<p>First year of middle school - 6th grade here - was the worst for my D. “Best friend” from years 1-5 decided she didn’t want to be friends anymore. Girls can be so evil.</p>
<p>I remember promising myself, at age 12, “If I grow up and someone offers me a million dollars, and all I have to do for the money is just re-live the year of 12 again, I will say NO.”</p>
<p>Wow, and once again CC parents have all sorts of great advice to offer; thanks! The ice cream idea sounds promising…or maybe having them come over and help make cookies (apparently my siblings’ friends like my cookies 
Although I’m not sure whether they’d have the attention span…)</p>
<p>I don’t really have any particularly bad memories growing up…I guess I was either blissfully unaware at the time, or I’ve just blocked it out of my memory. Either way, I had a great core group of friends, and maybe I just got lucky?</p>
<p>After talking with my mom tonight, the main thing that’s bothering her is that this apparently isn’t the first time M has done this sort of thing before (turning the girls against either my sister, or someone else in their class) Hopefully it’s something that will pass in time…</p>
<p>Thanks again for all the advice and suggestions =)</p>
<p>^That’s an amazingly manipulative little kid.
Hah, thanks! This definitely would qualify as one of the stranger topics!</p>
<p>By the way, I would probably have qualified as a mean kid. I out grew it at some point, definitely by middle school.</p>
<p>Remembering reading Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye - eek! </p>
<p>Note to OP…be careful about getting the girls together in odd numbers. It can lead (in my experience) to one being left out. If you’re going to be very involved in what they are doing, maybe not such a big deal. If you leave them to play amongst themselves, watch out.</p>
<p>What a great big sister you are to help little sister resolve this in a positive way for all.</p>
<p>I second mikasauntie on the even/odd issue. Just like cats, girls do best in even numbers.</p>
<p>Everyone has given excellent advice, as usual.</p>
<p>I admit it’s been a looong time since I had a first grader so I’m wondering if I’m off-base by being disturbed by the teacher’s actions here - singling out a birthday child to sit with the teacher at lunch is a nice idea; having the child select ONE friend to share the honor?? To me that’s setting up a potentially harmful situation, such as what happened to the OP’s sister.</p>
<p>^I agree. In my D’s elementary school, birthdays were celebrated by the birthday child bringing in a cake or cupcakes which were shared by the whole class.</p>
<p>Inthebiz - you beat me to it, but I think the teacher is setting these kids up for this stuff. At that age, little girls have different best friends every week and they usually work it out, but to force the issue is asking for trouble. </p>
<p>I was a mean girl in elementary and middle school too and I grew out of it. Now I’m the nicest person I know and if don’t agree, I will make you sorry you didn’t.</p>
<p>I agree with Inthebiz, Sequoia, and cartera45. It sounds to me like the meanest “cat” in your little sister’s classroom is the teacher, who is either a total idiot with zero insight into the dynamics of little girls’ friendships, or is a narcissistic sadist who gets a kick out of instigating social and emotional turmoil among her young students. (I vote for the latter, and yes, I am assuming the teacher is female, because a male teacher would be unlikely to pull such a stunt.)</p>
<p>My advice: </p>
<p>1) Tell your little sister that the teacher was the primary cause of this problem. Explain why.</p>
<p>2) With your parents’ permission, help your sister write M a note, sincerely apologizing for breaking her “pinky promise” to M, and by doing so, publicly humiliating M and hurting M’s feelings. (Your sister’s note will be read by M’s parent(s), who might then persuade/pressure M to cease her vendetta against your sister.) If M does not accept your sister’s apology (and your sister should make just one apology), then urge your sister to dump M as a “friend.”</p>
<p>3) Do not involve the teacher (for obvious reasons); however, get the parents involved. Your (and your sister’s) parent(s) should contact M’s parent(s) and the parents other girls involved, and explain that this problem was created by the teacher’s inappropriate birthday party policy. M’s parent(s) and the other parents can then discuss this matter with their daughters.</p>
<p>4) Hold off on an organized (reconciliation) get-together until M and the other girls cease their vendetta against your sister. Your sister shouldn’t be forced to keep company with mean girls, and mean girls shouldn’t have their bad behavior “rewarded” with ice cream and cookies.</p>
<p>5) Tell your sister to avoid exchanging another “pinky promise” (whatever that is–I’ve never heard the term) or any other sort of promise with a friend/classmate. Also, tell your sister that if she makes future promises, then she must always intend to honor those promises (even if she no longer wants to do so), and she must never break promises for any but the most serious reasons.</p>
