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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. As I said, my DD does NOT have a phone or her own device. These other girls do. My DD uses our shared family device and I monitor her texting which I began to allow after she showed me she could be responsible.

Like it or not, from my understanding most kids get phones in middle school and begin texting. When my daughter asked about it this seemed like a way to teach her about online communication by talking about it together and me helping her manage it by reading and limiting access.

In terms of diversifying her friend  portfolio- yes we are doing that as much as we can. We are new to the area and at a small public school with not a ton of girls in the grade. I'm anxious to move on to middle school where there will be a bigger pond for her to swim in, friend-wise. My daughter is also somewhat shy and anxious which is a bit of a hurdle in meeting new friends. We are working on that.

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OP, you also posted in the original post, "I can tell my DD no more texting but then she's worried about what's being said without her." It's time to work with her on learning not to care what's being said about her by kids who are not nice. Yeah, that's hard, but if she can learn it now, and learn that she does not have to text etc. to have a life, then she will be better prepared for MS and HS years. My DD's friends who made it through MS the best were the ones who were confident that their real friends would not engage in this crap, and who didn't text with kids who pulled this drama.

I like the idea by a PP above of telling her -- and you tell, you don't ask -- that a break from all texting (even with nice friends) is in place for what's left of the school year. I'd do it for the summer as well.

The fact that other kids have their own unmonitored phones now and many more will have them by MS--why does that matter in your own choices for [i]your[/i] child? If you don't want her having a phone, then no phone; if you don't want her texting on the common iPad, then no texting. It's a good thought to try to introduce her slowly but it's backfired, and truly, she may actually find it a relief to be told what is going to happen rather than being given a choice or told to "work it out." She can then say, "My parents are saying no texting for a while," and yeah, if she wants to throw you under the bus a bit with her real friends, that's fine too as long as she's not snarky or disobedient with you. Kids do want boundaries, even if they say otherwise, and in a case like this --where she knows that there's drama and it's hurting her -- she actually will probably be glad on some level that she can say, "Sorry, I can't text anyone at the moment."

Definitely steer her towards other kids, as you say you're doing. I can't stress enough how much it helps if a kid has an extracurricular activity that is not related to school, not AT school and does not involve kids from school. It enables the child to build some friendships that have nothing to do with school-day drama or who said what to whom. If your daughter doesn't have an activity, or the ones she has aren't really engaging her, then go online with her to find some terrific summer activities that really interest and engage her. I know my DD has a couple of classmates who don't do anything other than go to school and then come home to text and go on social media, and they tend to be kids who get sucked into drama both on social media and at school, especially since the texting and online drama is coming from kids they must see at school every day.

Ensure that over the summer your DD sees a lot -- in person -- of her real and positive friends, and in the fall, if you do choose to let her text, tell her she has to limit it, and has to create a list of names for you of the kids with whom she'll text. Be willing to say, "Sorry, you can't text with X, she showed last year that she's just not able to text without being unkind," and then stick to that.

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