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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I only have daughters (and only had sisters too) and they are teens now. And yes in our experience most girls are at worst mean and catty and at best just not thoughtful. There are a few nice ones but they are very hard to identify and in high demand as friends. The remaining girls tend to be anti-social (want to read at recess, only want to discuss very limited subjects, don't want to hang out or do things outside of school, or the parents don't let them.)

I'm hoping college is a better experience for them.[/quote]

Your description of "anti-social" girls is off. That's just a girl who knows who she is and is okay hanging out on her own. Those are actually good qualities. It's just irritating to you during the awkward, anxious jockeying for friends that tweens engage in, because you want these kids to hang out with your kid, who may be less discerning about friends and just want someone to hang out with. Which is also fine, and can also be a good quality to serves her well..

But I'd like to discourage people from thinking that any child who doesn't hit it off with your kid or doesn't want to be friends with your kid is "mean" or "anti-social." Are you friends with literally every woman your age in your general vicinity? I am not. It's okay for kids to have preferences, to sometimes choose to be alone rather than play with someone whose interests are different than theirs, or to have niche interests that excite them even if it's not what everyone is doing.[/quote]

Fine. The point is - it’s not that easy to just “find other friends.” Plenty of girls are not even really looking for friends. [/quote]

Do you think you (or your DD) may be looking for too much in friends?

My tween DD has kind of a hodgepodge collection of friends in different settings, no really "friend group" and definitely no best friend. She's got 2-3 kids at school she likes and spends recess and aftercare with. Two are girls and one is a boy. I don't even think these kids are friends with each other, so DD kind of rotates through them. We see them occasionally outside of school but not that often, maybe once or twice a month (everyone is just busy with activities and other stuff, it's hard to coordinate).

She also has a group of girls in an activity she has been doing for years who she is very friendly with. It's not through school and none of these other girls go to her same school. She's actually never socialized with any of those girls outside of that activity. But she has a great time with them when they are together. In the last two years it's gone from a once a week activity to three times a week, so this is actually a lot of time with these girls. Some will likely be in the same MS with DD and I could see them socializing at school for sure.

Then she has a handful of friends who are really sort of like cousins. These are kids of our good friends who we've known since any of us had kids, and then we all had daughters within a few years of each other. Some of these girls are older, some are younger. They've known each other since they were babies. The dynamics are super different than friends she's met through school or activities, but in a good way. It's understood we are going to socialize with these families no matter what, so the kids have been highly incentivized to get along and like each other (so like cousins). We expect them to largely entertain themselves while the adults socialize, which also changes the dynamic in a good way.

So lots of friends, but not a best friend or a solid friend group or even really any friends who overlap with more than one sphere of her life. But it's enough socializing, she gets along with all of them, and she seems happy socially despite being an only child. The key for us is never expecting too much from any one relationship and letting these friendships be whatever they are naturally without pushing to hard to make them bigger or closer.[/quote]

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