s/o Do you have a queen bee and know it, and were you one too?

[Anonymous]

So so far, not one parent has said "yes, I have a (mean) Queen Bee". I find that amazing.

I was friends for many years with some fine, upstanding people, upper middle class, educated, Vienna residents, who had a QB daughter. This girl was the popular one, the one that everyone wanted to be with and be liked by - and she would play the exclusionary, "you are not our friend", who is in and who is out game.

I would sometimes begin gatherings of multiple couples and kids with a stern talking to for the group of kids - "we are not going to be mean/exclude/play "you are not my friend" - we are all friends here" - WHERE THE PARENTS COULD HEAR ME. Yet I never, ever saw or heard the parents take any action to reign in the QBs behavior. And they could be quite stern about discipline in other circumstances. I never understood it.

I finally stopped being friends with them when they befriended a couple with a totally undisciplined bully of a child - who would physically attack the other kids. The worst part was this bully had a little sister whom he constantly hit, punched, etc - and the parents would do nothing. I don't understand the failure to acknowledge and discipline at all.

[Anonymous]

10:50 - I have seen parents who refuse to step up, even if it means them pretending not to hear or see what was literally happening in front of their face. When (not if, but when) it resulted in a classmate being injured (often), I called the child out on their behavior and asked them to apologize. Everyone heard it and no one pretended not to, because they were also tired of the same kind of child (if not that very child). The useless parent was shocked that I would do so, but if they refuse to step up, there is very little (if anything) they should be shocked about!

OP, do what you have to do, expect the parent to be a problem to, and act accordingly.

[Anonymous]

The parents enjoy this. I have watched the pleasure on their faces too many times not to know that about this kind of parent. Like mom = like daughter. The mom probably thinks the other girl/boy "started it."

[Anonymous]

I remember growing up in school and having the QB decide each week who she and her entourage wasn't going to talk to for an entire week all day long. Often it was someone in the entourage the other girls would exclude just for fun. This went on for two whole years nearly every day and no adult did anything. I will never forget it even though I wasn't picked on for more than about 2 days. I get that kids change who they like from day to day, but really teachers have no training on how to deal with this? Who cares that this week Sally's being excluded and next week it's Lucy. Deal with making sure no one feels excluded. Have kids work in different pairs each day/week. Work in teams on projects. They seem to know how to handle these things on the soccer field.

[Anonymous]

My experience has been that the queen bee thing is subtle and if you are targeted, leaving the school (eventually) is really the only way to end it. Public school, ironically, has seemed to make more effort to address these situations from what I have observed. I actually have seen a teacher and guidance counselor call the kid(s) involved for a sit-down in two separate situations in public school. I can't say that this completely ended the bad feelings between the kids, but there was tangible effort on the part of the school to address the problem once it was known. By contrast, I found that in priivate school, money talks and administration is loathe to offend a paying parent even if that parent is a participant in the situation, amplifying what is occuring at the kid level in school with who is invited to the house, birthday party, etc. The teachers in private school, in my experience, deferred to administration. Administration turned nodded and smiled, but, with a NIMBY attitude, turned a blind eye to what was occuring as long as physical injury was not involved.