middle school just sucks for girls

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here.
Thanks for all the kind thoughts!

My daughter does have a few kind and low-key friends and she plays a sport 3 days a week with a great group of girls. They attend about a dozen different schools and there's no drama between them at all.
And she has a sister and a brother and a pretty great home-life. She'll be okay in the long run.

But geez.. the stuff that her "former BFF" is pulling. Example: my daughter, BFF and 2 friends texting about hanging out on Sat. BFF calls the other 2 friends and invites them over and lies and tells them that my daughter is busy. Ignores my daughter's texts.
The next days she lies and tells my daughter that "she didn't see her texts about being available". When clearly she did.

Just last year (5th grade) this girls and my daughter just had silly, goofy fun together--pretend play, making slime, cooking etc. Now she's excluding my daughter and lying. Give me strength.

Omg get a life if your own.

You should be this involved in your daughters social life.

NP. Stop with the "get your own life." If you can't understand a parent being sad that their child is hurting, that's kind of your own issue. And since when is knowing what is going on with your kids being "involved in your daughter's social life?"

Go away.

No it's the knowing all the exact details of who did what and when and THEN REPORTING IT ALL HERE and it turns out they're all 12 years old. Get a freaking life! Your daughter will figure it out on her own and she'll be stronger for it. We all did.

+ 1

It is kind of weird to do this.

[Anonymous]

My daughter had some cliquey issues in 7th grade that made her hate school. Thank goodness for team sports - a group of non-school girl friends when school isn't always working out great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here.
Thanks for all the kind thoughts!

My daughter does have a few kind and low-key friends and she plays a sport 3 days a week with a great group of girls. They attend about a dozen different schools and there's no drama between them at all.
And she has a sister and a brother and a pretty great home-life. She'll be okay in the long run.

But geez.. the stuff that her "former BFF" is pulling. Example: my daughter, BFF and 2 friends texting about hanging out on Sat. BFF calls the other 2 friends and invites them over and lies and tells them that my daughter is busy. Ignores my daughter's texts.
The next days she lies and tells my daughter that "she didn't see her texts about being available". When clearly she did.

Just last year (5th grade) this girls and my daughter just had silly, goofy fun together--pretend play, making slime, cooking etc. Now she's excluding my daughter and lying. Give me strength.

6th is too young for texting.

[Anonymous]

Sorry your DD is going through this OP! It's rough, but as others say, they learn from this and build resiliency. There are mean girls at work and in the mommy crowd too.

4th and 6th were my worst years with girl dramas, but I loved 7th and 8th. I totally embraced being a goofy and academic nerd. I had a sweet group of friends and got really immersed in sachoolwork. I played sports and though I stank, the exercise put me in a good mood. 2 guys teased me. One was so short I just felt really sorry for him and never took it personally. We eventually became good friends. The other was hilarious. He never hit a weak spot and by then I had a sense of humor about myself. In fact, I laughed A LOT those years. My best friend and I made fun of the mean girls in private-we did hilarious imitations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That stinks but middle school doesn't suck for everyone. I set my daughter up to have several different groups of friends so that if there happened to be a falling out with one group, she wasn't friend-less.

So if there was a sleepover with her core group that she somehow wasn't invited to, she just made plans with a friend from a different school for that night.

Omg, helimom, You are managing your teens social life so she has safety net friends???!@@! I hope you have her in therapy before the 'real world' happens to her. Such a helpless girl.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is in 6th. I thought things were going so soothly. She entered school with a group of about 6 good friends, including a best buddy.
Turns out her best friend of K-5 has been excluding her in events and lying about it after the fact when she "needs" my daughter as a friend again.

My daughter is crushed. It happened once and we wrote it off as a misunderstanding. It just happened again and we both know the friend was lying.
Why oh why are girls so mean?

We have been having a lot of conversations about what true friendship is. I'm encouraging her again and again to try to branch out and find new friendships.
I think we're getting there but it's a slow process to convince a 6th grader of these things.

So sorry to hear this. I would not let her get herself in the situation again where she has only one best friend. Girls need different friends in different groups as I think that keeps the relationships healthy and not so codependent. Reach out to different girls in the grade and maybe some new girls and try to foster some new friendships. Best of luck. She’ll be OK.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That stinks but middle school doesn't suck for everyone. I set my daughter up to have several different groups of friends so that if there happened to be a falling out with one group, she wasn't friend-less.

