<p>and a big second to yabeyabe2-- a great post that says it all.</p>
<p>D found a very small group of friends that she hung with … other nice girls like herself. They are all beautiful, smart, articulate young women of faith … but they’re nice, quiet (until you get to know them) and happy to be in small numbers. Sometimes they knew they were “left out,” but for the most part, they didn’t care. However, they were all – everyone of them – ready for college. They couldn’t wait for graduation and moving on. And, of the 3 or 4 girls I’m thinking of … they are all thriving at different colleges, with broad based group of friends, and men in the mix who find them funny and sweet. Just too mature for all the “drama/diva” stuff that went on in high school. Avoided it like the plague … LOL.</p>
<p>zebes</p>
<p>It is easier said than done, but true self-confidence (knowing who you are and what you value) renders one imune to 95% of the “mean girl” wounding. The “mean girls” only inflict harm one some to ingraciate themselves with other insecure girls.</p>
<p>Your daughter does not have to say it to their faces, but she has to know that the only reason they do what they are doing is because they are suffering internally from a lack of self-confidence. They are the ones to pity. If they don’t get self-confidence, they drink to be cool or smoke dope to be cool or engage in serial shallow relationships.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, she is in control of her own happiness.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, while you’ve been raising a nice, strong daughter, others have just been raising inconsiderate types (some might even be “mean girl” types).</p>
<p>Explain to your D that not all girls (and boys) have been taught to be considerate and respectful of others and of other’s time.</p>
<p>BTW…the reason that girls with lots of “male friends” don’t get asked out is because there’s no “mystery” there. The other girls are more mysterious, less familiar. That tends to be more “attractive” and sexy.</p>
<p>D seemed to have missed a lot of this mean girl stuff. She has had the same core group of friends since elementary school and they are all nice girls. Really. They also have a lot of other friends both as a group and individually. Maybe they are just lucky.</p>
<p>I have actually heard more complaints from D over the years about how boys treat other people (both girls and other boys). As an example, a popular “jock” had the locker next to D’s for 4 years of HS and he would not look at her, speak to her or in any way acknowledge her. How rude. She has never had a girl do that to her. The one and only time there was a rumor about her (it thankfully didn’t go too far) it was started by boy. The people in her HS classes who she described as rude and disrespectful (several examples) were almost always boys.</p>
<p>Of course she knows and is friends with a lot of nice guys, but she and I both think the girls aren’t necessarily the nasty ones.</p>
<p>I’ll never forget the girls who were my “friends” who just stopped talking to me once we got to 9th grade. I still haven’t figured that out! I guess I was too nerdy. I had two or three close girl friends, and then discovered that boys were much easier to get along with! I majored in engineering in college and loved working with all the guys. I STILL find it easier to work with men than women! So far, D in 6th grade is doing well, but I’ll be keeping close tabs on her.</p>
<p>yabeyabe: So, should we introduce them? lol…just kidding…not really… just kidding…</p>
<p>my daughter didn’t really have any good friends till 5-6th grade, then she had a strong core group of friends till 10th-11th grade, when she caused a split because she didn’t think her best friend in the group should have a boyfriend- and there were many misunderstandings.
It never did really get sorted, but she then befriended another group of girls and while it isn’t the same, she does have a few very good friends- unfortunately they are now on the other side of the country going to school.</p>
<p>Her high school didn’t have the kind of " popular/not popular", themes to the extent that the high schools of my own friends daughters did, which is one reason why she chose it in the first place.</p>
<p>When listening to my friends talk about their daughters travails, I would say to myself ( OMG I am so glad ____ doesn’t go there).</p>
<p>I think when the social energy of your school has that pattern of power struggles, it is like a vortex and hard to pull yourself away.</p>
<p>K-12 can be really hard, I changed a lot when I was that age, but my " friends" wouldn’t allow me to. It took getting away, to really be who I was supposed to be.</p>
<p>I would strongly agree that it isn’t just girls who have peer problems.
Boys especially boys of color at D’s high school fight against pressure just to graduate.
[Lost</a> Boys -](<a href=“http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/lost-boys/Content?oid=1572191]Lost”>http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/lost-boys/Content?oid=1572191)</p>
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<p>Exactly. Your daughter is doing the right thing, but I agree she shouldn’t let herself get stepped on. Perhaps there are other “nice” girls at her school that she would be better off with as her friends. I suspect that college will be a breath of fresh air for her, although I know that probably seems like a long way off. Hang in there honey!</p>
<p>I’m the mom of a genuinely nice guy. When his longtime girlfriend broke up with him, she was pretty “mean girl” about it, though ironically she had complained bitterly of mean girl behavior while in HS. He’s recovered nicely, and he learned some valuable lessons. I hope he finds someone like all of your “nice girl” daughters!</p>
<p>My daughter, like many of the above, is one of the nice ones. Additionally, she’s confident, pretty and accomplished. Because she wasn’t looking for validation elsewhere, she found a small group of intellectually-minded kids as her friend group. sHE’S HAPPY. i HAVE heard some stories of the mean girls, but what really, really shocks me are the mother attacks!
