She's my best friend ... but am I her's?

I am at a loss as to what to do with my daughter who is in year 8 and am feeling desperately sorry for her. She was severely bullied at primary school and she opted for a bigger all girls school hoping that it may give her more options for friendships. In her first year I think it went to her head all these girls to be friends with, and frequently missed homework, on top of that she was off ill alot with asthma and then gastric migraines which made her physically sick. She was sociallising a lot, discovered boys which then started leading to vicious verbal attacks from girls. She also unfortunately made friends in her class with this girl and they became ‘best’ friends. Until…this best friend was mucking about and threw a folder at her which my daughter threw back and it hit this girl in the face. This girl then accused her of being nasty and throwing a folder at her, giving her a back eye and then went round telling everyone my daughter was being nasty, to which the pack mentality started and the girls ganged up on this other girls side!!! That was just the start, they would constantly fall out, partly due to this girl calling my daughter names, some of which I don’t think a child of 12 should even know, really nasty words, and my daughter would get upset and react back. It got to a point over the summer where I banned my daughter from inviting this girl over. All was well through the term until they fell out again last week and this girl is accusing my daughter of bullying her, which I find incredible after what she’s put my daughter through and can not see how vicious and nasty she’s being. The huge issue is this girl has now manipulated people into believing my daughter is bullying her and is taking her so called friends away from her which is making things worse. My daughter is NOT bullying her and when they sat down this girl could not give any examples of bullying, my daughter could, the least inocuous name that she’s been called is fat, big feet and a whore! She has such low self esteem that it worries me.

My daughter is so upset and now thinks everyone hates her and she has no friends. She was in floods of tears last night and wants to leave school and never go back. I don’t know what to do anymore, and I don’t understand how this girl can manipulate all these girls to be on her side.

I agree that these girls are cruel. They use the less confindent girls to catapult their own popularity by making fun of them. There is a neighborhood girl that was my daughter’s friend, and we treated as if she were part of our own family for years who told my daughter she was a home peep (friend) not a school peep once she started attending my daughters school in 6th grade. By 7th grade she would prank call our house, ding dong ditch us, tell kids at school not to be friends with her, and much more! The sad part is we were friends with her parents and when we tried talking to them about it they said she was just going to be a “mean girl”, and all girls act this way! I was so disgusted, how could these people not care that there daughter was so hurtful. There are so many current news stories of teens committing suicide due to bullying, I would never have the unconscionable indeciency to knowingly allow my child to do this to another. Even worse a cheeerleader moved in,and now her and this other “mean” girl are friends. The parents are a huge source of these things going on. They care more about their daughters’ popularity than humane decency. I wish we could move so my daughter wouldn’t have this thrown in her face every single day, but I know it’s everywhere and will just be a never ending vicious cycle due to these type of fake, heartless, narcissistic people.

I totally agree and sympathise – and as a parents its so painful to watch! and very difficult not to get emotional. I would love to be able to tell my daughter that they are not doing it on purpose but sometimes you do have to tell them not to trust or share confidences with friends if they use the information to attack at a later time? I lose so much sleep and become ill worrying about my daughter and cannot wait for her secondary education to be over – she has lost so much confidence that she no longer speaks in school! Who can help?

I think the advice was very helpful. It is very destructive to encourage our daughters to be mistrustful of friends by believing that friends have bad intentions. There is no way to ever be sure of other people’s intentions,so it’s always best to teach our daughters to believe the best in people. Everything that was commented on is so paranoid and to burden ones daughter with this is really dangerous. We want to help our daughters have honest trustworthy friendships and to have self confidence and a solid sense of themselves. There are so many kids who lack the tools they need to succeed socially and when given the opportunity to offer a valuable life lesson a mom should never waste it, but only be wise and offer helpful esteem producing solutions.I’m disappointed in adults who do things that are immature, ineffective and only deflate their daughter’s confidence. Daughter’s are sponges, ladies! Be smart,you have a golden opportunity for a valuable life lesson. Dont screw it up!

I agree with much of this advice but I am afraid I disagree with the hopeful suggestion that “they are simply being thoughtless rather than trying to make her unhappy”. In my limited experience, based on my daughter’s time in Year 8 in a very academic girls’ school, such behaviour is often not at all thoughtless but deliberately calculated to make those in the “in” group feel stronger by ousting or excluding someone perceived as weaker.

They may not realise how unhappy they are actually making her, but girls at this age can be extraordinarily cruel and behave, in a pack, in ways which as individuals they know is unacceptable. Of course, the cleverer and more pressured those girls, the worse can be the behaviour.

But a wider circle of friends, and a variety of interests, are certainly the way forward! Good luck.