Why are other girls repelled by my daughter?

[Anonymous]

If there’s any team sport that she’s even mildly interested in, that could be your solution.

The structure of practices means she’s spending time with the same girls. There will be occasional team social events and coaches are good about making sure nobody is excluded. Bonus, she learns a skill and is in better shape.

It can’t hurt!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OMG, OP, you are me and my DD. And yes, things will absolutely get better.

Give her tangible goals like "Get good grades', "participate in the music competition" rather than intangible goals "be liked by your friends"

She is depressed because you are drawing attention to her being a failure in social interactions. She will feel happy when she starts achieving things on her own and will be able to feel proud of what she has achieved.

My kids are like that - nerdy, very brainy and somewhat of social misfits. My own social circle and family circle is big enough that they are included in things. They are taking their pleasure and joy from their achievements in scholastic activities and guess what? they have found their tribe in such activities.

Your kid is associating with terribly average kids. Her tribe is very much present but you have not yet found it. They tend to escape notice at first glance. Go to any Robotics competition, a TaekWondo dojo, Math competition, maker space, Geography bee, Chess camp...these kids are there. Go make friends with these kids. My children best friends are some equally nerdy kids from a different culture than ours, who are very supportive of them. They are all a little nerdy and a little quirky but they have both beautiful minds and beautiful souls.

Another tip. Please go beyond your race.

This is both good advice and also really off putting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is she pretty or good at sports? Those were the popular girls when I was growing up. Also the popular ones seemed to be a bit more wordly. Not mean, but a sharpness to them. Sometimes sarcastic or mocking. I guess that made them interesting to other girls.

Really? DP here. I am surprised that the mean girls were popular in your school. The mean girls were shunned in my rich high school (I wasn't rich), where the nicer you were, the more popular you were. It helped to be pretty, but it definitely hindered to be any kind of mean. I think being sharp, jabbing and not inclusive as being a lower class thing.

I have literally never heard this point of view before, from anyone.

[Anonymous]

OP, find an activity that she is good at and let her excel in it. I know people like your daughter. One practices her music about 3-4 hours a day. Her parents organize a solo concert for her every year. For her 11th birthday she recorded a CD snd gave a copy to each of her classmates.
Have you thought of something similar?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:my daughter had (has) this problem. She had very high IQ scores, low processing speed. Great grades and school performance but never could seem to click with anyone. She turned out to have aspergers, though it was not diagnosed until she was 15.

+1 Perhaps your daughter is on the autism spectrum

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, find an activity that she is good at and let her excel in it. I know people like your daughter. One practices her music about 3-4 hours a day. Her parents organize a solo concert for her every year. For her 11th birthday she recorded a CD snd gave a copy to each of her classmates.
Have you thought of something similar?

That’s pretty weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OMG, OP, you are me and my DD. And yes, things will absolutely get better.

Give her tangible goals like "Get good grades', "participate in the music competition" rather than intangible goals "be liked by your friends"

She is depressed because you are drawing attention to her being a failure in social interactions. She will feel happy when she starts achieving things on her own and will be able to feel proud of what she has achieved.

My kids are like that - nerdy, very brainy and somewhat of social misfits. My own social circle and family circle is big enough that they are included in things. They are taking their pleasure and joy from their achievements in scholastic activities and guess what? they have found their tribe in such activities.

Your kid is associating with terribly average kids. Her tribe is very much present but you have not yet found it. They tend to escape notice at first glance. Go to any Robotics competition, a TaekWondo dojo, Math competition, maker space, Geography bee, Chess camp...these kids are there. Go make friends with these kids. My children best friends are some equally nerdy kids from a different culture than ours, who are very supportive of them. They are all a little nerdy and a little quirky but they have both beautiful minds and beautiful souls.


Another tip. Please go beyond your race.

+1 very good advice. And remember that this is a very short span in a persons life. She will find her tribe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, find an activity that she is good at and let her excel in it. I know people like your daughter. One practices her music about 3-4 hours a day. Her parents organize a solo concert for her every year. For her 11th birthday she recorded a CD snd gave a copy to each of her classmates.
Have you thought of something similar?

That’s pretty weird.

Yeah I would not recommend this for a kid who is having a hard time fitting in.

[Anonymous]

OP here- thank you for the responses and advice. I'm signing her up for some classes that I think she will enjoy.

Please know that I am not looking for her to be popular or with a 'certain' group of kids. I just want her to find ANYONE to talk to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is she pretty or good at sports? Those were the popular girls when I was growing up. Also the popular ones seemed to be a bit more wordly. Not mean, but a sharpness to them. Sometimes sarcastic or mocking. I guess that made them interesting to other girls.

Really? DP here. I am surprised that the mean girls were popular in your school. The mean girls were shunned in my rich high school (I wasn't rich), where the nicer you were, the more popular you were. It helped to be pretty, but it definitely hindered to be any kind of mean. I think being sharp, jabbing and not inclusive as being a lower class thing.

I have literally never heard this point of view before, from anyone.

It was definitely true at my high school. -np

[Anonymous]

The only other thing I can think of is does she smell? We were generally pretty inclusive as tweens, but there were two kids who smelled bad (BO) and it was offputting and we avoided them.

That probably isn’t it, but you never know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here- thank you for the responses and advice. I'm signing her up for some classes that I think she will enjoy.

Please know that I am not looking for her to be popular or with a 'certain' group of kids. I just want her to find ANYONE to talk to.

Why are you not asking her directly what classes she'd be interested in?

[Anonymous]

If she is at all interested in some sort of sport, I recommend fencing. Lots of nerdy, introverted, quirky kids there, some with ADHD and Aspergers. My kid found her tribe there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here- thank you for the responses and advice. I'm signing her up for some classes that I think she will enjoy.

Please know that I am not looking for her to be popular or with a 'certain' group of kids. I just want her to find ANYONE to talk to.

Why are you not asking her directly what classes she'd be interested in?

Please stop judging. Can you infer from my response that I have asked her what she wants to do and I am stating that I THINK she will enjoy them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you watched her interacting with other girls? What do you see, honestly? Is she shy? Is she maybe a little too eager (understandable)?

You say she's 12, and that's a time of transition. Are her peers at school into clothes/makeup, and maybe your daughter still has a little more of the child left in her (understandable)?

Honestly she is very eager with other girls, I guess because she is so desperate. I try to advise her to play it cool with them, but I don't want her to overthink things too much.

You are right that she definitely has more of the child left in her.

I never had trouble with friends. At her age I had multiple groups of friends with barely any effort.

This combo is your answer. I'm sure of it.

I'm a teacher, by the way, so I see a lot of teen interaction. My advice is to help your daughter find a hobby or interest she can pursue outside of school, something that really interests her, not something she will see only as another chance to desperately seek friends. She may naturally make some new friends this way because she won't be focused so much on the process, if you see what I mean.

Also, as cold as this sounds, if she is dressing in a way that is noticeably different from her peers (clothes they regard as babyish, or if she's in clothes that signal she doesn't care), this is going to make a difference at that age if the other girls are taking an interest in their appearance. You could help your daughter update her look, in a fun way.

The bolded above is exactly what my advice is. Nurture an interest in an activity. Something like fencing, rowing or riding can be started later in childhood so she won't be behind the way she would say, for classical ballet.