What if your child is friends with a grandiose narcissist and you see that related drama really gets to her. Do you stay out or offer some advice to help her sort it out? What are the pros and cons of living under a prom queen type friend’s shadow?
You have a thread asking if good looks will give your daughter an edge in college admissions. If you travel with people who expect to get mileage on their looks, drama comes with the territory.
I asked if good looks matter?
Good looks don’t matter in college,admissions because NO ONE knows what you look like when your application for admission is reviewed. The admissions folks have never met you…and never will.
But really…that reply belongs on your other thread.
Are you a worried parent…or a student?
I’m a parent and I was talking about interviews as I read a study about college professors giving higher grades to good looking females.
What if the interviewer is homely, will your student decide against attending that college based the interviewer’s looks?
If your child is struggling, the best you can do is listen. Is she asking for advice or does she just want to vent?
We can argue all we want but though not the deciding factor but looks does matter in job interviews. Heck, even good looking babies get more affection from others.
Any words of wisdom or any similar experiences?
@austinmshauri She was venting like kids do without wanting any solutions so I didn’t say anything but I can see its a continuous source of stress.
Looks matter less than value.
We started on the problem friend. When the prom queen type starts to overtake your own child’s value system, sure you can work with your own kid on this. But make sure you have the value priorities straight. Eg, not encouraging this friendship to be on the A-list, not assuming friendship carries some special weight just because that gal is popular or pretty- and that you need to fix or change that gal, to make things better.
I don’t believe in trying to change others. I was asking about how should I Handel this. Should I give some advice or just let her deal with the stress.
Hmmm, that’s different. If my teen was enduring continuous stress, I think I’d start probing. Has she tried to address the issues? If so, what’s working and what’s not?
My daughter recently had a dilemma because she wasn’t happy with how a friend was treating her. I listened for several months, then started asking what she wanted out of the relationship. She decided that if her friend couldn’t change her behavior that they’d outgrown each other and she wasn’t interested in continuing it. They remain cordial, but are no longer really friends. My daughter briefly mourned the friendship, but she’s much happier.
This thread is about negativity it adds to a kid’s high school life, not about admissions.
My D was friends with someone like that. I saw warning signs about this girl back in freshman year when they first met and did communicate those concerns to D. She didn’t argue with me and saw some of what I saw, but I think there was a pro for her in the relationship. This girl was a great social organizer and being “in” with her meant D was automatically in an active social circle. This was a benefit in that D was a top athlete with honors and AP courses and wanted a social outlet on occasion but although D was well-liked, pretty and popular in her own right (which was a plus for the other girl’s social life), she just didn’t have a lot of time to talk on social media or otherwise do the work of planning a social life. However, eventually the girl’s negative traits became more pronounced and then in junior year she got extremely jealous of D. Soon there were only really costly disadvantages in the relationship. Things got so bad D had to officially charge the girl with bullying at the school level. If D could re-do high school, I think befriending the narcissist would be one thing she’d change.
So I think you are on the right track to analyze what your D gains from the friendship, and see if she can either work to develop that quality in her own self, or find that quality in someone less toxic.
What are you going to do, tell your daughter she can’t have play dates with the diva? It’s high school. They work it out.
@austinmshauri This is exactly what’s happening. She doesn’t mind if her “friend” enjoys being center of the attention or pretends to be nicer and enlightened in front of others for praise but it bugs her if she tries to ignore her or put her down if it suits her.
I’m not sure why people are confusing this ‘clearly stated question’ with your other post, but in answer to it, here’s my opinion: I would definitely speak with my daughter, if I noticed her friends were pretentious drama queens. In addition, I would prompt her to find new friends, no matter how difficult that might be.
Those girls will never be true friends to your daughter. I would explain, at great lengths, what a true friend is…Someone who is there for you, in good and bad times, someone who tries to make you feel good about yourself, and doesn’t put you down, in order to put themselves above you etc etc etc
Lastly, I would explain that those friendships will become a detraction from your D’s goals because drama queens will work very hard to make your daughter unsuccessful, since thats the only way they continue to thrive. A drama queen can only be a queen when she has her minions there to follow her. Drama queens are self absorbed nasty girls, who only think of themselves, which is not where you want your daughter to be. Not to mention, that your daughter will also never get anything out of this relationship. It might appear that she will get to hang with the ‘in crowd’ but in truth who wants that? She will never be the girls equal, just a minion.
I would help her navigate the situation, sometimes teens see things in black and white and get overwhelmed with a situation and don’t know how to handle it. In Sophomore year of HS my daughter became friendly with a girl who always had drama surrounding her. It had nothing to do with looks, she was just always in the middle of or starting some drama. I let her vent to me and helped her see that to be embroiled in all this emotion was not a healthy place to be. She eventually came to the conclusion that there were better and more stable kids to get close to and now she is best friends with a lovely girl and has no patience for drama queens. I’m glad I helped her come to this realization before she goes away to college so she can make wise friend choices there. It is so important to stress to your child how to make smart friend choices now and in the future. I always tell my daughter to pick people who you feel comfortable with, can be yourself with, who listen as well as talk and who are there for you when you need them.
Also, don’t think that college admissions don’t check out your child’s social media and can see what they look like and what their pages have on them.
I would encourage your daughter to broader her friendships. Most kids find it hard to leave an existing friendship even if they don’t feel good about it, but if she can start hanging out with some other girls in addition to her original friend it will give her a bit of an outlet and buffer and if she decides this is a toxic relationship she’ll have someplace to go instead of feeling like she’d be friendless if she stopped hanging with Alpha Girl.