Speechless

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thank you call for your helpful comments.

I did help my DD clean up, and had her sleep with me in my room. It took her until 2 am to fall asleep, as she was crying and in disbelief. I myself was so distraught I had chest pains and did not sleep until 5 am.

This to me is concerning. It was glitter on her face. For her to be crying for hours and for you to get chest pain over this is pretty indicative that neither of you have very good coping skills. I can see her being upset - sure but upset to the extent that you both were? Yikes. How are either of you ever going to handle anything that is bigger than glitter on her face that was intended as a prank by her best friends. You are going to end up hospitalized for mental breakdowns if something that is actually mean or bad does happen.

About the daughter, if she felt they did this to her because they think she's ugly (original post said something about how they said she's hideous), then yes that's truly hurtful. I understand her tears.

But the mom having chest pains because of it? Makes me think she's easily worked-up and prone to drama.

The other girls said she looked hideous with the stuff on her face, not in general.

Even if they made her look like Jabba the Hut, mom over reacted. I'm not saying her DD did -- she just sounds like a sensitive kid. But there are so many things coming when this girl is a teen that I fear for the mom.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, mom? Your DD will fare better if she can rely on you to be calm and rational at times like this. Chest pains? Good Lord.

[Anonymous]

I think posters here have little ability to empathize with a 6th grade girl.

According to OP, the sleepover girls took gloppy sparkle makeup and plopped it randomly all over her daughter's face. OP said it was in splotches -- on her forehead, her cheeks, her EYES?? her chin, her hair.

They totally smeared this girl. Putting stuff on her eyes?

Imagine for a moment someone doing this to your daughter, or to you, while you slept.

I think this is a very mean act. I do NOT think it is the same kind of "prank" as putting someone's hand in warm water while they sleep. Or even as putting lipstick on a boy, or writing something on someone's forehead.

When you deface someone's face like that, I think it is an act of aggression. "I hate her and I'm going to mark up her face" is what it feels like to me.

I am guessing that the chest pains OP felt were not directly a result of seeing her daughter's face all messed up, but were the anxiety she felt from feeling like her daughter was symbolically attacked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The parents will hopefully be mortified and you are sending your DD a strong message that you are standing up to bullying by sending them home NOW. Hugs to you and DD.

This isn't bullying. It's a heartless prank, but it's not bullying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The parents will hopefully be mortified and you are sending your DD a strong message that you are standing up to bullying by sending them home NOW. Hugs to you and DD.

This isn't bullying. It's a heartless prank, but it's not bullying.

OK, fine - it isn't in and of itself bullying. But it is aggressive, mean behavior and best to put a stop to it right away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree that this was an overreaction. The 3 am email alone is just way over the top, as well as calling "defacement". If I were one of the other moms I would think you were nuts. And lost in your overreaction was an actual situation where the girl's feelings were hurt and she should have responded in proportion to the situation.

I have an older DD who is very sensitive and probably would have cried half the night as well. The worst possible thing a mom can do in such a situation is get caught up in similar emotions. The chest pains, the 3 am emails, the confrontation with the girls all speak to a far too intense emotional response by the mom no matter how calm a voice. That's part of the problem here, both mother and daughter need to learn perspective and how to control their emotions.

I am not dismissing the girl's very real hurt or excusing the other girls bad behavior. But all of that gets lost with such a massive over reaction. I think the posters who agree with me also have older kids and know what lies ahead. OP and her DD will face far greater challenges and will need to learn better ways of reacting.

+1 I was with op until she mentioned the 3am email and the chest pains.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you call the other parents you will guarantee that your DD will face more bullying and will be ostracized from by these girls in the future. They may be friends she should say goodbye to, but not in a big dramatic fashion that will make the gossip rounds of the school. If OP does this, the victim will be her daughter.

Her daughter has to learnt o confront these girls herself, hard that that may be. She needs to tell them how she felt about this and that it wasn't OK. Then she has to decide if these other girls screwed up this one time or if they are just bad friends. And no more threesome sleepovers.

But please don't make this go nuclear by bringing in the other parents. The one time I spoke with another parent about her child's behavior my daughter was furious with me because it just made things worse. At this age, the kids need to learn how to resolve things.

As a middle school counselor, I agree with this poster. I have seen it happen too many times where parents intervene and it backfires and things get worse for the "victim" (by the way, it does not fit definition of bullying, as it only happened once, but could escalate into bullying depending upon how things are handled). OP should absolutely validate her daughter's feelings, but let her problem solve this one. Together, I'd help her determine what type of qualities she is looking for in a friend and whether these girls are "friends.". If she tells them that what they did upset her and they feel remorseful and try to prove it to her, then maybe they are good friends who just made a bad choice.

This. She should clean herself up, go sleep in another room (not the parents) and in the morning calmly express that it upset her. If they are nor nicer or remorseful, she should seek out other friends

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think posters here have little ability to empathize with a 6th grade girl.

When you deface someone's face like that, I think it is an act of aggression. "I hate her and I'm going to mark up her face" is what it feels like to me.

