Reply to Tweens dropping one friend from the group

Forum Index » Tweens and Teens

Reply to "Tweens dropping one friend from the group"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It’s never right to push a person (especially a longtime friend) out of a group without some type of communication.  If they can’t articulate why they don’t want to be with this friend, then they know they’re wrong in doing it and must accept the “mean kid” label. Deliberate hurt is just cruel.  [b]Encourage at least one person in the group to reach out to the excluded one with a gentle reason.[/b] There is something there prompting the exclusion.[/quote]

I'm not sure this is true, PP.
Would you rather have your daughter do a slow fade "sorry, Larla...I'm not available" to a girl OR have her say to the girl "Larla...you're getting more and more awkward to be around and you say embarrassing things around boys and have a really weird sense of humor. You brag so much about your high grades and test scores that it's almost insufferable--yet you don't seem to pick up on all the eye-rolling when you do it. It's just annoying, so I'd just rather hang out with my other friends."
While the statement of fact may be the truth of why DD doesn't want to hang out with Larla, is it necessary or helpful to be so direct? I actually feel like explaining it would be MEANER than just doing a slow back-away.  It's not as though "enlightening" Larla is somehow likely to cause her to become less awkward or boastful about her academics. And why make Larla feel bad when it could just be that's who she is?
And maybe DD doesn't completely despise Larla. She just doesn't want to hang with her like she did in elementary school. It happens. But it isn't a reason to make Larla feel bad about who she is.[/quote]

Yeah I agree with the PP here. The stuff in bold is a bad idea because if one friend reaches out as a representative of "the group" to tell why "they" don't want to hang out with her anymore, then they are claiming the Mean Girls vs. Larla status. At this age, what would a "gentle reason" be anyway? Bottom line is that Larla will still hear "we don't like you"--and that isn't gentle at any age.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics