Daughter super jealous of another girl in class

Your daughter needs help. I’d take her to the gp. Her obsession with this girl isn’t normal. What if she hurts her ?
How often does she talk about this girl? It sounds like she focuses on her a lot. Do you engage with her in this conversation or shut them down and tell her to work on herself? It sounds like she has too much time on her hands, give her more responsibility around the home. Cooking dinner and doing chores. She won’t have time to muse about someone else’s life.

I mean do you show signs of jealousy towards others? Or even just subconscious, “well they must have more money than us to have that nice car” - all perfectly natural but it might just be worth noticing what you say if anything, even about you know celebrities and such like. Or not even jealously just comparison “we could all have a body like that if we had their time and money”

That sort of thing.

But it's not 'this one person' that's hindering your daughter's view of herself: it's herself, and herself alone. This other girl is just collateral damage, as it were, and if it wasn't her, it would be somebody or something else.

That's why, as PPs have said, it's so important to change her mindset at source, so that she can grow and evolve. Envy and jealousy are ugly, destructive emotions and can lead to lifelong bitterness and negativity.

If I were you, I would invest as much as I could afford in private therapy to try to help your daughter through this: I think you need a professional's help on this one.

I don’t know how old your daughter is but please please don’t let her near social media. She could end up utterly fixated on comparing herself to others’ fictitious dream lives and end up even more u happy than she is now. Sorry I’ve not addressed the current issue but there’s good advice on here already so I’m just thinking ahead to what other problems could arise that might be avoided. As others say, your daughter is using this girl as a stick to beat herself with instead of focussing on herself and what she enjoys

I think you need to discuss what makes a good friend again, go back to basics. Friends can be for life if you chose them wisely and give back what you expect. Maybe this where the comparison stems from; her feeling no one likes her for who she is because she doesn't have a strong self worth or interests of her own.

I also don’t think the school saying she’s a concern to others is ‘silly’ - She has developed an unhealthy obsession with this girl and now wants to ‘defeat’ her. That sounds very concerning!

Totally agree with this as a highflier. Or rather, I learnt the lesson after school and realised I had to discover resilience and doggedness to succeed. But I never learnt those things at school/uni so I could coast and get top grades.

Are you jealous OP?

It's not silly at all, I was very bright (school was easy) and from a wealthy family (we didn't buy much stuff in terms of material things but I couldn't hide the fact I lived in the biggest house in the village etc)

I was attacked on various occasions and my mum always said she thought it was envy. I moved schools in the end to a private school

Your daughter needs counselling quite badly I think, she isn't in a healthy thought pattern. My daughter has dyslexia and has to work incredibly hard to get ok grades, despite being very bright. She knows the resilience she gets from working hard will be useful. She also has hobbies outside school that she loves,.so school isn't her whole world. I think this helps her not envy others who find spelling etc easy as she knows she has other things she is great at. What does your daughter do outside school?

I think the key is to focus on building her life up outside of school. Can she join a club outside of school? Air Cadets, drama, choir, dance, martial arts? Take language classes in a language that isn't studied at school? She needs something to do outside of school where no one from her school will be. She needs to know that school is just one part of her identity and just because she's "average" at school, doesn't mean she's average at everything.

Tbh I've done this before and used this as an excuse. It's a cop out because things feel hard. Resilience is something it sounds like she could focus on.

Agree with pp she will find someone else better than her at everything throughout life, so she needs to stop looking at others and keep to her own goals. The very first post mirrors my experience - the high flyers at school peaked at Uni. Mid level were the workers who stuck doggedly at stuff and triumphed in the end with better jobs and niche skills they just kept plodding along with. If all the mid level players had given up because they weren't in the top set at school society would have a problem.

This is incredibly negative. Other girls will pick up on the fact she only wants to be friends with them if they are doing worse than her in academics, personality or looks and they really won’t like her for it.

I would encourage her to develop interests outside school.

Do you know what she’s looking at online?

i suppose it’s a bit of a thought experiment - does she feel people she is ‘better’ than feel about her the way she feels about that girl? How does that make her feel?

it sounds like she is in a bubble - does she do things outside school? She is going to have a miserable life if she spends it comparing herself to others. There’s always going to be someone better at things but that doesn’t mean your dd can’t be successful in her chosen field and have a great adult life

also consider how you talk to her - do you ask her if she came top in the test for example

school is an artificial environment

I think the fact she’s aware of her feelings and is opening up to you is a good sign, a lot of teenage girls don’t have that kind of relationship with their parents or let these feelings fester without communicating. I agree with the posters saying therapy if possible. You don’t want jealousy affecting her friendships and relationships in adulthood

I think you should speak to her about her jealousy and how to deal with that. There is always, always, always someone better than you. If not now, then soon. Obsessing about one person in her tiny little school-based world is worrying. She won’t always be at school - what then? She has to learn to live her life as she is, not comparing herself to someone whose inner life she actually knows nothing about. Her self-esteem won’t improve until she has learned some way of not feeling jealous any more. Jealous people are unhappy and make other people unhappy.

She needs to find "her" thing which could be anything really that she takes an interest in. She can sign in to duolingo for free to learn japanese, learn a special type of cooking (italian/desserts/whatever), learn a dance, volonteer in the community where she will be praised for being kind and caring. Tell her that if you went on comparing your abs to Jennifer Lopez or your writing skills to JK Rowlings you would be depressed to. So you do you. As the good quote from Vonnegut that pp pointed out : your goal shouldn't be to be good at things but enjoy them. We got one life and then it's over so no need for scorekeeping. There are no "winners" after death just the legacy you leave after you with hopefully loving and caring actions in people's life.

Agree that teenage years are extremely tough - added to this is that face that you have NO - or at best very little - control over every aspect of your life!

you don’t properly ‘choose’ your school - or very few would

because of point above - you don’t ‘properly’ choose your social circle or environment!

It’s not about the other girl, it’s about how your daughter feels about herself.
I’ve taught mine that they’re good enough as they are, and pretty wonderful in my eyes, but there’s always going to be someone sportier/cleverer/more popular, etc.
That’s just life, and to pretend otherwise does nothing for their resilience.