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[quote=Anonymous]This happened to my DD in 7th grade as well. The group didn't totally exclude her but more and more DD was focus of their criticisms, their teasing, their mean girl ways. And this was sort of a "popular girls' group" so DD was terrified of leaving it or calling any of them out on how they were treating her.  They also tried to isolate her, make fun of her if she was nice to or talked to other girls.

DH and I really had to talk to DD about how middle school is hard for EVERYONE, this sucks, and these girls are NOT actual friends.  Friends don't treat anyone that badly, and certainly not their inner group friends.  But DD struggled to figure out who else to eat lunch with or talk to in classes, as she also found herself dressing differently from how she wanted to, because they made fun of some of her choices.

We encouraged her to join some different after school activities at school from her friends, told her to blame us for making her go, and that helped a little. Also tried to do new activities or one-time events DD was interested in, which also helped a little, but none of those solved problem.

In end what worked was mostly us telling DD over and over that 1) these girls' meanness was not DD's fault, and the meanness doesn't mean anything is wrong with DD. The mean girls are the ones with something wrong with them.  And 2) she'll never win if she stays with them, the meanness will just get worse, and she'll feel worse about herself when it's not even her fault.

What also worked was watching several tween/teen dramas with our DD, I remember "The Perks of Being A Wallflower" was one, it's definitely got some adult themes in it but it showed just how complicated tween and teen behaviors are, the roots of some of those complications, and that and other films with strong themes of how you have to be yourself, and shine as much as you can as yourself, and look for people who are drawn to your real light, not the fake light of fake friends.

And yes, we showed her the Blind Melon music video for "No Rain" with the Bee Girl. Probably showed it to her more times than she wanted to see it, but it became a family joke and the song made her very happy when played strategically.

In the end she decided to break with them, and I will never ever forget the call I got at work in middle of day, my daughter calling me crying, alone in an empty classroom with the lights out that she'd snuck into to eat her lunch alone because she no longer wanted to eat with them but she had no one else to eat with and was afraid if she ate alone in front of everyone, she'd look like a loser to everyone.  My heart broke but I was also SO PROUD OF HER.  I told her this was brutal and so hard, but so the right thing to make the break, and she picked the next most interesting person in one of her classes to try to sit with, they started talking, and DD eventually admitted she had no one to eat lunch with and the girl invited her to eat with her friends, who were considered way less cool, but they were so nice and DD finally got a "f*** it!" attitude (without saying the F word, of course LOL!)(no, we let her say it in that context).  She didn't feel good or happy or settled into a new friend group until mid-8th grade, but it did happen.

Middle school is ROUGH, and sometimes high school is even worse.  Because the stakes are higher in high school (romance, popularity, all magnefied in importance in HS) but it's all rough.

Good luck OP, I hope your DD protects herself and gets out of that friend group soon![/quote]

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