Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here: My daughter’s group is also (like pp) the “popular” girls group. Not only are they popular, but really liked. My DD is worried she would turn into the “weird kids” if she said anything to the group leaving her out. I really don’t know how to help her, because she has been crying every night but is too scared to do anything.

What does it mean to turn into a "weird kid?" What would happen to her if others perceive her as "weird?" Is she treating others as these popular girls are treating her?

No, she’s talking in her friend groups perspective as “weird” (hence why it’s in quotes) These girls are very very judgy, and my DDs worried that if she says anything she will be next to be judged. I’ve told her not to care what others think, but I get that from her side it’s very hard to not care as a 13 year old teen girl.

I’m so sorry. This happened to me in middle school, and also happened to my son. In both cases, our social experiences in high school were good (reasonably happy, have friends, some dating etc).

Middle school is notorious for this type of thing. You’ve gotten a lot of good advice (other than the advice to talk to the instigator’s parents- no no no do not do that)

I’d pass along the good advice you received, but also kind of accept that this may be a rough rest of the school year. Which really sucks. But many go through it and come out fine on the other side. As a parent it is really really hard to watch.

High school usually changes things quite dramatically UNLESS it is a small high school where the social scene may not mix up enough. If that is the case, consider a different high school..

Anonymous wrote:OP here: My daughter’s group is also (like pp) the “popular” girls group. Not only are they popular, but really liked. My DD is worried she would turn into the “weird kids” if she said anything to the group leaving her out. I really don’t know how to help her, because she has been crying every night but is too scared to do anything.

What does it mean to turn into a "weird kid?" What would happen to her if others perceive her as "weird?" Is she treating others as these popular girls are treating her?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here: My daughter’s group is also (like pp) the “popular” girls group. Not only are they popular, but really liked. My DD is worried she would turn into the “weird kids” if she said anything to the group leaving her out. I really don’t know how to help her, because she has been crying every night but is too scared to do anything.

So she wants to be treated badly by the popular kids more than she wants to find nice friends who aren't popular.

She has made her choice.

Not really- she’s worried everyone already has their own friends

Anonymous wrote:OP here: My daughter’s group is also (like pp) the “popular” girls group. Not only are they popular, but really liked. My DD is worried she would turn into the “weird kids” if she said anything to the group leaving her out. I really don’t know how to help her, because she has been crying every night but is too scared to do anything.

So she wants to be treated badly by the popular kids more than she wants to find nice friends who aren't popular.

She has made her choice.

OP here: My daughter’s group is also (like pp) the “popular” girls group. Not only are they popular, but really liked. My DD is worried she would turn into the “weird kids” if she said anything to the group leaving her out. I really don’t know how to help her, because she has been crying every night but is too scared to do anything.

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!

This sounds like bullying, honestly.

OP: have you called the school’s guidance counselor ?

Same PP ^^ When I say "model sympathy" I don't mean for QB, I mean OP's DD, sympathy for herself. Try to help her to go as easy on herself as possible and to understand that often we won't understand why other people are mean, but it isn't usually truly about us and even if it is, doing what QB is doing is all about QB's issues and not about DD.

Anonymous wrote:Can’t you call the mother of the girl who’s excluding your daughter and ask her to stop doing that?

That's a terrible solution. It doesn't help your daughter learn anything about how to cope with mean girls and rejection, something EVERY youth is likely to face at some point and the earlier they learn how to deal with it, the earlier they can keep honing their skills and learning how to handle the social pressures, learn that Queen Bees and worker bees like her now ex-friends are not really responsing to your DD... whatever made QB exclude her (usually jealousy or feeling she's a threat or just plain old meanness and need to feel "better than") is 95% of the time not actually anything the person on receiving end of QB's exclusion and meanness did.

This isn't about trying to tell QB's parents to reign in their child. Plus, most likely, QB learned these behaviors from her parents, so it wouldn't work anyway.

This is about the hard stage that almost all middle schoolers (and then high schoolers) are in: awkward, non-sensical social situations that hurt, are confusing, feel damning forever, but are what most people the same age go through at some point and are a learning process to get through, survive through, and learn how to thrive. Learning self-care and how to understand behaviors you don't understand.

Good luck OP, and please don't call the QBs parents, that is a waste of time and not what you want to model for your DD. Model self care, sympathy and focusing on her own happiness, like all the suggestions here to find new activities outside of school, look for new friends, and find people who make you feel good when you're around them.

The answer is to encourage new friendships and older ones, participate in lots of activities, and meaningful family time with siblings and cousins if she has them. Good luck to you. Hugs.

Sorry. It's a tough situation.

We made sure to fill free time with opportunity to meet other kids like non competitive sports, tween/teen yoga, baking class, tween events at the library. This gave DC something to do with kids their age. Also encouraged building family relationships with distant cousins. Those relationships were easier, but not local. Make sure you are making weekends fun if they can't hang out with friends.

Things improved greatly in high school.

Anonymous wrote:Hello all,
My kid is in the 8th grade, and she has been doing pretty good until now. One of her friends started randomly excluding her, and making sure she knows that she’s being excluded. Aside with other small problems, this has taken a toll on my daughter’s mental health, and grades. I know middle school friends are hard, but is there any way that I could help her with this? Anything I could say to make her feel better?

This happened to my oldest in 7 th grade it was so hard

She found her people in college

I’m
Sorry OP

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The best thing you can do is be proactive about supporting new friendships. Drive DD and friend of her choice to a fun activity, host hangouts etc.

The friend who has been excluding her got the rest of my DD’s friends on her side. It used to be only 1 person, but it seems the whole group is now excluding her. They make it very obvious as well.

Has she tried one on one hangouts with some of these friends?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The best thing you can do is be proactive about supporting new friendships. Drive DD and friend of her choice to a fun activity, host hangouts etc.

The friend who has been excluding her got the rest of my DD’s friends on her side. It used to be only 1 person, but it seems the whole group is now excluding her. They make it very obvious as well.

She needs to branch out and find new friends, unfortunately.

This. It sucks but there is nothing else you can do. You can’t make a-holes not be a-holes.