<p>I have always taught my D to treat others as she would like to be treated. She calls friends when they are ill, invites everyone to her house, waits for people in the halls of her school.</p>
<p>I see a change in her this year (she’s a senior). She tells me how “friends” don’t wait for her, have nasty comments, don’t always invite her…and her confidence is waning. </p>
<p>This is a young woman who was always so confident growing up and I thought of as a born leader. Now she says she worries before she speaks that someone will say what she said was “stupid.” and basically has come to “not trust any of her friends.”</p>
<p>I think she’s just “nice” a bit early. Her attentiveness will be really appreciated in coming years.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, it’s important not to an “enabler” of nastiness. When this issue started popping up with my D, I told her “find friends that appreciate you.” She didn’t find that very supportive, so I added “And if you choose to continue hanging around with people who don’t appreciate you, I don’t want to hear any whining about it.” After that she found better friends.</p>
<p>I’ve found that girls’ attitudes shift and allegiances shift so rapidly that I’ve always tried to make DD focus on what she can control - herself. Because of that, I haven’t pushed her to be a “leader,” as such.</p>
<p>I’ve encountered the self-editing you mention, and it really worries me. I’ve pushed her to keep improving herself: “when your friends are being jerks, go educate yourself, read a book, exercise, whatever.” She seems to take this advice pretty well.</p>
<p>I think there’s more of this in HS than in college.</p>
<p>questbest: Girls like your D, who are thoughtful, generous, and kind to everyone will sometimes be thought by the high school crowd as “too nice” or a pushover, or perhaps even needy. It also might be assumed that they must be a little stupid or naive for placing the needs of others higher than their own interests. “It’s all about me” for many teenagers, and so they don’t understand why it wouldn’t be that way for your D. Her kindness might also make others feel bad or guilty because they know they wouldn’t do the same if the shoe were on the other foot. It then becomes easier to reject your D as “stupid” than face up to the fact that they just aren’t as nice or generous as she is. </p>
<p>I think a lot of nice girls drop that persona as they grow older, because niceness is not rewarded in certain environments. For example, women feel they have to be cut-throat and competitive in the business world now to be taken seriously. The women that I know in business complain that women will stab each other in the back in a heartbeat. Unlike men who help each other, women will very seldom help another woman succeed. As far as the school environment, I’ve complained on CC before that teachers often reward immature girls with their time and attention. The drama queens, who put their own needs on the public front burner, do get what they want. And what is a drama queen if not a self-centered, immature person? What’s hard to understand is why teenage girls also reward these sorts of girls. They are quite popular–more than the nice girls like your D.</p>
<p>I’ve posted on CC before about my D’s social issues. One thing that has hurt her is that she is nice and humble, in addition to being smart and athletically talented. This unfuriates the jealous types, because they’d love to be able to say “She’s smart, but she’s arrogant,” or “She’s talented, but she’s conceited,” or “She’s good at X, but she doesn’t bother to help anyone else.” If they could, then maybe their envy wouldn’t be so powerful. But when they can’t truthfully say any of those things, they become extra angry and then, look out. D has been lied about, for example.</p>
<p>I don’t know if this is a comfort to you, but no, you’re not alone in this.</p>
<p>your daughter is very lucky that it took until senior year for her to see this in her so-called “friends”; my “nice” daughter has dealt with this crap and drama since middle school (and in two different school districts)…definitely a common girl thing; you are not alone…</p>
<p>Yes, yes, yes. Started in middle school, and it’s still going on. Oh, you are referring to our daughters, not about us.:)</p>
<p>My approach is a bit different. I tell my daughters to be nice and considerate to her friends. If they are not nice back, then they are not friends, and there is no reason to be nice. There is always a group of girls who are bullies. The prey on the weak and nice. I tell my daughters that they need to be able to give it back as good they get it. After a few rounds, those bullies would usually back off and find someone else to pick on.</p>
<p>D1 tends to be a ring leader, so she’ll try to find ways to get back at people and still be BFF with those “nasty people.” (she said if she stayed mad at them, there would be no one left) D2 tends to be more straight forward, she’ll just cut people out of her life if she gets mad enough, and there is no going back with her.</p>
<p>I tell them to have respect for themselves and not allow people to treat them badly. In any relationship, it takes 2. To be treated badly, one has to give permission.</p>
<p>I only have boys, but both of them have seen this happen with the girls in their groups of friends. Both of them, along with most of their other male friends had the same reaction. They stuck by the nice girls. One or two of them may have dated the others for a short period of time, but for friends, they stuck by the nice girls.</p>
<p>lololu: funny you should say that; my “nice” daughter has alot of male friends…but no boyfriend…the guys at her school gravitate towards the other kind of girls for dating…</p>