So if there was a sleepover with her core group that she somehow wasn't invited to, she just made plans with a friend from a different school for that night.

Omg, helimom, You are managing your teens social life so she has safety net friends???!@@! I hope you have her in therapy before the 'real world' happens to her. Such a helpless girl.

PP is annoying because she seems to lack empathy in her response. But she does have a point, encouraging your child to make multiple groups of friends is not being a helicopter mom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That stinks but middle school doesn't suck for everyone. I set my daughter up to have several different groups of friends so that if there happened to be a falling out with one group, she wasn't friend-less.

So if there was a sleepover with her core group that she somehow wasn't invited to, she just made plans with a friend from a different school for that night.

Omg, helimom, You are managing your teens social life so she has safety net friends???!@@! I hope you have her in therapy before the 'real world' happens to her. Such a helpless girl.

PP is annoying because she seems to lack empathy in her response. But she does have a point, encouraging your child to make multiple groups of friends is not being a helicopter mom.

+1 I guess ^PP thinks if you encourage your 11 yr old to not hang out with trouble maker kids that would be considered being a helicopter parent, too? If so, then I'd rather be called a helicopter mom than a disinterested, bad parenting mom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That stinks but middle school doesn't suck for everyone. I set my daughter up to have several different groups of friends so that if there happened to be a falling out with one group, she wasn't friend-less.

So if there was a sleepover with her core group that she somehow wasn't invited to, she just made plans with a friend from a different school for that night.

That's great, but it's not that simple for everyone. Outside activities are wonderful but they don't always lead to friendships (sleepovers, etc...) outside the activity. That means a child who finds themselves outside their friend group at school (where they spend a lot of time) can experience some very lonely times.

I pushed to help DD form those friendships, and also, despite her being at a very small middle school I pushed her to have multiple friend groups within it. So she had friends from elementary, three friend groups in middle, friends from ice skating, and friends from camp. It's not that hard.

It sounds like you have an extrovert child. Try getting an introvert kid to do any of those things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is going to middle school next year...I am dreading it. Does ANYONE actually like middle school and have a positive social experience?

+1 any advice?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here.
Thanks for all the kind thoughts!

My daughter does have a few kind and low-key friends and she plays a sport 3 days a week with a great group of girls. They attend about a dozen different schools and there's no drama between them at all.
And she has a sister and a brother and a pretty great home-life. She'll be okay in the long run.

But geez.. the stuff that her "former BFF" is pulling. Example: my daughter, BFF and 2 friends texting about hanging out on Sat. BFF calls the other 2 friends and invites them over and lies and tells them that my daughter is busy. Ignores my daughter's texts.
The next days she lies and tells my daughter that "she didn't see her texts about being available". When clearly she did.

Just last year (5th grade) this girls and my daughter just had silly, goofy fun together--pretend play, making slime, cooking etc. Now she's excluding my daughter and lying. Give me strength.

Omg get a life if your own.

You should be this involved in your daughters social life.

NP. Stop with the "get your own life." If you can't understand a parent being sad that their child is hurting, that's kind of your own issue. And since when is knowing what is going on with your kids being "involved in your daughter's social life?"

Go away.

No it's the knowing all the exact details of who did what and when and THEN REPORTING IT ALL HERE and it turns out they're all 12 years old. Get a freaking life! Your daughter will figure it out on her own and she'll be stronger for it. We all did.

+ 1

It is kind of weird to do this.

Right, in the first post OP says both she and her DD know the friend is lying...why is OP inserting herself in middle school drama?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here.
Thanks for all the kind thoughts!

My daughter does have a few kind and low-key friends and she plays a sport 3 days a week with a great group of girls. They attend about a dozen different schools and there's no drama between them at all.
And she has a sister and a brother and a pretty great home-life. She'll be okay in the long run.

But geez.. the stuff that her "former BFF" is pulling. Example: my daughter, BFF and 2 friends texting about hanging out on Sat. BFF calls the other 2 friends and invites them over and lies and tells them that my daughter is busy. Ignores my daughter's texts.
The next days she lies and tells my daughter that "she didn't see her texts about being available". When clearly she did.