So help me understand your perspective that these two girls that Op thought were her best friends actually hate her. So you think this was all premeditated in advance and the friendship is a sham? So these two girls who Op says weren't even good friends themselves both planned together to form and keep a friendship with a girl they hate? For 2 grade 7 girls to keep up a facade of being 'best friends' when in fact they hate her is pretty powerful acting skills. So then finally the day comes and they get the invite to a sleepover of the girl they hate. Why would they accept? Oh right to keep up the facade - so now they go to a sleepover they don't want to go to with someone they hate. Even though they have known her for a long time and see her in many contexts they decide the best time to take out they hate and aggression is in her own home with adults present. Instead of doing it somewhere that they might not get in trouble they do it in the presence of adults.

You really think that is what happened? Really? So they are pretty much sociopaths in your mind who rather than spending time with people they actually like put all their energy into faking a best friendship with someone they hate so they could go to a sleepover at her house and take out their aggression on her and get in trouble from her mom?

You appear to have zero ability to understand the social lives and dynamics of middle school girls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This makes me think of the maxim "three is a dangerous number." When I was that age, I had two best friends and we basically spent every encounter pairing up against the third. The pairs changed at whim, but someone was always on the outs.

I would encourage your DD to stop trying to be a bridge between the other two and build separate relationships with them. Have sleepovers with just one friend.

Middle school is hell.

THIS THIS THIS

I went through this as a kid and I have seen my own daughter go through it, with changes alliances, hurt feelings, etc. it's awful.

OP, I also have a really hard time separating my feelings from what I project my daughter's to be when this kind of thing happens. It's really hard to know how to react.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think posters here have little ability to empathize with a 6th grade girl.

According to OP, the sleepover girls took gloppy sparkle makeup and plopped it randomly all over her daughter's face. OP said it was in splotches -- on her forehead, her cheeks, her EYES?? her chin, her hair.

They totally smeared this girl. Putting stuff on her eyes?

Imagine for a moment someone doing this to your daughter, or to you, while you slept.

I think this is a very mean act. I do NOT think it is the same kind of "prank" as putting someone's hand in warm water while they sleep. Or even as putting lipstick on a boy, or writing something on someone's forehead.

When you deface someone's face like that, I think it is an act of aggression. "I hate her and I'm going to mark up her face" is what it feels like to me.

I am guessing that the chest pains OP felt were not directly a result of seeing her daughter's face all messed up, but were the anxiety she felt from feeling like her daughter was symbolically attacked.

I'm one who commented on mom's reaction. My DS has been bullied and harassed to the point of being suicidal. He's been attacked at school and his life threatened. Parents do their kids no good when they don't stay calm. Help her wash the gunk of, and get her back to sleep. Deal with it calmly in the AM. Even the speech to the girls went overboard IMO. Is it bullying? I guess that depends on the intent. Were they trying to pull a prank and blew it? Maybe. Were they trying to inflict harm in the form of a major upset? Perhaps. And THAT would equal bullying.

When parents can't deal with it, they aren't a help to their kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think posters here have little ability to empathize with a 6th grade girl.

According to OP, the sleepover girls took gloppy sparkle makeup and plopped it randomly all over her daughter's face. OP said it was in splotches -- on her forehead, her cheeks, her EYES?? her chin, her hair.

They totally smeared this girl. Putting stuff on her eyes?

Imagine for a moment someone doing this to your daughter, or to you, while you slept.

I think this is a very mean act. I do NOT think it is the same kind of "prank" as putting someone's hand in warm water while they sleep. Or even as putting lipstick on a boy, or writing something on someone's forehead.

When you deface someone's face like that, I think it is an act of aggression. "I hate her and I'm going to mark up her face" is what it feels like to me.

I am guessing that the chest pains OP felt were not directly a result of seeing her daughter's face all messed up, but were the anxiety she felt from feeling like her daughter was symbolically attacked.

I'm one who commented on mom's reaction. My DS has been bullied and harassed to the point of being suicidal. He's been attacked at school and his life threatened. Parents do their kids no good when they don't stay calm. Help her wash the gunk of, and get her back to sleep. Deal with it calmly in the AM. Even the speech to the girls went overboard IMO. Is it bullying? I guess that depends on the intent. Were they trying to pull a prank and blew it? Maybe. Were they trying to inflict harm in the form of a major upset? Perhaps. And THAT would equal bullying.

When parents can't deal with it, they aren't a help to their kids.

It actually still wouldn't. Bullying is "the repeated and habitual use of force, threat, or coercion to abuse, intimidate, or aggressively impose domination over others." Bullying is a pattern of behavior, not one action. Not all acts that are mean or aggressive are bullying.

I highly doubt this was bullying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think posters here have little ability to empathize with a 6th grade girl.

When you deface someone's face like that, I think it is an act of aggression. "I hate her and I'm going to mark up her face" is what it feels like to me.