<p>6) Urge your sister to make friends with boys. (This is the advice I have always given to my daughter, and it has always served her well.) As mathmom and Sequoia suggest, boys are more honest, up-front, straightforward, and easier to get along with than girls.</p>
<p>Best wishes to you and your sister. And–from one June 20th Baby to another–Happy Belated Birthday to your sister.</p>
<p>" boys are more honest, up-front, straightforward, and easier to get along with than girls"</p>
<p>Until sex rears its head. Then all bets are off.</p>
<p>To barrons: I hope your post was tongue-in-cheek. If not, then I assure you that well-mannered girls can always be good friends with well-mannered boys. Ladies and gentlemen can enjoy each other’s well-mannered company–in all personal and professional settings–at any age.</p>
<p>TimeCruncher, yikes, re post 31: that’s pretty hard on a teacher who chooses to spend her only free half-hour of the day with kids instead of catching her breath.</p>
<p>Other motivations other than nefarious:</p>
<p>School policy requires teachers to avoid being alone in a room with just one kid. </p>
<p>Kids may have a better time in the company of an agemate friend than all alone with a teacher. Some kids really clam up when alone with their teacher. </p>
<p>Teacher can include students with summer birthdays.</p>
<p>In general, there’s a lot of training in social skills that is part of teaching First Graders. Basics such as: if I play with X, it doesn’t mean I stopped liking Y. Everyone has to learn to share, and even share their friends with others.</p>
<p>The one I’m scared of is M’s mother.</p>
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<p>I’m with you. When I read the post from the OP regarding her mom’s perception of M, it concerned me. I suspect there’s something going on in this little girl’s life that has caused her to behave this way. She is somehow being either implicitly or explicitly rewarded for her manipulative behavior if she keeps doing it.</p>
<p>I might suggest treading somewhat carefully around her until you get a sense of what kind of family life she has. Honestly, you could end up being a positive influence in her life if she has no good female role models around.</p>
<p>Speaking of M’s mother. One year we had a bullying problem involving a 2nd grade girl. She was getting kids to carry her books among other charming activities. It was bad enough that it ended up being discussed in a PTA executive board meeting. It turned out that when the girl’s mother was approached she thought there was nothing wrong with what the girl was up to. She thought she was showing signs of leadership.</p>
<p>When my daughter played club volleyball, most parents didn’t like this unwritten policy, but to me it was completely understandable - Parents need to write the checks and stay at home. In many cases, the parents are the biggest problem.</p>
<p>timecruncher–you must live in a different time. Have you actually kept up with what most kids and older teens including college students are into these days? You can start with the “hook-up” culture. And spend a few hours at an American Eagle store or the like. Even hookers would think twice about wearing much of the micro skirts and low low short shorts they are selling–mostly to 13-18 year old girls.</p>
<p>To barrons: Hmm… a different time. Well, my minuet days are behind me, and my musket and butter churn have seen better days, but my daughter and I still fire up the Model T and go out for a drive every Sunday. Seriously. I was born in the 1950s, grew up in the 1960s, entered college in the 1970s, and started my career in the 1980s. I’ve moved twenty-two times in the past thirty-six years, and have lived on the East Coast, on the West Coast, and in the Midwest. I’ve lived in semi-rural small towns, small cities, and big cities. I’ve crossed paths with many people–and many different kinds of people–during my fifty-five years, the past eighteen and a half years spent as the parent of a daughter. My experience has been that people don’t change all that much, despite superficial generational differences in language, clothing, hairstyle, and pop culture preferences. I’ve never bought into the Everybody Does It viewpoint, because I know from experience that “everybody” doesn’t “do it,” whatever “It” happens to be at a certain generational time or place. Having said that, I still maintain that when it comes to honest, up-front, straightforward friendships, boys and men succeed where girls and women fail, and until little girls (those of the ages mentioned by the OP) are socialized to be honest, up-front, and straightforward with each other, female interpersonal conflict of the sort experienced by the OP’s little sister will continue. I also maintain that most people are ladies and gentlemen. Human decency never goes out of style.</p>
<p>Most parents have no clue what their kids are really doing.</p>