Just last year (5th grade) this girls and my daughter just had silly, goofy fun together--pretend play, making slime, cooking etc. Now she's excluding my daughter and lying. Give me strength.

Omg get a life if your own.

You should be this involved in your daughters social life.

NP. Stop with the "get your own life." If you can't understand a parent being sad that their child is hurting, that's kind of your own issue. And since when is knowing what is going on with your kids being "involved in your daughter's social life?"

Go away.

No it's the knowing all the exact details of who did what and when and THEN REPORTING IT ALL HERE and it turns out they're all 12 years old. Get a freaking life! Your daughter will figure it out on her own and she'll be stronger for it. We all did.

+ 1

It is kind of weird to do this.

Right, in the first post OP says both she and her DD know the friend is lying...why is OP inserting herself in middle school drama?

OP here. I'm not inserting myself into any drama. I posting about it online because my daughter shares things with me.
I don't interfere in real life--my daughter is the only one interacting with these friends and she is solving her own problems. I'm a bystander to this.

But way to be a jerk here when my kid is struggling. Does that make you feel better about yourself?
And we wonder why the girls are so mean.
You post about kids struggling on here and grown adults women all over you and imply that you're an idiot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here.
Thanks for all the kind thoughts!

My daughter does have a few kind and low-key friends and she plays a sport 3 days a week with a great group of girls. They attend about a dozen different schools and there's no drama between them at all.
And she has a sister and a brother and a pretty great home-life. She'll be okay in the long run.

But geez.. the stuff that her "former BFF" is pulling. Example: my daughter, BFF and 2 friends texting about hanging out on Sat. BFF calls the other 2 friends and invites them over and lies and tells them that my daughter is busy. Ignores my daughter's texts.
The next days she lies and tells my daughter that "she didn't see her texts about being available". When clearly she did.

Just last year (5th grade) this girls and my daughter just had silly, goofy fun together--pretend play, making slime, cooking etc. Now she's excluding my daughter and lying. Give me strength.

Omg get a life if your own.

You should be this involved in your daughters social life.

NP. Stop with the "get your own life." If you can't understand a parent being sad that their child is hurting, that's kind of your own issue. And since when is knowing what is going on with your kids being "involved in your daughter's social life?"

Go away.

No it's the knowing all the exact details of who did what and when and THEN REPORTING IT ALL HERE and it turns out they're all 12 years old. Get a freaking life! Your daughter will figure it out on her own and she'll be stronger for it. We all did.

+ 1

It is kind of weird to do this.

Right, in the first post OP says both she and her DD know the friend is lying...why is OP inserting herself in middle school drama?

OP here. I'm not inserting myself into any drama. I posting about it online because my daughter shares things with me.
I don't interfere in real life--my daughter is the only one interacting with these friends and she is solving her own problems. I'm a bystander to this.

But way to be a jerk here when my kid is struggling. Does that make you feel better about yourself?
And we wonder why the girls are so mean.
You post about kids struggling on here and grown adults women all over you and imply that you're an idiot.

Lol at you calling anyone out when you’re literally on here dumping in a 12 yo.

[Anonymous]

Some girls share things with their mothers. It’s perfectly natural for moms to empathize and feel their kid’s pain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is in 6th. I thought things were going so soothly. She entered school with a group of about 6 good friends, including a best buddy.
Turns out her best friend of K-5 has been excluding her in events and lying about it after the fact when she "needs" my daughter as a friend again.

My daughter is crushed. It happened once and we wrote it off as a misunderstanding. It just happened again and we both know the friend was lying.
Why oh why are girls so mean?

We have been having a lot of conversations about what true friendship is. I'm encouraging her again and again to try to branch out and find new friendships.
I think we're getting there but it's a slow process to convince a 6th grader of these things.

Maybe they are not trying to exclude her? It may feel as if they are but sometimes my daughter will invite kids over and logistically with car space etc we have a limit. I would invite those friends over in smaller groups so it’s not awkward with them but asap start inviting others to do things. You can mix in the old and the new. I am not the poster above that others say is a helimom but it’s okay For parents to sometimes try to guide and navigate their kids. I wish my mom had done it when I was struggling with a very mean friend. I was so sad and felt stuck.