Middle school girl friendships

[Anonymous]

Middle school friendships are why we made sure that our girls were involved in athletics, Girl Scouts, and other extracurriculars so that not all of their friends were just school friends and so that they were in supportive environments in other places. Hope this serves as a guide to parents of younger girls -- get them involved in extracurriculars early!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Middle school friendships are why we made sure that our girls were involved in athletics, Girl Scouts, and other extracurriculars so that not all of their friends were just school friends and so that they were in supportive environments in other places. Hope this serves as a guide to parents of younger girls -- get them involved in extracurriculars early!!

Yes, this is such good advice. I'm a PP and my daughter had some trouble in 7th, though it's been better in 8th. One of her saving graces during friendship troubles has been her friends outside of her school -- friends from non-school related sports teams, camps, and other extracurriculars. I cannot overstate how much it helped.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I facilitated my DD having multiple friend-groups so if she had a bomb in one friend group, she wasn't left friendless. Also, I encouraged her to befriend the kind kids, and to be low drama. I talked about my own friendships (both the ones I had at her age, and my current ones) and explained my logic in approaching situations. She saw me assume the best many times, like "I miss Grace, I haven't heard from her in two months. It's really stressful moving to a new state by yourself while working full time and then immediately breaking your leg. I can't be angry at her for not reaching out to me - the last thing she needs is another difficultly to deal with!" Or "Bianca left without saying goodbye or thank you, after I put in so much work on this party. I know she was really stressed about getting home safely so had to jump on that offer Keri and Joel made to drive her home." So while maybe she couldn't relate to the exact issues I'd have, she'd see me extending grace, and hear my friends extended grace to me (like when I forgot a friend's birthday when my grandmother died and we had to put our dog to sleep in the same weekend).

OMG- why not teach your daughter how to reach out to a friend first?? Poor woman moved and broke her leg? I’d have flown out there to help her out.

The other thing empaths have to worry about is not getting taken advantage or or abuse. At some point you have to see the pattern, and call a spade a spade: Bianca is not a good friend.