When to intervene- Mean Girl Bullying

[Anonymous]

Why does she have to go to an all girls school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you really talked to her about any of this? You gained a lot of knowledge by eavesdropping on her conversations yet you seem to know every last detail and are using really dramatic language.

At this point I have talked to her at length because I finally realized this wasn’t blowing over. I had a vague idea something has been wrong but now I know. We have a close relationship. Also, I wasn’t eavesdropping. She was so upset, sobbing and yelling the story to her friend and our home is open floor planned. There was zero escaping it. The whole entire family heard the whole thing.

Who is this other friend? Is she part of this bigger group of girls?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you really talked to her about any of this? You gained a lot of knowledge by eavesdropping on her conversations yet you seem to know every last detail and are using really dramatic language.

At this point I have talked to her at length because I finally realized this wasn’t blowing over. I had a vague idea something has been wrong but now I know. We have a close relationship. Also, I wasn’t eavesdropping. She was so upset, sobbing and yelling the story to her friend and our home is open floor planned. There was zero escaping it. The whole entire family heard the whole thing.

Who is this other friend? Is she part of this bigger group of girls?

No she isn’t. She knows them used to go to school with many of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why does she have to go to an all girls school?

LD. Needs small class sizes, less distraction and more teacher support. -
All of which which the school works hard to give her. The school itself is great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does your daughter have no idea why this is happening? Why has she been singled out. Is there a boy involved? Is your daughter outshining one of them in some activity? What's behind all of this?

+1

great questions. Also, is it mainly one girl driving this, while others go along? Any insight OP?

She has no idea why and she is tortured over this fact. She just wants to know why. She never talks bad about other girls. She goes out of her way to be nice to everyone. She has a reputation of being nice but I think these kids read that as a weakness and want to tear her down. She hosts parties, big and small and includes everyone. She is pretty. She is “relevant” in that everyone knows who she is. Athletic but not a star. She has a very nice academic athletic boyfriend who goes to a public school. The bullying consists of ignoring her or talking over her at school, snide comments disguised as “jokes”, exclusion and the drunk girl at the party called her annoying slut over and over again and bragged about stealing the so called BFF who watched the whole thing go down and egged it on.

Is there even one mom friend (of this group) that you can trust? One you are closest to? One who wouldn’t blab to her daughter or the rest of the mothers? Seems unlikely, but if so- I’d ask if they have any idea the reason for the falling out (and you’d have to use that sort of non-accusatory phrasing) . Most moms will have overheard something. Having that info may not change anything but you never know.

Or a mom friend of a kid at school not involved in the situation. I have 2 in high school and hear soooo much gossip. I imagine it would be even more, in a smaller school. Stuff like this is not usually kept quiet- all the kids know. Barring that- could a trusted teacher or advisor shed any light? If the school is as small as you say, they may know something.

I think that would just drive drama and what does one person's opinion about it matter anyway. The die has been cast at this point re: the kids group dynamics. Negative group bonding is a thing and crowdsourcing here or there is wasting time on drama, OP. Get your kid in a healthier situation before school resumes. This school is not longer it for her.

She has a boyfriend at a public, enroll here there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does she have to go to an all girls school?

LD. Needs small class sizes, less distraction and more teacher support. -
All of which which the school works hard to give her. The school itself is great.

Public with an IEP will be a good set up for college.

The socially aggressive kids sensed vulnerability.

The school itself is a toxic place for her and there is no unringing the bell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does she have to go to an all girls school?

LD. Needs small class sizes, less distraction and more teacher support. -
All of which which the school works hard to give her. The school itself is great.

Well, there's a whole lot of distraction going on now so can't see how this is so great for her.

[Anonymous]

I suspect this is another troll post. Sadly, the board has been flooded by them of late.

No mother would be such a drama llama online w/strangers rather than reaching out to explore school options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I suspect this is another troll post. Sadly, the board has been flooded by them of late.

No mother would be such a drama llama online w/strangers rather than reaching out to explore school options.

Could be. Something seems a little off with this one.

[Anonymous]

If she likes the school and wants to stay, the only option is to come up with other friends or to find friends outside of school. Does she have other friends at school? Are there a few kids who weren't part of the drama that she could get to know better?

She could gray rock the bullies and stay out of the drama. She needs to make herself as uninteresting as possible. If they cause trouble at school, she needs to talk to the administration (with you backing her up).

I'll add that it's totally possible that she didn't do anything to cause this. I think queen bees sometimes stir this stuff up for their own entertainment and your daughter had low enough self esteem to play along. She now needs to find the strength to walk away with her head held high.

[Anonymous]

Even in a smallish private, there are lots of girls who aren’t part of this group. Your daughter could spend time getting to know them.

I’m a teacher and when I have seen this happen, there are usually plenty of perfectly lovely kids who would be happy to be nice to the newly excluded kid. The issue is usually that SHE (or he, my school is coed) isn’t interested in friends who aren’t in the top social tier. Hopefully that’s not your child.

Twice, I’ve been pleased to see an excluded cool kid develop a really nice friendship with a student outside of the clique, only for said cool kid to drop the new friend like a hot potato when the social tables turned and the excluded kid was welcomed back. That was disappointing.

[Anonymous]

Get your dd out of that private school asap! In a small school like this, the behavior will not change, she has been rejected from the entire group. Either another private school or public school would be better.

[Anonymous]

Nope, don't switch schools. She needs to stop engaging with these girls. She is putting herself in these situations by continuing to socialize with them. She needs to learn to say no and remove herself from the drama. You say she has other friends, she should hang out with those friends. Give her advice, but if she's not taking it, it's on her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even in a smallish private, there are lots of girls who aren’t part of this group. Your daughter could spend time getting to know them.

I’m a teacher and when I have seen this happen, there are usually plenty of perfectly lovely kids who would be happy to be nice to the newly excluded kid. The issue is usually that SHE (or he, my school is coed) isn’t interested in friends who aren’t in the top social tier. Hopefully that’s not your child.

Twice, I’ve been pleased to see an excluded cool kid develop a really nice friendship with a student outside of the clique, only for said cool kid to drop the new friend like a hot potato when the social tables turned and the excluded kid was welcomed back. That was disappointing.

Yup. This. OP's daughter wants to stay part of the cool girl crowd so she keeps engaging.

[Anonymous]

Thanks everyone for the crowd sourcing. There were a lot of great ideas here and I am going to use many of them. Many angles I had not even considered. Also this situation is clearly not unique and sounds like it happens everywhere. So that is a reality bomb She said she wants to change schools. Which seems to be in line with the advice here. We’ll let her think about it over break. It is competitive here in NYC so we are going to start looking now for hopeful January but def next year.