dd accidentally accused girls of serious things they never did

Think about how you would feel about someone who made an accusation against you, that you hardly knew. Would you feel like making up with them or would you feel wary enough to stay clear?

I think this is just going to have to be a learning experience for your DD about not believing things without evidence. The discomfort will pass for her as things settle down and it won't be long before these girls aren't in her life anymore.

We all make mistakes, especially when we're teenagers.

What on earth is all this bestie nonsense 🙄

And some people would be satisfied with that. Others wouldn't. I assume she's already explained her BF role anyway, so I don't think it needs hammering home. Her BF did wrong, but who knows if she had also been 'misled' by rumours about the girls? Its often a very tangled web of she said/she said and she's young, jealous and threatened.
My point, DD shouldn't encourage scapegoating of the friend and risk sparking a witch hunt. Its just more drama and nastiness. If she wants to apologise, do it unreservedly for her own error rather than 'she made me do it'
The facts are out there and everyone needs to make their own decisions on how to go forward and who they trust. Your DD should also not seem too desperate. Hopefully they are nice girls, but if not, that can be exploited. Just let it lie now.

I think she probably needs to start again and work on new friendships. Could she join some clubs etc over the summer? The bestie clearly has issues. This is really confusing for your daughter. But always watch others actions not just their words, real friends will show you.

My DD had a situation not too dissimilar during last year’s summer holidays. ExBestie made stuff up and stirred shit between DD and 3 others and then proceeded to act like the victim, typical DARVO.

On their return to school (into Yr 11) DD had no idea if she would have any friends. DD was her usual cheerful self, didn’t gossip about the situation and was polite to exBestie when in her company and absolutely did not say anything bad about exBestie. The first few weeks were rough, exBestie ignored DD, spoke over her and “chatted shit” about DD endlessly and to anyone who would listen. By half term (7 weeks) the other girls were fed up of exBestie and she had shown them all who she really is. By the end of term exBestie had moved on to new friends.

I’m so proud of how my DD handled the whole situation: head held high, polite, friendly, unwilling to gossip and slander. During the holidays I kept DD busy and encouraged her to keep up contact with all of her friends.

Girls can be such bitches, overthink everything and put their own slant on situations.

The girls have been acting weird around her; we are on holidays now and they snap her less often and replaced with surroundings instead of their usual selfie.

Good on the girls to keep your dd at an arms length, that's the way to do it. Your dd accused them of something very serious and caused them pain and drama. These girls have graciously accepted dd's apology but do not and will not eve trust her again. The best your dd can hope for is distant but polite treatment from the girls she falsely accused. This ship has sailed, encourage your dd to move on and branch out. You come across as single minded hoping that these girls will accept your dd into their circle. I'd tell my dd to be polite and civil but stay well away from your dd in this situation.

She did take ownership of her role in it she just doesnt want to be seen as plotting with her ex bestie to get them into trouble when she was actually misled.

Your dd was misled but she now has learned a valuable lesson, to be wary of trouble makers like her ex 'bestie'. Making mistakes is human and a learning opportunity. Did she not ever have a bad feeling about bestie before all this drama? Ex bestie must have form, surely.

Thank you for your advice! The letter was long and she took full responsibility for her actions, so the face to face would just be a repeat of what was in the letter. She is also not sure if she should bring up the situation after the letter unless they do.

A letter to apologise is just adding to the drama, it's frilly and socially a bit inept {this is AIBU, so I'm being blunt}. At 15, the girls comms are usually online, a letter is distinctly old fashioned and in my view a bit controlling. You should have marched your dd to each of the girls' homes or set up a brief meeting with these families and apologised to each girl and their parents in person. A letter is distant and a tad cowardly because she's not facing the girls in person.

Let this go, at this age, it's up to your dd how she sorts it and it will be sorted as everyone will move on. Although I don't think she'll be friends with any of them but she can make new friends either outside of school or with other girls. Encourage your dd to get involved in school life and do not pressure your dd or let her pressure the girls to be friends, leave them well alone.

The whole thing has not been dealt with well. The school for a start. This girls lies should have been exposed sooner. Your DD ignored the teachers advice. and the whole thing dragged on. This troublemaker who made up the tales should be dealt with and the truth uncovered. Ridiculous that yet again nothing will be done until after the holidays.

This! Exactly. She needs to learn her lesson and move on.

Your dd needs to ditch her 'bestie' immediately even if it means no friends because 'bestie' is obviously really bad news.

She needs to say a really short but direct sorry and admit she was wrong to the other girls, let them know her door is always open then leave them the heck alone. They will come back to her if/when they're ready. They're doing nothing wrong to distance themselves right now. It may be that once they see that your dd has distanced herself from 'bestie' they trust her more and see the bigger picture.