So help me understand your perspective that these two girls that Op thought were her best friends actually hate her. So you think this was all premeditated in advance and the friendship is a sham? So these two girls who Op says weren't even good friends themselves both planned together to form and keep a friendship with a girl they hate? For 2 grade 7 girls to keep up a facade of being 'best friends' when in fact they hate her is pretty powerful acting skills. So then finally the day comes and they get the invite to a sleepover of the girl they hate. Why would they accept? Oh right to keep up the facade - so now they go to a sleepover they don't want to go to with someone they hate. Even though they have known her for a long time and see her in many contexts they decide the best time to take out they hate and aggression is in her own home with adults present. Instead of doing it somewhere that they might not get in trouble they do it in the presence of adults.

You really think that is what happened? Really? So they are pretty much sociopaths in your mind who rather than spending time with people they actually like put all their energy into faking a best friendship with someone they hate so they could go to a sleepover at her house and take out their aggression on her and get in trouble from her mom?

You appear to have zero ability to understand the social lives and dynamics of middle school girls.

Now you are overreacting just a wee bit, PP.

What I said was, it FEELS like the girls were saying: "I hate her and I'm going to mark up her face" . Going after someone's face like that is to me, a really aggressive thing to do. It shows anger, at least one the part of whichever girls was the instigator.

I'm not going to try to go into the psychology of whichever girl thought this up -- I don't know her, or know anything about what is going on in her life. But I think a girl who would decide to do something like this has something going on that is wrong -- some anger issues, etc. Most likely the other girl went along with it because it seemed funny, she was weak willed, whatever.

Kids make jokes when they are in middle school, and they are "just kidding" but behind every joke is a kernel of truth. Behind these so called "pranks" I think there is a kernel of aggression.

I think one of those girls has anger, and expressed it towards OPs daughter, for a reason. Yes, I do.

[Anonymous]

I think it worked out just as planned. The one girl wanted the other to ditch your DD. So she set up the mean "prank" Now both are united against your DD. And their mothers also.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think posters here have little ability to empathize with a 6th grade girl.

According to OP, the sleepover girls took gloppy sparkle makeup and plopped it randomly all over her daughter's face. OP said it was in splotches -- on her forehead, her cheeks, her EYES?? her chin, her hair.

They totally smeared this girl. Putting stuff on her eyes?

Imagine for a moment someone doing this to your daughter, or to you, while you slept.

I think this is a very mean act. I do NOT think it is the same kind of "prank" as putting someone's hand in warm water while they sleep. Or even as putting lipstick on a boy, or writing something on someone's forehead.

When you deface someone's face like that, I think it is an act of aggression. "I hate her and I'm going to mark up her face" is what it feels like to me.

I am guessing that the chest pains OP felt were not directly a result of seeing her daughter's face all messed up, but were the anxiety she felt from feeling like her daughter was symbolically attacked.

I agree with this and I must say it would have upset me very much. I would not have been able to sleep either. Because it is an act of hostility, and from supposed best friends, and while she slept. Creepy. It felt like a betrayal. It was an ugly prank with mean intentions. My kids are much older, and I have seen how these meaner kids turn out -- meaner and some are a bit disturbed. BTW, the hands in the water trick, which is to make someone pee themselves, is also not very funny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think posters here have little ability to empathize with a 6th grade girl.

According to OP, the sleepover girls took gloppy sparkle makeup and plopped it randomly all over her daughter's face. OP said it was in splotches -- on her forehead, her cheeks, her EYES?? her chin, her hair.

They totally smeared this girl. Putting stuff on her eyes?

Imagine for a moment someone doing this to your daughter, or to you, while you slept.

I think this is a very mean act. I do NOT think it is the same kind of "prank" as putting someone's hand in warm water while they sleep. Or even as putting lipstick on a boy, or writing something on someone's forehead.

When you deface someone's face like that, I think it is an act of aggression. "I hate her and I'm going to mark up her face" is what it feels like to me.

I am guessing that the chest pains OP felt were not directly a result of seeing her daughter's face all messed up, but were the anxiety she felt from feeling like her daughter was symbolically attacked.

I'm one who commented on mom's reaction. My DS has been bullied and harassed to the point of being suicidal. He's been attacked at school and his life threatened. Parents do their kids no good when they don't stay calm. Help her wash the gunk of, and get her back to sleep. Deal with it calmly in the AM. Even the speech to the girls went overboard IMO. Is it bullying? I guess that depends on the intent. Were they trying to pull a prank and blew it? Maybe. Were they trying to inflict harm in the form of a major upset? Perhaps. And THAT would equal bullying.

When parents can't deal with it, they aren't a help to their kids.

It actually still wouldn't. Bullying is "the repeated and habitual use of force, threat, or coercion to abuse, intimidate, or aggressively impose domination over others." Bullying is a pattern of behavior, not one action. Not all acts that are mean or aggressive are bullying.

Yes, but if the intent is there to BE a bully, it can be considered bullying. In this case though I agree.. even I wouldn't call it bullying. The term is over used.

Regardless of what title is put on it mom and daughter both over reacted.