Help DD in year 6 friendships need help understanding the exclusivity and manipulation!!

[Brighteyes27]

Help DD in year 6 and friendship advice required please. I have never been in a hurry for my DD to grow up too quickly and fortunately she has never wanted to grow up particularly quickly either so no particular problems until the last few weeks. She has always known her own mind and had a small group of like minded friends none of whom were particularly in the 'thick of it'. However, the 'in group' two very small (my DD is very tall) mouthy bitchy girls who go to drama classes and spend a lot of time on social media and being passed about between grandparents, mums friends, dads house etc seem to be at the centre of everything with a few girls on the periphery being selected to be part of their group but only ever occasionally and only ever on the outskirts. My DD's best friend is one such child who is selected occasionally and flattered leaving my DD on her lonesome. Anyway another child in a similar position as my DD's best friend has told a pack of lies about my DD in order to get friendlier with her best friend so I can see again DD left out. This other girl is a drama queen and goes round various groups of two's trying to split up the friendships. What advice would you give my DD or your DD in a similar position please? She still does guides with her best friend at the moment but isn't keen on doing much else and from the stories she tells me about most of the other girls in her school I don't think she's in any hurry to meet another friend. I want to tell her to sod the lot of them and their bitchyness but don't want her to be lonely. Also tempted to let fate take its course but she was worried yesterday as they have to choose two best friends whose class they want to be in at a big secondary school. I've told her we'll try and have more fun as a family (haven't had much lately as hubbie working loads of hours etc), she can join something else she is interested in and we can think of a plan together tonight to make things more fun for her help!!

[MattDillonsPants]

Firstly year 6 is awful for some kids and secondly I feel for you as your DD is obviously the sharing type! My DD barely told me anything about her time in year 6 thank goodness but this type of thing is very common I know from things her friend's parents told me.

I think you really can't do anything at all about it other than explain to DD that some girls have control issues...tell her that this often stems from them not feeling like they have much power elsewhere in their lives so they try to be the boss of their friends.

She can either ignore it all and just continue to be nice to all of the girls...take each day as it comes, or you can go in and speak to the teacher about it because to some extent it's verging on bullying when there is exclusion going on.

And here's the thing you say that you can"see" your DD being left out...but has it happened yet? Has DDs best friend told DD that she believes the nonsense this other girl told her?

Why not organise a bit of a bonding session for DD and her mate? SOmething nice?

[Brighteyes27]

Thanks Matt Dillon's pants. She seems to have had a better day today. She had a birthday sleepover about a month ago and only wanted to invite her best friend. It was lovely I took them bowling, then Pizza Hut and they came back to ours did some tie dying, tried a face pack, played board games & on movie star planet then they watched a film together it seemed very easy and nice. I just sense her BF wanting to back off and widen her social circle to include more popular girls. So I don't want to force them together too much at the moment for it all to back fire/go pear shaped. Plus from what my DD says her BF and the drama queen have been whispering about speaking on social media recently and have code names for each other.
I am going to have to offer advice and take a back seat I think as well as encouraging my DD to widen her interests and social circle as she is quite young for her age. Some are on about boy bands, dressing like teenagers, taking pouty posey photos, have their iPads in rooms until all hours and have hundreds of followers on Instagram whereas as my DD seems happiest crafting and rolling about in comfy clothes with our dog. Ah well what will be will be.

[MattDillonsPants]

Oh I know! It's shocking to me OP. My DD is now 11...she was the youngest in her year 6...we've moved to Oz and the kids here are a lot younger in their personalities. In her old year 6, the older kids were all talking about boyfriends etc...ridiculous!

As you say, better she's left to deal with it....perhaps there's another group of quieter girls in her class which she could get friendly with?

[Brighteyes27]

Thanks Matt Dillon. I've kept out of it but offered advice and a listening ear when she wants to talk but things seem to be very up and down with the popular girls calling all the shots, the less popular ones trying to manipulate those on the outskirts like mad and my DD seems to be able to see what's going on but seems to prefer to be on her own than pretend to be some bodies friend or someone she's not rather than tryin to try to have a shot of being with the popular girls or the less popular girls. Her BF is very up and down sometimes all over DD, at other times she prefers to go off with manipulative girl etc. DD really fed up with her today only wanting to know her when the manipulative girl isn't around.