No good will come of creating more false drama out of this than there's already been. Hopefully your dd has learned a valuable lesson. She has to reap what she sewed now unfortunately

@Purplepepsi I agree, I feel that OP trying to influence the situation or indeed the girls is adding insult to injury. It all sounds socially not very tuned in and the situation is seen through the lens of OP and her dd's interest. Leave these girls well alone. They may chose to socialise with your dd but if my dd had been treated like the girls in OP's story I'd encourage them to beware of your dd, civil but not to trust your dd. After all, who's to say she won't make such a laps in judgement again?

The best advice I can give is to encourage your dd to trust her gut feeling about people, to stay well away from drama and get involved in activities that she enjoys and where she will meet likeminded people.

@BeWarmOtter What a horrible, awful situation the once-bestie has put your DD in to. All things considered and in my professional opinion as a frog on the internet, I'd say she's a psychopath - I think we're supposed to call that "someone suffering from psychopathy" these days, but that 'orrible individual is likely thrilled with what she "achieved", so...

The only life lesson I can think of for you to make of this is one that even I found and still sometimes find hard (and I'm not prone to being "over sensitive" with either of them, a teeny bit authoritarian even) with my two boys - 22 and 19 now - which is this: Sometimes in life you're gonna do absolutely everything right - and life will reward your efforts by pissing on your cornflakes.

Sincerely and genuinely feel for both you as a parent and for DD, wish there were some magic words like "It's ok, just tell her this that and the third then everything will be golden" - but with how much you obviously care for DD, if those words existed you wouldn't be sat there waiting for me to tell you, you'd have come up with them yourself.

You're doing amazingly well though, both for her and yourself - your entire focus is on making sure DD is alright and trying to help her. It's a testament to your strength as a mother and as a person that you've not once mentioned anger, consequences, punishment, or retribution against the other girl. If you're strong enough to do that, you're strong enough to get DD through this in one piece and have her be stronger when she comes out the other side - you've got this.

For her seemingly picking DD as an "easy target" because she's ND and especially for the fact she's throwing the term "pick me" around and acting like that's not going to be a problem, I hope that girl suffers a minor inconvenience of some sort, like tapping her card for contactless but being asked to put her PIN in for security, something like that...

It was hardly an accident was it?

She decided to believe her best friend even though the other girls had done nothing & tell the teacher about it.

I don't think you DD has done anything wrong. She has reported to a teacher in good faith a potentially serious sexual risk to herself. She shouldn't have to obtain evidence herself before reporting it. She is as much a victim of the scam and the girls accused.

Reassure her that she shouldn’t give herself a hard time over this and that she can’t control how others feel as a consequence. She needs to ride it out now with her head held high and see what happens. Things like this are part of growing up, you can’t protect her from them.

Does she have much of a life outside school? Sport? Drama? Scouts or equivalent? Music? At times like this when school is the bad kind of drama, having friends from other areas of your life is so important so this doesn’t feel like the end of the world. It is genuinely horrendous because if this was a workplace she could just leave but at school you are stuck so it feels awful, but this will pass and she just needs to remember that this isn’t how life is, it’s just a short patch.

Realistically it’ll be a new school year and she just needs to try and start afresh, and learn the lessons of last year especially not going along with bullying which is what it was.

is your dd at an international school @BeWarmOtter ? If she is hopefully the summer will give them a break and things will improve.
There are some good books out there about friendship for girls. Maybe it’s worth buying a couple and looking at them with your DD over the summer break.

Does she have much of a life outside school? Sport? Drama? Scouts or equivalent? Music? At times like this when school is the bad kind of drama, having friends from other areas of your life is so important so this doesn’t feel like the end of the world.

You're often only answering one part of each post (ie each attempt to help you). You definitely need to broaden your own focus, rather than staying focused on the details of this episode. So the above question is important.

Can you see how important some out of school activities would be? Over time they allow perspective as not everything is focussed on school. Especially if she is ND.

Ah ok so “summer” holidays are over Christmas sort of time?

in that case I’d definitely concentrate on life outside of school so she can build confidence and have other things to help her keep going when school is shit. Are there any bands or orchestras etc in your area? Would she enjoy something like theatre? If she’s more confident in herself she hopefully wouldn’t be so obsessed with being a “good bestie” (which I feel could easily segue into being “a good girlfriend” and being a bit of a doormat when she’s a little older). Side note - if anyone accuses you of being a “bad bestie” or whatever they are manipulating you!

The “girls” Sound nice and if she just tried to stay cool, be normal around them at school and stop angsting so much they may well become friends if she gives them time. I guess the question is how long would it take you to get over someone at work accusing you of what she accused them of? Even if they did it because they were lied to.