DD being bullied- REALLY need advice
 

Pre-emptive apology for my ranting/pleading request for advice/help/empathy below... Ive kept this all in and need to "talk" about it before it consumes me....

My DD11 is experiencing mean girl culture 101 at her school - to the point that there is a bullying investigation occuring and sadly, even the one friend she felt was a real ally (that word was explained to her by her therapist and I too believed this girl was an ally) has turned her back and seems to be creating drama daily for DD...

I am watching DD handle things as best she can but it is breaking my heart for her...

The "best friend" (of many years) and a girl that DD spent time making a lovely bday gift for a few weeks back has taken to asking DD daily "are you mad at me?". DD tells her no and then tells me she's "afraid" if she says yes, that the "friend" will be mad at her.

Finally DD and I practiced how to nicely tell the friend how she felt and how her behavior was making her feel and that same night the friend called DD to say "you're following me around a lot and I need my space- can you leave me alone? Hope you won't be mad"

Since then, DD has been DEVASTATED. And I have tried to help her identify other kids she can connect to. As she has done this (vs pleading for the friend to hang out with her), the friend has upped the mean girl game...

I can say, completely unbiased despite being her mom, that DD is the sweetest girl that exists. She goes out of her way to care for others, she is kind, sweet, a loyal friend, empathetic, fun etc...

And she has been a target almost non stop for weeks of a few "popular girls" and it seems that because she has not crumbled, and continues to be a nice kid, they are expanding the circle of influence and now impacting her friends too and she's starting to crack because of it.

I am at a loss as to how to help....

She reminds me SO much of me as a kid and young adult-- took crap endlessly, tried to please those who were mean to me, stayed kind through it all, hoped constantly someone would treat me well if I kept treating others well. And it never really happened....

I am watching her react to bullies the same way I did and seeing her hurting daily, more each day, is more than my heart can take :(

Does anyone have any advice? She was publicly shamed by this group of girls a week ago (teased for her hair and told she looks like she doesn't belong in our family bc she is blonde and the rest of us are dark haired) and then "voted out" of being "allowed" to sit with the "popular girls".

Today her "best friend" made plans to sit with her then at the 11th hour ditched her to go sit with the bullies.

I don't know how to help ease her hurt and I am finding that my panic (internal- not letting her realize how I feel) about worrying that she is setting herself up for a lifetime of being bullied and abused because of her nature and how she is constantly willing to give assholes another chance, is just overwhelming me...

Those of you with girls or boys who've been through this stage (middle school) of life with your kids-- does anyone have wisdom to offer? tips?

Im out of ideas... Ive tried to not give advice, tried to listen, tried to love her, empathize, and I just see that a light is fading in her and that her self confidence is crushed... and it wasn't high to begin with...

She has also said, and this is important to add, that she doesn't understand why "everyone" treats her this way and has referenced that her dad targets her more than her sister (true) and that kids are mean to her and that her sister has tons of friends and gets invited places all the time (true) and she doesn't (true) and that she wants to know what is wrong with her....

My mom point of view here is that her "cohort" of girls in her grade are just NOT a nice bunch. They've been catty for years and she's had one good friend and that was enough for her... But now that friend is being a jerk and DD 11 just feels totally alone.... And I HATE for her that bc of her jerk of a dad, she feels like kids are mean to her bc of something that is wrong with her :(

I was a victim of bullying, too, and it does suck. I always had a couple of good friends, though, and by the time I got to high school I became part of a different social circle--never one of the popular kids (highly overrated, IMO), but pretty much smack in the lower-middle rungs of school society.

But for me, Junior High was the absolute worst. Kids that age have the power but haven't learned the empathy (lots of kids, anyway). My "mean kids" mellowed out a whole lot by HS.

Are there maybe some outside activities you could get her involved in, that involve kids from other schools? Something maybe she's good at, that would allow her to earn a place with other kids who share the same interests? Sometimes just having that other outlet for socializing makes the lack of social life at school more tolerable.

She is an athlete and does sports at her school and is in a music program in the community... The "best friend" is also involved in those activities with DD11 and it's just keeping DD from connecting with others... Small town, limited social circle....

DD has become quite the stand out athlete and I think that it has surprised her and made a few of these "mean girls" jealous or maybe resentful...