<p>Nice does not trump nasty in High School. That’s why so many great kids CANNOT WAIT TO GET TO COLLEGE. She will make many friends when she moves on into the big world. Just encourage her to stay true to herself and hang in there. (maybe channel her good nature in volunteer projects not related to school?)</p>
<p>My D went through a real change in regards to her friends her Sr. year. She really felt as though spending time with the girls she had been tight with since the 6th grade had become a habit and that she no longer had much in common with them. She saw the way they treated one another as well as other girls and was really put off by it. Even though She knew who she wanted to hang with instead she experienced a lack of confidence when it came to hanging out with those kids.</p>
<p>Having me to air her concerns with was helpful to her…she did start spending more time with the people she wanted to be with and things improved as the year went on. About April, all of the seniors became tight again for the last times together but from Dec till then she had a hard time socially.</p>
<p>Now a frosh in college she is having an easier time making friends with like-minded and goal oriented girls and guys and her worries of last winter are history.</p>
<p>Just want you to know your D and you aren’t alone and it’s actually quite a common thing for our kids to go through.</p>
<p>rodney, please tell your D to be patient. Those HS guys who want to have fun with the other kind someday will grow up and will desperatley look for the nice ones to marry.</p>
<p>I have 3 girls, I ALWAYS stressed the “treat others as you would like to be treated”. My oldest got trampled on in HS because of it.My 14 year old I am encouraging a similar approach UNTIL you get stepped on/taken advantage of. Boy has it changed the outcome. She confides more than my oldest did, so I am able to coach her thru the horrible girl garbage that they all come across if they tend to be too “nice”. Now she truly sees the overt manipulation some of the girls will do to trample another. I keep telling my girls, the same exact girls went to school with me its just they got face transplants. Personalities are the same just the names are different.</p>
<p>“funny you should say that; my “nice” daughter has alot of male friends…but no boyfriend…the guys at her school gravitate towards the other kind of girls for dating…”</p>
<p>That was the STORY OF MY LIFE until college, when all of the sudden I had more potential suitors than I knew what to do with. o.O It was like night and day and the change still baffles me, it happened so abruptly I never could understand what changed. I found a great guy second semester of my freshman year though and I think it’s for good. :)</p>
<p>My daughter is another one of the nice girls who survived the girl nastiness of high school…the so called besties who only looked out for themselves. I think senior year in high school is the worst for some reason and it improves tremendously in college.</p>
<p>Like many of you, I raised her to treat others as she wants to be treated. I honestly admire her alot because she’s a kinder, gentler soul than I could ever hope to be. She believes strongly that the good will come back to her in some way, karma if you will. DD works with children with disabilities so her passion suits her temperament. And yes, she too tends to attract boys who are just as nice as she is.</p>
<p>Having had a boy and a girl, I can tell you that girls are MUCH nastier to ther girls than any but the worst male bullies are to other boys–and at a much earlier age. I think part of the reason is that boys know that, if they cross certain lines, they will get hit.</p>
<p>Alpha girls define themselves by who they can pick on and exclude. Does your D have better grades or boards, or broader ambitions thn they do? That can cause it–but nasty girls will also look for the wrong color of shoes to cause pain.</p>
<p>As for boys not dating her, I can tell you that my son, despite being an athlete, very nice to everyone and (we are told) very good looking, gets no attention from the social girls, who seem to gravitate to the boys who drink, use girls and mock people.</p>
<p>NJ schools all talk the talk of teaching tolerance, anti-bullying, etc, but Milburn is not the only one which failed miserably to do so.</p>
<p>Mother of an only son reporting in. These kinds of nasty “friend” relationships occur among the boys as well. It happened to my S, thankfully in 8th grade as he went into enough of a tailspin that the report card reflected it. We finally gave him the option of talking it out with us or a counselor. Well, he took another approach. He talked to us about it a little bit, and then started to branch out to a new group of friends. Fast forward to today and he’s a well adjusted, respected senior. He even “made peace” with some of the earlier “friends” who dissed him, AND even did an introspective and wrote his main Common Application essay partially about it.</p>
<p>Read “Meeting at the Crossroads”…a great book, about adolescent girls, mostly younger than the OP’s d-- the authors followed a number of girls from childhood through adolescence and found they were nearly disabled by their own ‘niceness’-- I learned so much from it, beyond what I can even explain here. It’s one thing to be kind and thoughtful and empathetic, another to let others walk over you and girls (my d at least) have a hard time finding that line. She was being bullied so badly last year,(freshman in HS) and I read the book over the summer and found myself being more supportive of her assertiveness, even when it was a bit less than graceful…it was the beginning of a new confidence for her, and that helped her pull away from mean ‘friends’ while she became closer to her true friends. This was all so subtle it’s hard to describe it… but do read the book.</p>