Middle School Halloween Drama

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would stay out of it.

Welcome to middle school mean girls part 3 zillion. Let me guess— the girl getting excluded is prettier than the hosting girl and likely most of the group. Popular boy(s) like or have liked excluded girl or talk a lot of positive things about excluded girl to other boys and hosting girl. Or, excluded girl likes or is liked by a boy hosting girl has liked or likes.

Less than girls exclude girls like this in an attempt to bring them down. Didn’t work for my DD in MS. Despite being routinely excluded from bs like this she had friends outside of school and was able to navigate this tough time. Now in private school she’s thriving and the jealous and bitter girls that went to the local high school are still obsessed with her.

This will pass, but it’s hard. I’m sorry your daughter has to deal with this kind of pettiness.

Wow. I suggest, for the sake of your own social life, that you do not ever say any of this to anyone IRL.

You must be Mom of the mean girl.

Agree. Stuff like this has been happening since the dawn of time. Countless studies on why pretty girls get bullied by less attractive peers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would stay out of it.

Welcome to middle school mean girls part 3 zillion. Let me guess— the girl getting excluded is prettier than the hosting girl and likely most of the group. Popular boy(s) like or have liked excluded girl or talk a lot of positive things about excluded girl to other boys and hosting girl. Or, excluded girl likes or is liked by a boy hosting girl has liked or likes.

Less than girls exclude girls like this in an attempt to bring them down. Didn’t work for my DD in MS. Despite being routinely excluded from bs like this she had friends outside of school and was able to navigate this tough time. Now in private school she’s thriving and the jealous and bitter girls that went to the local high school are still obsessed with her.

This will pass, but it’s hard. I’m sorry your daughter has to deal with this kind of pettiness.

Wow. I suggest, for the sake of your own social life, that you do not ever say any of this to anyone IRL.

You must be Mom of the mean girl.

Agree. Stuff like this has been happening since the dawn of time. Countless studies on why pretty girls get bullied by less attractive peers.

Wow. Im sure this might happen. (Though in my experience it’s just snide comments here and there, nothing more significant.) But I would not assume with no more information that this girl is being bullied because she’s too pretty. Lol.

[Anonymous]

This reads like a mean girls chapter. I would give Bs mom a heads up so that B gets a heads up and isn't humiliated when she starts asking about Halloween plans

[Anonymous]

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-ooze/201804/why-pretty-girls-may-be-especially-vulnerable-https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324783544_Why_Pretty_Girls_Get_Bullied

https://broadblogs.com/2016/01/20/girls-bullying-girls-who-are-too-pretty/
https://www.endcyberbullying.net/why-do-people-cyberbully

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2013.0080

https://www.chicagonow.com/high-gloss-and-sauce/2014/12/bullying-girls-can-never-be-smart-and-pretty/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This reads like a mean girls chapter. I would give Bs mom a heads up so that B gets a heads up and isn't humiliated when she starts asking about Halloween plans

+1. I wouldn’t get involved with Group A at all because I don’t know mom A, and if you text random mom to complain about their guest list, your kid likely won’t be invited to the next one. But I would give mom B a heads up since she is my friend. (If I knew neither moms, I’d stay out of it)

[Anonymous]

B should just show up. Put A in her place and show her she can’t be intimidated by her.

[Anonymous]

Girl A may change her mind in the next day or two.

[Anonymous]

Stepping back -

They are in middle school. Say it to yourself. Kids in middle school are all over the place in terms of puberty, relationships, physical growth and maturity, and then add in, their own family and personal commitments (music, sports, art etc).

What adults must do is provide some actual guidance for their kids. The key overriding factor is to not let your kid be a jerk to anyone else. They want to be a jerk. But, yes, they do understand that being responsible and even nice (if not actually friendly) is not that difficult. Yes - at 12-14 the kids maturing earlier do not have that much in common with the kids who are going to be maturing later. Yes - less mature kids need to suck it up and be nice too when with the more mature kids. What they are doing may not be overalls fun, but it will be fine.

When the kids hit high school everything flexes again, because high school has its own set of unwritten rules and commitments. But, if your kid survived middle school being reasonably nice to everyone then they head into their high school years with a much much greater chance of connecting and reconnecting with people.

So - no 13 year olds who are into make up and talking about boys and bands are not going to think they have anything in common on a day to day basis with a kid who is playing sports, or a kid who is into art, or a kid who is a year away from diving into those subjects. But - they all can have fun on a hay ride and a spooky haunted house trip. And when they all are 16 and remixed up again in high school activities they can still be friends.