It's crazy, but it's almost like the fact that she is a nice, smart, great athlete and very pretty kid who is just nice to EVERYONE, makes her more of a target... The kids who are jerks to others seem to make out better...

DD has to have her tonsils out soon and Im half tempted to schedule the surgery sooner than later to get her out of school for a while and away from the crap.

Have you tried talking to "best friend's" mom? Or any of the parents of the other kids?

It's really tough. I was a really "nice kid" too, and treated everyone nicely. Sometimes I think that gets interpreted as weakness.

Is there any kind of anti-bullying program at the school? Organizations like this one--Kind Campaign--come into schools and do presentations.

No, no, it's absolutely nothing she's done or didn't do. She's awesome. Don't change. Middle school kids are just brats sometimes. Some of them grow out of it by high school; others double down.

I can't do what your daughter wants, which is to give advice on how to make her former friend magically her friend again. I can share my big regret from my own experiences with bullying. I was the kid who would come home and cry about how "everyone" hated me and "nobody" wanted to talk to me in middle school, the kid whose friends invited everyone to go see a movie in high school and showed up at the theater to discover "everyone" had coordinated other plans in secret.

But that wasn't quite true, and I honestly didn't realize it at the time. One of the first and worst ways I got teased after switching schools to Sparkling New Middle School was that every interaction with a boy I had, other girls would be on "Do you like him" and versions of that. Since I like people in general but have absolutely zero social awareness (and back then, it was probably in the negatives), those boys were also the ones getting bullied. My reaction--this is so painful to write--my reaction was to shun them. I didn't want to get teased, so...I did what the mean people wanted even though I didn't get along with them as well? So weird to think about in retrospect, but that's just what made sense.

Needless to say, the boys in questions have all turned out to have really great lives, we're Facebook friends, I've apologized for what I did back then...but we'll never be friends, and I'll never undo what choosing to keep pursuing the mean people did to me in high school. (I am not really in the "it gets better in high school" camp, unfortunately.)

So maybe, cast her net more widely when looking for friends? That's probably tough advice to hear. It probably would have made me really mad back then. But that's what I wish I could tell my grade 7 self.

I didn't experience serious bullying, but I was an extremely nerdy, introverted girl who was younger than the other people in my grade and therefore often excluded from popular-kid stuff. The thing that saved me was reading - I went through book after book about kids like me (or adults like me) who weren't part of the high-status in-group, but who had something much more important going on that wasn't immediately obvious. A Wrinkle in Time is great for this, if your daughter is into fantasy books - it's pretty old but it's classic. I identified more with characters from books than I did with the grade eight social dramas.

I also found that it gets easier. By the time I was nearing the end of high school, I had a tight group of equally bookish, nerdy friends and we're still friends a couple of decades later. It takes a while to find "your people".

I'm usually not that keen on tweens spending lots of time on the computer, but perhaps on the internet your daughter could connect with other kids in other places who share her interests (with parental controls on her usage, of course)?

I'm not sure there's much point in talking to the other kid's mom, unless you know her pretty well - too much potential for mom drama to add to the kid drama. (On the other hand, if I found out that my daughter was "voting out" other kids from lunch tables, she'd be grounded for, well, the rest of her life).

Hi wtbh. My heart started pounding just reading your post. I have a 12 year old daughter who struggled terribly last year in school. Dropping her off in the morning at school felt like I was sending her into combat. She is an only and very sensitive, so she was an easy target for teasing. She is also very tall so she physically stands out. Her best friend transferred out of the school two years ago, as her mom was a teacher who was let go during a staff reduction. That mom, who had taught the class told me that it is a very difficult class (it is an all girls school). And all the queen bee/mean girl dynamics are already in play.

I spent a lot of time talking/reading books with my daughter. The one thing that has saved the day was getting her involved in an activity she loved away from the school. She rides horses so we joined a barn close to home and it has been a godsend. The other girls that ride there are from various other schools in the area, and she has made the most wonderful, down to earth, happy and kind group of friends. The difference today (she is now in 6th grade) from a year ago is staggering.

The interesting thing is that the situation at school has not really improved that much, but she just doesn't care so much. She has become passionate about horses and her confidence has grown because she feels loved and accepted by a group of girls that in my opinion are fine human beings.

