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My daughters best friend is in band. Band almost ruined their friendship but that is a story for another day. The girls IN band are so mean to my daughters friend! This is the sweetest, kindest girl ever. Probably does not help that she is also beautiful. She does not realize how beautiful she is, but I think the other girls see it and the jealousy and vindictiveness comes from that point. I think a large part of the drama is because the general nature of band demands they are together all.the.time! Is band like that everywhere??! It’s ridiculous!
My own daughter is the nerdy type and her drama this past fall came mostly from being around the same group of nerdy/negative/sarcastic kids all day together in IB. When they weren’t together at school being negative/sarcastic and “emo” as the kids call it, they spent hours together on a group message bemoaning their workload and other world problems. It was a huge emotional time suck that really dragged D down. D withdrew from that group and it was painful and she was left out. But she also had more time to develop other outside friendships and to keep her grades going. She now has a strong friendship group of 5 and they are the most fantastic kids…I totally love them for the little family they are.
It’s funny, when D was young (elementary school) and I was looking around trying to predict the future girl drama, the glaring obviously groups like the cheerleader popular crowd was who I predicted would cause the most drama and heartache for D. That did not turn out to be the case. Those girls turned on each other frequently, but largely left everyone else alone!
It will get better but as a mom it is sooo tough to see them dragged along for the ride. YOU step in and be that friend to her. Show her the female kindness and companionship that she needs right now and it might be enough for awhile…enough to smooth her over at least. You can still maintain motherhood boundaries of course (i.e. don’t host a big kegger at the house in order for her to make new friends lol!). But starting a new Netflix series (Gilmore Girls!) and some fun Friday nights together will ease up the pain a little bit.
@HImom - my experience was the exact opposite. My parents made me go to the local U where 90 percent of my very small HS class went. Joining a sorority was the best decision I made for myself during college. I got myself away from that toxic HS crowd, made new friends with shared interests, and participated in campus life in ways most commuters don’t. Greek life isn’t for everybody, but it made college for me.
Yes, I think the key is staying agile and finding new friends and groups when you are in a toxic situation rather than simply trying to endure or trying to be a pretzel to please others who find arbitrary reasons to be cruel.
There is no ONE answer, but each individual has to find what works best for him/her, which is why I gave the examples of the groups I evolved through to find my comfortable place.
Wow, this brings back memories. D1 had a close group of friends from 3d to 7th grade. These were not the “popular” kids, but they were joined in late elementary school by a popular wannabe, and she became the queen bee of their little group. The queen turned against D1 toward the end of 7th grade and successfully persuaded the group to ostracize her. Worse, that summer for the first time she attended the summer camp that D1 had gone to for the past 6 years. D1 started camp a few weeks into the summer, and by the time she got there, none of her longtime camp friends would talk to her. I have no idea what this kid said about her before she got there.
D1 wanted to invite the queen to her bat mitzvah in the fall, but to be honest I was in no mood to pay for a meal for her! I asked D1 why she wanted to invite her, and of course she was hoping this would revive the friendship. I asked her if she would ever treat a friend the way she had been treated, and she said no. I then asked her, if the queen turned around and started being nice, if she could ever really trust her again, and she said no. She decided to leave her off the list. I also used the experience to point out that it’s much more important to watch what people do than to listen to what they say.
8th grade was a tough year. She had these kids in every class, and for a few months was stuck sitting with them at lunch, too. She did gain some confidence going to a sleepaway camp that summer (and I cannot advise you strongly enough to talk to parents of kids who have gone to the camp you are looking to find out if it is cliquey) -I think she realized that there was nothing wrong with her, and that she could make friends.
This ultimately turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to her. She entered high school open to new friends and experiences. I think she would not have grown in the way she did in high school had she stayed in her comfortable group of friends. But boy, was it hard to watch!
Hearing all these stories makes me wonder what we can change about our society to make females more supportive of one another. We seem to see them as an unfortunate rite of passage. Do mean girls and queen bees exist across the globe and in all cultures?
I have to admit that reading this thread has made me feel very sad. I had a really nice group of friends in HS and the same in college. D had the same experience. I remember very little/ no drama among my friends and D experienced a little, but very minor. Someone upthread mentioned dance, but D was on both the studio team and the HS team and the girls were lovely and are still good friends.
I like to think that my own (positive) experiences are the norm. I find it sad to hear/read stories where such nice girls have such negative experiences. Like doschicos, I wonder why this is and what can be done to change the culture?
My 17-year-old daughter got into social drama after we left for a cruise two weeks ago. It got so hostile that she had a panic attack and ended up in the ER. Argh. I have always called her my sunshine, so it’s devastating to me that she is struggling with anxiety now. 
She SAYS she’s fine now, but she said that when we left, too. It scares me to think of her going OOS to college.
Thank you everyone who has replied. This conversation has also left me a bit sad, but at the same time somewhat comforted to know that my daughter isn’t the only one going through this. I think the most interesting thing to me is that the girls who are being bullied are usually the “nice” ones, for lack of a better word. My daughter would do just about anything for her friends or family. I really think as a mom I need to work on helping her lose the impulse to just be “nice.” Respectful and polite, yes, but I’m starting to think that the “nice” factor is just working against her. I just went out today and bought “The Curse of the Good Girl” by Rachel Simmons and have found it fascinating so far. I like what HImom has said about learning to be “agile” in friendships and learning when to let go of toxic ones. As for my daughter, she turned in her paperwork for the DC trip yesterday and did indeed select the queen bee as one of her roommates. I didn’t mention this, but the rumors last year were spread during a band trip to Disneyland, where my daughter was also a roommate with the queen bee. I will wait on pins and needles the whole time she is gone. I’m hoping that by the time she goes in June, I will have been able to help her work on being more assertive and less of a “good girl.” Again, thank you everyone. The compassion that you have all shown me has been wonderful. And that is what I wish for my daughter.
Reading this makes me so grateful my 7th grader is in a really small cohesive dorky stand alone class of 60 in MS right now. I actually got misty talking to another mom about how I feel like they have escaped what could have been hell for many of them.
I always let D know that challenges can make us stronger if we learn and grow from them. She’s a very, happy, self confident young mid-20s woman with an amazing, eclectic mix of male and female friends.
Just wanted to add…don’t let yourself get sucked into their rollercoaster ride. I seriously can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten all worked up, lost a nights sleep, was convinced that D’s world was horrible and everyone was horrible and then POOF…within a day or so she’s rocking all along and has forgotten the drama!
Of course every time a new drama comes along I do tend to get sucked in a bit. It’s hard not to!
This reminds me of this:
Two “girls” (let say girl A and B) and one (boy C) “boy” had been close friends to each other. It was pure friendship and there was no romantics in the relationship.
One day, when C started to show some romantic interest in another girl (D) but he was a little bit hesitant for whatever the reason it may be. C (the boy) always respects A’s opinion (he thinks she has more life experience and has a lot of wisdom because of her life experience) and he asked A whether the girl D will be “good fit” for him (before he started to ask D out.), A’s advice to C: “Why not give it try and she may be good for you.” Later, A told B about this, and B became upset about it. B and A unfriended each other for several months at least.
After everything is said and done, D is no longer in the picture, B and C becomes a couple, and A keeps some “safe” distance from both B and C. These 3 could no longer hang around with each other so frequently, like before. (They used to be quite close to each other. But after two of them become a couple, the third one kind of have been “excluded” or she prefers not to be around when B and C are together.)
It is apparently who is the victim here.
This happened even though no one made up or spread any untrue rumor in all these events.
@carachel2 that has proven to be a challenge for me, as one of the girls who ousted my daughter was her very best friend since they were little. I’d always jokingly called her my “second daughter,” and it did hurt me personally do “lose” her, too (I never expressed this to my daughter, because I didn’t want to make it worse for her). I don’t think I’ll ever let myself get too emotional or attached to my childrens’ friends again. Lesson learned.
@mcat2 that situation has me wondering if B didn’t like C the whole time, and just never told anyone.
@TempeMom I wish my daughter had a school like yours! When she was in elementary school, there were just 60 of them and they treated each other like family. Her junior high now has about 800 kids, and it’s brutal. I’m really happy for your daughter:)
@MaineLonghorn I know what you mean about the anxiety. My daughter had never had a panic attack until last year, when the whole “mean girl” situation happened. I’ve never felt more helpless than when my daughter was calling me on the phone while she was crying and in the throes of a panic attack. I hope things get better for your daughter.
Did you mean that “that situation has me wondering if B liked C the whole time, and just never told anyone.”?
If this is what you meant, I think it is more likely that only after C had tried to pursue another girl (D), B started to realize that she likes C, but never before that. The relationship before this event happened had been good for many many years (at least 3 years.) So the only plausible explanation is that B herself did not know she likes C all along.
For SOME people in the hormone raging years, the BF/GF relationship could be too important to them, to the exclusive of other relationship (regretfully, occasionally this relationship is above even the parent-child relationship, and hopefully this is a temporary phenomenon.)
Not long ago, a CCer here posted that her D was very reluctant to do her own laundry at home and magically she was happily doing laundry for her new boyfriend for just a few months!
@mcat2
I guess I thought that because A and B unfriended after A gave the advice to C to go for it with D. I was just assuming that B perhaps was mad at A for making C unavailable.
Small classes don’t make close friendships, in my experience. My eighth grade graduation class had 13 kids in it and my high school class had 42, and we sure didn’t treat each other like family. In fact, the older sister of one of my classmates couldn’t believe how nasty people were to each other.