Thanks so much for ALL the amazing input....
I think I, maybe more so than DD, want this to stop so that it does not hurt to see DD hurting.... She has an AMAZING connection with a teacher who is sort of mentoring her with her running and taken her under her wing so to speak and DD spends every morning before school w this teacher vs texting and gossiping with the rest of the girls in the cafe.... Again, making her a target....
DD has pointed out that while she will stand up for anyone, she knows a lot of girls don't want to because being "popular" matters more to them than being nice...
She's a young 6th grader at only 11 but she's wise and I think that sometimes that makes her a target too.
She also isn't the most savvy socially-- today rather than hanging with her one time "bff" (whose mom is the grown up equivalent of a mean girl and I keep my distance) DD literally RAN into the school so as to not be late to make up a quiz due to being out sick half of last week. The result? One time "bff" told the lunch group that DD sometimes sits with that DD "blew her off" and DD left lunch in tears after she was torn down by the group.
All the "rules" of social stuff are a bit lost on her at times... She's there to be a student, an athlete and a good kid... Juggling the management of the social stuff just seems to be too much for her and she seems to be inadvertently making herself a target because she isn't invested enough in the social contract so to speak...
I will definitely be checking out some of the book titles some of you mentioned and it's comforting to just read that a lot you understand where DD and I are coming from....
Thank you as always <3