I talked to her a lot last year about Eleanor Roosevelt's quotes like. " great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people". I acknowledged that what she was going through was painful and offered her the concept that these situations even exist as an adult woman for me. But I continually urged her to not get bogged down in the muck of meanness and smallness. We talked a lot about what would drive someone to hurt other people and the fear based mentality of girls who were followers. There are some really good books out there. I did talk to the counselor at school but to be honest they seem most interested in just keeping the peace.

I admire my daughter's integrity, and i think she has a lot of inner grit. She got teased a lot because I rescue stray cats and apparently this is not in vogue. She is very empathetic and vigorously defended these animals. We had a lot of discussions about how being different is a sign of confidence and how we could buy pedigree animals to check a box, but in reality standing up for any living being that can't defend itself is a brave choice.

I would continue to keep her focused on the long game. I hate to say it but I think a lot of times the mean girls are byproducts of a household that is tolerant of unkindness. There were a few times that my daughter felt accepted by someone and I caught her lapsing into meanness and I reminded her of what it felt like to be that girl. And I do think jealousy plays a role. I continued to remind my daughter over and over that no one exceptional is going to come from being a mean person or a follower. And while I was sympathetic to her day to day plight, I tried to also keep her aware of the immensity of the world, significant women in history, and the fact that she needs to keep her chin up and stay true to the values that she knows are right.

I am so sorry, as it breaks your heart. My dd24 is a 4th grade teacher and she sees bullying every day. It makes her sick how mean kids can be. Last year she had 6 mean girls in her class, they were pulled out once a week by the social worker for counseling, because they were so bad. It was horrible, not sure if it even made a difference.

I hope you have spoken to the teacher, principal, social worker, and if you have to the superintendent. I would keep all lines of communication with her open so she can discuss everything with you. She needs to have someone she can trust.

I had a friend who was a principal/superintendent at a junior high, and he told me at that age kids are vicious. He said "If your kid get out unscathed, then you are good." How sad is that, and he told me this about 15 years ago, so nothing has changed. Remind her that in high school there is more diversity and you are less judged for who you "are". Hang in there mom, you are doing a good job!!

I agree with Jaynie's thoughts about finding some good role models to look up to. A lot of female "heroes" were not the popular kids--they were the ones who were different, who got picked on and laughed at. As awful as some of those experiences in school were, and as much as they hurt at the time, I think ultimately it made me more empathetic and strengthened me in many ways.

It's also interesting for me to see people at my HS reunion. A lot of us nerdy kids on the fringes wound up doing some pretty amazing things with our lives, while a lot of the popular kids wound up being, well, let's just say I wouldn't trade places with them today.

How involved is the school?

My DD was bullied at school. On the advise of her counselor, we switched schools mid term b/c she was self harming and her life was horrible. The switch was a great thing for her, she did really well, and because it was an odd time of the year to switch, she got some extra looking after from the counselors/teachers.

I also agree, get her involved in some activity that involves children from other schools/places after school. And, make sure the school is taking action, and seek assistance from the counselor.

Hugs, many hugs to you and your DD!

I come from the camp of taking bullying very seriously.

So so sorry that your daughter is going through this. I went through similar myself and the experience left some emotional scars, however, I do think I'm a stronger person for it now in many ways (not that this helps her at the moment ).

One book I'd recommend is 'Bullies, Big Mouths and So Called Friends 'by Jenny Alexander. It's a very good book with lots of practical tips and suggestions, plus questions for reflection. I've used it a lot with my tutor / class group and with smaller social groups over the years. Lots of the kids then asked their parents for a copy of their own, which is why I recommend it now.

I hope things start getting better soon.

Bb

Oh yes. Did you ever watch Daria? ? She rocked! I loved Darlene Barr as well. Lol. No wonder I was such a pain in the butt!

^^This.

What IS it about this age with girls?? DD went through this in the 4th grade as well & it was awful, terrible, felt-like-it-would-go-on-forever bad. It all started seemingly overnight - when DD was given the lead in that year's play & her "friend" didn't handle it well at all.

