aimed at teens. She is in third grade. Maybe it's coming.

+1, the ones with older sisters are the worst. And the ones whose parents are divorced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The boys turn mean at 11. Idk why, but they’re just behind the girls.

I'm noticing this with my second son who is 11, but never happened with my first son who is 14. Honestly, I wish he would be a bit meaner.

NP. This also describes my kids, down to the ages. Younger DS is empathetic, passionate, has lots of friends, but carries grudges and can be really mean. Older DS is just a nice kid - as siblings, unfortunately, he has learned to be a bit mean back to his brother but otherwise gets taken advantage of by his friends, I think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's mean parents.

The few girls we had over seem to have good parents. They are academically and professionally successful. I obviously don’t know how they are at home.

The single meanest girl has two very passive parents. She is so disrespectful to her mom and dad. I’m surprised they let her treat them so poorly. We have seen the girl throw things, hit and have massive tantrums and she excludes different people on a daily basis.

Passive parenting isn't constructive parenting - that is part of the problem. DD goes unchecked and behaves like a mean girl - it starts at home.

[Anonymous]

I have an 11 year old DD and the majority of her friends are pretty nice or at least treat other kids appropriately. I think the school (standard DCPS) has really emphasized kindness and has used school mechanisms (e.g., Safety Patrol) to elevate/praise kids who demonstrate good behavior.

I actually think a greater percentage of my 9 year old DS' friends cause trouble, but it's more ADHDish behavior than mean behavior. That said, it can have negative repercussions for other kids in the same way that intentionally mean behavior can.

I think the girls' play is more "social," which can lead to more obvious/apparent mean interactions, but the girls themselves are not actually "meaner" and are also more likely to demonstrate overly "kind" behavior than boys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. I think most of the girls my DD is friends with are pretty sweet. The ones who seem "mean" are usually kids with older sisters or unfettered access to TV content aimed at teens. She is in third grade. Maybe it's coming.

+1, the ones with older sisters are the worst. And the ones whose parents are divorced.

I have to agree with these two comments and it's interesting because it all speaks to the same issue: girls who are being exposed to older, more mature, or even adult ideas and behaviors before they are ready.

I really see this in my DD's friend group (also 3rd grade), where there are some girls who essentially play-act at being teenagers or even adults but have no idea what they are doing and the result is meanness. Also, as an adult witnessing this behavior, it's very obvious the girls who instigate this behavior are feeling very insecure and trying to compensate for it. My own daughter can't see this, she only sees, for instance, that a class mate is making fun of her for wearing the "wrong" clothes or not knowing enough about a certain pop culture artifact. Whereas I see a kid who is desperately trying to prove to herself and likely others that she's a grown up. It's actually very sad.

And then I think about mean girl dynamics I've experienced in my own life, including some in adulthood, and see the parallels. It is deeply sad that it starts this early. All these kids need more nurturing and more opportunities to be young, immature, make mistakes, and feel accepted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is sad to read, but not my experience. I have a daughter and just yesterday I was telling my husband how you can really tell that kids are being raised with an emphasis on kindness now as compared to when I was growing up. We had our first soccer practice yesterday and they were all hugging each other after scores; there was another girl from her GS troop on the team and they greeted each other like a long-lost friends even though they'd only met once. I asked her if she really liked Larla, did they talk at the troop meeting? And she said "Mom, if you're in Girl Scouts together you *all* can be best friends."

I'm sure we'll run into relational aggression issues as they get older, but I'm glad it hasn't been an issue for my daughter yet.

OP here. I felt somewhat similarly when my daughter was younger. The girls are now 9 and seems like very few nice girls. I feel like as soon as we meet someone or have a few play dates, the girl shows her true colors. Like the other girl may be a sore loser and have a massive tantrum over a board game or start hitting my child over a toy. The mean words are what is most shocking.

This is interesting because this isn't really "mean" (though the words involved might be) and I actually associate negative reactions to losing more with boys. For girls, the activity/competition is usually secondary to the interaction unless it's a particularly high status competition (e.g., board game = low stakes vs getting the lead in the musical) and the conversation around it is usually unrelated; whereas for boys, the activity/competition itself is usually of paramount importance (e.g., any pick up soccer game or game of Monopoly is life or death) and the accompanying conversation is about the game itself.