[Anonymous]

So, OP....your kid doesn't want to hang out with this other kid, either? Why? What did the other kid do or not do to piss off the whole group?

[Anonymous]

I think you should say something to the inviting family. She may not decide not to intervene but I think it would be worth saying some thing seventh grade gets meaner and meaner as they go but you’re right doing this at Halloween is pretty tough.

[Anonymous]

Did parent of kid A put a cap on the number allowed to attend ?

[Anonymous]

I'm so glad I have only middle school boys. No drama at all! I get that this kind of thing can happen to boys, too, but... Can you picture dudes in their 40s and 50s writing five pages of comments about every possible scenario with this?

There are mean girls and sometimes that streak does not ever go away!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would stay out of it.

Welcome to middle school mean girls part 3 zillion. Let me guess— the girl getting excluded is prettier than the hosting girl and likely most of the group. Popular boy(s) like or have liked excluded girl or talk a lot of positive things about excluded girl to other boys and hosting girl. Or, excluded girl likes or is liked by a boy hosting girl has liked or likes.

Less than girls exclude girls like this in an attempt to bring them down. Didn’t work for my DD in MS. Despite being routinely excluded from bs like this she had friends outside of school and was able to navigate this tough time. Now in private school she’s thriving and the jealous and bitter girls that went to the local high school are still obsessed with her.

This will pass, but it’s hard. I’m sorry your daughter has to deal with this kind of pettiness.

Wow. I suggest, for the sake of your own social life, that you do not ever say any of this to anyone IRL.

You must be Mom of the mean girl.

Quite the opposite. I’m nice enough to be appalled by someone referring to children as “less than,” and I think my kids would be too. I was nice enough to advise the mom above not to tell people IRL that her daughter is so beautiful that ordinary looking, bitter, jealous girls won’t befriend her dd and continue to be obsessed with her even after they no longer see her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MYOB. This is MS. Time for adults to stop social engineering. A kid who gets a pity invite will be ignored the entire time and the host will explain to desired guests “My mom MADE me invite her.”

Agree with this. The girls will also (unfortunately) text behind girl B's back about it.

Completely disagree. This is how the vicious circle of bit--y girl behavior continues.

If you're that good of friends with A's mom, then you bring it up with a "hey I'm concerned" and talk on the down low about it. If someone informed ME of that, I'd use this as an opportunity to speak to my kid about not being an asshat. Anyone who defends this behavior is just that.

I'd also speak to my OWN child. So that she can chime in in B's defense ("I'm fine with her coming with us.")

Kids need to be taught to be nice people at this age. So teach them.

I agree MS kids need more guidance and that we need to teach them to be nice, but I would be careful about the judgment here. We don’t actually know the reasons this girl wasn’t invited. It’s possible she was the one being unkind and the host needs a break and just doesn’t know how to handle it with tact. And maybe she IS trying to be kind by not blabbing about a conflict that occurred to the rest of the group - there could be a lot of scenarios here.

At the end of the day, it’s her guest list since she is the one hosting. And whether OP’s daughter decides to attend, and whether she decides to include girl B going forward in other events she does initiate or host, is of course up to her.

First of all, you're making assumptions about the excluded girl being mean or unkind. While certainly a possibility, that is not indicated by OP.

But even if this is the case, and the host needs a break, deliberately excluding the ONE girl is not giving her the break as it will just cause more problems. The more "big kid" thing to do would be invite her and then, if you have issues, deal with them after the fact. Have the conversation with the girl or SLOWLY start pulling back for a "break." Doing it in dramatic fashion on a special day, leaving the one girl hanging . . . . make is awkward for everyone, is mean, and will not have the desired effect of calming things down. It just won't. And OP's post is just the beginning of proving that point.

I wasn’t making assumptions at all. I was responding to the idea that the host child is being an “asshat” by pointing out that we shouldn’t be judgmental since we don’t know the entire story here. It may well be that the host child doesn’t want to be friends with that girl any longer and her goal is social distance, not “calming things down.” How OP’s child handles that is an entirely different issue.

[Anonymous]

OP I would do a little more investigating with your daughter and find out if they are specifically excluding her because she is offensive or annoying in some way, or if they’ve just drifted apart and didn’t think to invite her. If the latter and if your DD has high social standing in the group, she may be able to find a way to casually include her. If she can’t/won’t get her invited or thinks this will cause drama, I think you should clue your friend in and tell her you know this kind of MS stuff sucks but you don’t want her daughter to risk humiliation based on the pity invite. Mom can take it from there and make other plans.

But I would broach this with your daughter and get her opinion on what’s going on.