Pre-teen Friends, How do I help my daughter survive? This is a small town, so she can't just find new friends.

Question

My 1st child is just entering middle school & over the last year most of her friends have turned into nasty, dramatic, back-stabbing, unreliable nutcases. These are girls my daughter has been friends with since kindergarten. One minute they are nice and the next they are spreading rumours, causing fights, gossiping, lying, and leaving others out. The problem is my daughter doesn't behave like that, AND she seems to draw more than her fair share of negative attention when there is a group of girls together AND I'm not sure how to help her cope. Don't get me wrong, she's not perfect. She can be lazy, messy, & smart mouthy to her father and I, BUT she doesn't treat her friends badly, or participate in the same kind of behavior I'm seeing in her friends. She always lets anyone join the group she's playing with, she never spreads gossip & is generally a very kind person. She's direct about her feelings and forgives others easily. She's confused when long-time friends treat her badly-HELP!

Answer 1

i was moved at my teen years and i hated it so much and rebelled.listen to your child, or teen ..i was in the sticks and missed all the sports and partying with my ol' friends.girls now days are so vendictive and hateful.they will smile in your face and scratch your eyes out when your not looking.Jeaulous that is it,they are jealous when they have nothing to say.best thing to do is find her something to do,horsebackriding,skating,art whatever she is interested in get her involved with something else to bid her time!!!

Answer 2

She'll have to get over it, sorry. We all go through it.

Answer 3

What is the name of your small town and what is the country you live in? What is the total population of this small town? Is it less than 500? If not, then you just have to start looking and you will definitely find a new group of people to be friends with. You may have to drive her to that new locality but it is worth the trouble. Thanks to your concern, your daughter will have a nice life. I think you are a good parent to find out this need for your daughter.

Answer 4

Sounds like normal girls to me. Don't smother her.

Answer 5

Look, take it from a p*****n herself, lots of people say, in Middle School, popularity can break up the closest friendship...it's true. This normal. This is going to happen in Middle School. Your daughter should just try to move and make new friends-and to make new friends, take her out to places more, take to places in the mall like Hollister co., Abercrombie Kids, Aeropostale, etc. they have cute clothes and tons of preteens shop there, she's sure to bumb into someone! And make sure she feels open with others. If people think she's gonna be all shy and stuff, they might be kinda weirded out so...good luck!

Answer 6

Get her a copy of "Queen Bees and Wannabes".

Answer 7

Don't worry about a thing! Trust me! Right now she feels like it's d worst thing that could ever happen to her, but it's not. She should be glad and relieved if she doesn't hang out with those type of ppl anymore. She seems really nice and so she isn't going to have a problem with making new friends!

The same thing happened to me. I was 11 when I entered secondary school (i live in europe), and all my old friends, which i considered as sisters since they where my best frinds since kindergarden, started avoiding me and telling me that they'd be somewhere, leave me waiting for half an hour and then i'd go look for them and find then somewhere else!

I'm gonna be honest, it hurt big time!

But now I'm 14 and when I realised that my company wasn't welcomed, I took the msg and moved on, made new friends.

Today I'm really glad that I took that step! I have far better friends than them!

TH GOLDEN RULE : Never hang on too tightly to friends, you always should be able to move on when the need arises!

Hope I helped, give her support and just tell her to go to new people, involve herself in their conversations politely and they'll love her!!!!

Middle school can be cruel, but it's up to her to fend for herself and it's like I say, Life's like a piano, it goes the way you play it!

TC!!XXXX I wish her luck! :D

Answer 8

I am in middle school too .I know what shes going through . I learned that you can't trust anyone .You need to get more independent as you get older .I got into many fights .I'm going to start cyber school .I think that i will learn to depend more on myself and focus more on my grades then who just dumped who . You will be on your own sooner or later and your job will matter a lot .In 10 years its not going to matter if so and so said that so and so did this or that . She will learn soon that the only people you can trust is your family .

Answer 9

"most of her friends have turned into nasty, dramatic, back-stabbing, unreliable nutcases."  Welcome to the land of puberty.  Just wait your daughter will begin behaving as they do shortly, she is just a little bit behind in pubecsing.  There really is nothing for her to be confused about.  You need to simply tell her that this kind of behavior crops up in girls going through puberty and that her time is coming.

Answer 10

Shes going to have to learn to deal with diversity and differences all of her life. If I were you I'd start by teaching the difference in people you want to be friends with and those you don't, and the reasons why. My daughter, who started middle school last year went through similiar problems. It got so bad in the school that they brought in a peer counselor and started anti-bullying tactics. It's the age. Hormones, maturity and the notice of boys will really make a young teen wacky all around. If you daughter is being treated badly, offer her supportive advice on how to handle all of this. Give her books to read about the subject and allow her an outlet on really bad days, like turning up the stereo to ear splitting volume and then singing at the top of her lungs.

Girls can be really cruel at this age and she will lose friends in middle school who may very well become her best friends again in high school. Tell her a few tales from your experience. Get her involved in some type of group where the focus is on a subject, such as voulenteering or debating, a book club or a sport. She may be able to make new friendships based on her interests as a pre-teen/young teen at a similiar level. It seems she and her friends are on different levels, so remaining friends with these girls will either push her to their level or cause her the hurt shes getting now. There has to be at least one girl who shares the same maturity and ideas as your daughter, she's just got to weed her out. It's a difficut and emotional time for your daughter, try to be there and be understanding...listen a lot and try to not pass judgement...kids tell you more when you understand, and you want to know, always, what going on. She's open-minded and accepts people...those are excellent qualities!!!

Answer 11

No they are just regular girls trust me girls will have thows relationships with their friends "i hate u i love u we are best friends but now i hate u agn" they will have new friends then hate them go back to old ones and change and gossip.

this is why people rather having boys

Answer 12

This is a perfect lesson for her: Friends aren't always true friends, so watch yourself.

Additionally, I'm a little concerned about your involvement here. Not only do you want to help your daughter "survive" (it's friends at school, she's not lost in the jungle), but you also call other little girls "nutcases" and believe that you need to take a hand in helping her make friends. Not only does this sound rather unhealthy, but how do you think she'll feel if her mom keeps butting in and making her life "better"? Do you think that kids won't continue to make fun of her? Kids do that, that's how kids are...but do you think that you, her mother, walking around trying to get her some good friends is going to make it easier? What kinds of life lessons will it teach her that if life is tough, mommy will take care of everything? She may learn to not put forth effort, or if she gets made fun of even more for your involvement, she may completely withdrawal from other students AND you.

SHE'S the one who needs to learn how to make friends, SHE needs to be the judge of who's a good friend. This is something for HER to learn, not for you to intervene. The most I suggest you do is offer to allow her to sign up for some kind of hobby. That way, she can meet other children. I can't stress enough how important it is for you to let HER choose the hobby. Not only will she not be interested in making friends at a place where mom forces her to go, but how can you expect her to develop into an individual if you don't let her pick her own hobbies? Maybe you wish for her to be in cheerleading, but she'd rather do karate or football. Let her.