Her friend also did that push & pull thing - inviting her places because she really did want to spend time with DD, and then tearing her down when other girls were around to see or when she was feeling "less-than". We talked a lot about how bullying has nothing to do with the person being bullied & everything to do with something "off" inside the bully herself and a LOT about how this all feels like forever to her right now, but it's going to equate to about 20 mins of memories over her lifetime. I remind her still that these years seem like forever but they are just a flash in reality - that a lot of it is just about surviving past it with your focus on just learning until you can get the heck out of high school.

She learned that nothing drove her bully crazy faster than not getting the reactions that she was wanting from DD..... so the more she tried to isolate her or feed rumors about her, the less concerned or even aware DD acted about it all. Eventually she outed herself with escalating behaviors & the school had to deal with her without DD ever getting her hands dirty. After that, bully left DD alone completely but if she tried the same with others while DD was around, DD would confront her & stand up for whoever was getting picked on.

I did not talk to the bully's parents except to refuse an invitation for a party or something - I just told her mom, no thanks, your daughter isn't kind to my daughter so we are not comfortable with her attending x-y-z event. She was stunned at such an honest & (I'm sure) unexpected response.

Ironically her bully was given the lead in the following year even though DD was a shoe-in for it & had earned the role. The play was a disaster from the first rehearsal and the performance was a struggle and every kid that had participated in both made it a point to tell DD she'd been robbed & how they wished she'd been leading them again. All that showed her a bit about the "bigger picture" like I had tried to explain to her - but I know that year felt like 10 in her little world at the time.

(((((BIG HUGS))))) for both of you - this stuff sucks.

Wow! you have gotten lots of great suggestions! I have an 8th grade DD 14 who hasn't seemed to experience much by way of bullying, but has surely seen it. My DD14 is especially sensitive to bullying as she lost a friend and team mate at the beginning of the school year to suicide due to bullying - all the schools in our area were already in a big "kindness" push and that really has amplified the schools efforts. Bullying in middle school seems to be an old, old problem though as my DS17 told me once that "even the bullies get bullied in middle school" when ask in response to a school survey.

Since your DD is athletic and enjoys her sport, is it one that she could perhaps "mentor" some younger kids or are there older girls in the sport(s) who would consider mentoring her? At this age / grade level - a lot of these kids need "service" hours for various groups they participate in so it could help her or an older girl to "do something." In our town, the animal shelter is a place middle school and high school kids can do service hours and if that is available to your DD (or something similar) it might prove to be something that could be of interest to other girls / boys her age and class and become a "pet" (pun intended) class / grade project and might be a way to re-form old bonds or create new bonds.

I also agree with the others who have said that some times it takes a while for these kids to settle into their "tribe." My DD's friends were all the same when she was in elementary school but in middle school several elementary schools moved in together so to speak, so her group of friends has evolved significantly. I try to be as "present" as they will allow me to be so they all know I care (and that I will call them out if they are misbehaving!)

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

Aw, you know, I still cringe when I think of some of the things I used to say and do that were less than, as you so tactfully put it, "socially savvy." I finally GOT savvy, but it took me till about 10th grade to get there. None of it seemed natural to me, and I had to consciously make the effort not to come off as too "different."

My older son struggled the same way (younger son very socially at ease). I used to tell older son that it's FINE to march to your own drummer, but sometimes the consequences are that other people will not relate. HIS problem was that he not only wanted things his "different" way, he wanted others to go along with whatever his current passion was.

Actually, one thing I learned later in life (as in, several years ago) is that I sometimes come off as thinking I'm superior to other people. It took me a long time to realize that, and it was a bit of a shock (because that's so NOT how I feel--most of the time, anyway), but apparently I was projecting that. So it's something I now try to be very aware of, and I think I've made progress in that area. It sort of goes along with the general lack of social savvy. I wonder if she ever makes the other girls feel like she thinks she's above them? Just a thought...

I have wondered the same-- I had some mean girls say that to me when I was a high schooler (I think) and was STUNNED because what I was, was insecure, afraid and tried to keep to myself.... And because I did not engage in the backstabbing drama, that somehow made me seem snotty? I see SO much of my cringeworthy younger self in DD 11 and I do not want to dissuade her from being herself....