I spent a good part of last year totally befuddled by questions from “well-intending” mothers: Is DD o.k. now? Is she behaving better? Was it true she ran away?
These rumors were started by MOTHERS!!! Of course, it was easy to dispel, but nevertheless shocking.</p>
<p>I kept telling my nice D that that she would only have to put up with the nasty-girl stuff through high school. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Her freshman class in college seems to have a large number of what my D refers to as stupid girls. They’re loud, boy crazy, frequently act slutty and get drunk regularly. She likes a good party and is definitely not a prude. She’s at a small (< 1800 students) LAC. Is anyone else dealing with this?</p>
<p>I think the reason nice girls do not get asked out in HS is often that the nice boys are shy–they are not the ones who have been going to drinking parties since middle school or the jocks who think they are God’s gift. So neither the nice girls nor the nice boys make the first move and nothing happens (the story of my HS and college years).
I keep hoping one of my son’s friends will have a girlfriend who wants to fix up her nice friends, or at least hold a party with that agenda, but maybe this generation does not do that.</p>
<p>Rodney, when two girls from our HS saw my son at college visits and said Hi, and I had the temerity to say they looked nice, he shot me a look that nearly blew me back to New Jersey, so I doubt he would accept a fix up from me with Angelina Jolie’s younger lookalike sister who also had courtside tickets to the NBA Allstar game!</p>
<p>In my experience, it only gets worse. Try dealing with 40, 50 and even 60 year old’s who maliciously gossip, whine, and roll their eyes like they are still in the 3rd grade. Their bodies matured physically, but not in any other way!</p>
<p>When do people actually grow up?</p>
<p>D was self-reliant and self-knowledgeable but definitely on the social fringes in HS. A girl in one of her AP classes (a cheerleader dating a football player) once asked her, “Can’t you at least try to be normal?” By which, she meant conform to some of the ickier social norms.</p>
<p>D bloomed in college, including with that previously unexplored “leadership” thing.</p>
<p>====</p>
<p>Aspiring, have got to say: one thing I’ve got to say about the womens colleges, where I never dreamed D would attend, was that the boy-driven negative social behavior is largely absent, including the cattiness and the amount of alcohol consumed. Competition for male attention and excess of alcohol is an ugly combo, imho.</p>
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<p>I think that the small size of this school is the problem. It’s the size of their high school. These girls are treating it as such. If they were at a big school, they’d know they didn’t wield much/any power and they’d act better.</p>
<p>* HAVE heard some stories of the mean girls, but what really, really shocks me are the mother attacks!
I spent a good part of last year totally befuddled by questions from “well-intending” mothers: Is DD o.k. now? Is she behaving better? Was it true she ran away?
These rumors were started by MOTHERS!!! Of course, it was easy to dispel, but nevertheless shocking.*</p>
<p>My own mother is like this & she is ( counting on fingers) 76 years old. It isn’t age, she has * always* been like this.
Petty, Gossipy, thrives on other peoples misery, lies when it suits her and if you don’t know the latest horrible tragedy you soon will and if you are happy she will ask you about all the things that you should be worrying about. Loves Drama.</p>
<p>This is why it is SUCH a blessing that high school does not last forever. Please tell her that her wonderful qualities will serve her well. Son had similar issues in HS, but was somewhat inoculated because he was an athlete. College has been a different and excellent story. She has a new life starting in college. Then she gets to start another life in each workplace. Most people eventually grow up and come to cherish the very qualities she may be finding problematic right now.</p>
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<p>I think that the small size of this school is the problem. It’s the size of their high school. These girls are treating it as such. If they were at a big school, they’d know they didn’t wield much/any power and they’d act better. </p>
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<p>I just wanted to add to my above words…</p>
<p>At such a small college, mean girls “size up” the other girls (which is easy at a small college) and proceed to “annoint themselves” power. At a large school, where such a process would be impossible, this sort of thing is more rare.</p>
<p>I think it’s definitely the size of the school. My high school had close to 6000 students and it was the first time in my life since I started 3 year old pre school that people weren’t overtly mean to me on a daily basis. When the school is that big it is impossible to know enough people to consider yourself “more popular” than anybody else, and no matter how many people you meet that you don’t get along with you can still have a large crowd of friends elsewhere. That was why I flatly refused to attend a small university.</p>