I am amazed by her and proud of her for being a kind kid -- she's the one who sits with the kids being left out of group work in class and chooses to work alone herself at times vs. work with kids who are goofing off. She has a work ethic second to none and is nice and pretty and an athlete and the teachers choose her as the student of the month pretty often and all of these nice things make her a target... She is oblivious to all these positives and thinks negatively of herself more than anyone I know and then the mean girl crap on top of it and she just feels so low so often...

It's this weird mix... she is ok with herself, but feels she is "less than" and then kids are mean and she feels like they confirm for her what she already feels about herself-- but she is also oddly ok with herself...

Im probably not making sense... It's hard to describe...

I do think that because she does not have 2 sh*ts to give about the typical middle school girl world, those whose lives revolve around gossip and petty banter DO probably look at her negatively...

Such a horrid age...

Her track season just began and her Math/Sci teacher who is her running mentor of sorts emailed her tonight about a running hero of DD's that she (the teacher) saw at an indoor track meet last year-- so at least the night ended positively with DD feeling like an adult at her school "gets" her if not the kids...

Sigh... And when I try and talk to DD about how to be true to herself and still sort of navigate the social world of Middle School, she gets irritated with me for trying to "make her" be something she isn't...

Can't blame her for being annoyed but damn if I didn't wish that I could keep her from feeling hurt...

Im finding myself anxiety ridden at work daily each day wondering how DD's day is going and worried about what bullying BS is coming down the pike ....

:(

From what you're describing, it really kinda seems like this is hurting you more than it is her. Yes, it hurts to be left out and to have people who you think are your friends suddenly shift alliances. OTOH, if she has other parts of her life where she's happy and productive, this may just be one of those painful parts of being a kid that gets better as the other kids mature a bit. It would be more concerning if this was her whole world, but it sounds like it's just one piece of it. I'm not trying to minimize, just kind of speaking from experience. She sounds like a really terrific kid. I have a feeling she'll come through this OK. You're a good mom.

I think I might be minimizing how devastated she's been (bc unfortunately she is also like me in the brief moments of meltdowns and then feigning all is ok but showing in other ways it's not at all ok) because Im not sure I can handle accepting fully, how much she's hurting.

This one "bff" has been her SOLE friend for years... She kind of keeps to herself and does lots of activities and has lots of aquaintances, but she has resisted developing friendships w others because in her child mind she and this "bff" would be as close as they once were, forever... Its been a long time coming what's going on now, and add to the friendship changing, the very real bullying that went on a week ago and it's just a lot.

To her she feels like her friendship world doesn't exist and I worry most about the fact that she truly seems to think there is something wrong with her that is making people act as they are... Any suggestions I make to branch out and get to know other kids, is met with anger and sadness... It's a mess.

She just asked me if she could come to my school with me tomorrow and if we could move to the community I teach in :(

Her sister, in the midst of this all occurring, has been invited to go away with a friend for the weekend and DD11 tried to invite a friend to come sleepover (has made several invites) and has had no bites... So it's making all the other stuff just hurt more...

Im sure Im rambling because I am trying to not think too deeply about all of it because my heart is breaking to see her so hurt...

And even though I deal with Middle School girls in my day to day job every. single. day and help them navigate this stuff, I seem to be totally, clueless about how to help my own child...

It IS hurting me a ton to see her hurting so much and Im trying to hide how pained I am for her bc I know that won't help-- so instead I guess I am letting it all out here...

The poor kid without my knowing, texted the MOM of the "bff" today to "apologize" for being "rude" and running from the car this am and into school to get to work on her quiz.... The mom, instead of assuring my daughter that it was ok, just replied like 5 min ago and said "Thank you for apologizing DD11, I accept your apology".

It's one thing to apologize if she had done something wrong, but Im seeing her apologizing to people to try and appease them to make them be nicer to her and it's making me want to cry and scream all at the same time...

Are you certain the other kid DIDN'T feel blown off? I'm not trying to blame your daughter, or make her responsible for other people's feelings, but sometimes we inadvertently do hurt people's feelings, and in that case there's nothing wrong with an apology for the hurt, unintentional though it may have been.

Unfortunately, BFFs aren't always "F." Cliques and social circles change, and so do friendships. It's sad that she is being rejected by her former friend, but sometimes the only solution for kids, as with adults, is to move on and find new friends. It's a hard lesson to learn, but we will wind up dealing with rejection in life. Coping skills are something we all have to learn eventually.