My 11 year old dd is always being picked on. Please help.

We took the choice not to send her to the more popular secondary, and she went to one where she ended up in a form with no one she knew. That's actually been a great thing for her, because it allowed her to make new friends without her feeling that she was being watched and criticized

My lovely DS seems to have continual problems with the boys in his class too (year 6) and so we too are sending him to a school where none of his peers are going to....personally I think it will be really good for him to have a new start and hopefully forge some new friendships.

I meant to say her book is very good.... ( not goo) oops!

Hi OP

Have you come across Rachel Simmons' book and resources 'Odd Girl Out'? She has some good stuff on her website, and her books is very goo, I think.

I found her stuff because I too have an 11 yr old DD who is experiencing similar issues - although not quite as bad as what you're describing. We've been working with her on new strategies for coping with bullying - because that is what this is - with bells on.

xx

Please update us as to what you decide and how it works out. Good wishes to you both

Also, she isn't a 'follower' as described by Hairbear. My dd calls them 'sheep', they do the wrong thing to fit in because it 's easier, they get left alone that way. Woe betide the girl who breaks the mould and decides to think for herself.

She sounds like my dd.

We took the choice not to send her to the more popular secondary, and she went to one where she ended up in a form with no one she knew. That's actually been a great thing for her, because it allowed her to make new friends without her feeling that she was being watched and criticized. She now seems to be reasonable comfortable in a small friendship group of boys and girls. In my interfering way I'd love her to come home saying "can I go to X with my friends" which she hasn't, but she seems much happier this year.

"HE is no perfect cure, either." Perhaps not for everyone. However, it is a simple and effective solution for many kids who find school very unpleasant.

I realise that the young people I know who came out of school in their teens - the ones who say that this decision transformed their lives for the better - are not representative of the population at large. If they had liked school, if they had even found it fairly tolerable, they wouldn't have left. Once people are wrapped up in the school world, doing what the majority of other people are doing, they rarely leave unless things have got very bad for them.

But where a young person is as thoroughly miserable at school as the OP's daughter seems to be, it hardly seems likely that HE would be worse than staying on. It could be the answer. There is probably only one way to find out, and that is to try it.

Such helpful posts -- even though I'm not the OP. Thank you everyone!

HE girls may have better self-esteem, but the ones I've known still had many issues with self-esteem, confidence & socially. One of them complained slightly bitterly how HE had left her too sheltered to know how to deal with outside world. One of the most adamant HEing mums I know was telling me how she guided her DD thru attacks of low self-esteem as a normal teenage phase (guidance I absorbed for future reference). HE is no perfect cure, either.

OP, I'll whisper this quietly. I never really fitted in at school either at primary or secondary. I never really liked pop music or Jackie or PE or sport and wasn't that fussed about boys, I didn't really like the stuff in Chelsea Girl that everyone else wore and didn't want the same haircut. I wasn't bullied badly but I knew I didn't fit in and I didn't have many close friends or go to many parties. I was hopeless at sport and middling clever and nothing special. Until I was about 16 I was the plainish, skinny bespectacled one.

Then I blossomed and the day I left school was the start of my life. I had a brilliant time at College, and when I started work I started to do very well. Not because I wanted to be like the others but because I wanted to do well and so I made myself fit into the culture, got my head down and became the successful one who got what all the others wanted.

Looking back I was different and ultimately I achieved because I was different and so did DH who I am well aware was regarded as a bit "weird" by many of his contemporaries at school and has few friends from those days although his sportiness provided him with cred.

DS who is almost 18 is a social animal and totally alpha. DD is quiet and quirky but has always been happy rather like me being a bit of an island. She had the most miserable time in years 7 and 8 at secondary where she was shocked by the unkindness although not the butt of it by a significant minority. We moved schools to somewhere small and pastoral which deals well with quirky girls. There is still bitching as there always will be with teenage girls but it is at a lower level and the environment is kinder and more supportive.

There's nothing wrong with your daughter she just doesn't sound like a pack animal or that she runs with the herd and that's what schools are designed for. Forget not that the people who run them and work in them tend to have been very happy at school and so the system perpetuates itself.

I think if you meet some people who home ed or chat online about it, it might seem less daunting. If you tried it, there's a good chance you would find it easier than you expect. IME most people do find it easier and more pleasant and more socially fulfilling than they expected.

But suppose that your worst fears about home education did come true. Suppose it was difficult for you, and that your dd lost the opportunity to learn to get on with groups of preteens. Would that be a total disaster?

Your daughter's self esteem would still soar in the absence of daily taunting. She would be spending much of her time with someone who loves her absolutely and who will never turn on her. She would still get practice in how to get on with adults, which is bound to be a more useful life skill in her adult life than getting on with herds of eleven year olds. Perhaps it would be a worthwhile trade-off. A few years away from school could do her the world of good.

I came to home education for different reasons, but I have noticed that the home educated teens I have met over the last ten years appear to have remarkably strong self esteem. It's hard to figure out exactly why this should be so. Perhaps the freedom from the extreme group pressure which is often found at schools could be a factor.

It's a phenomenon which Susan Sheffer explores in her fascinating book "A Sense of Self: Listening to Homeschooled Adolescent Girls". Sheffer is an American author, but the girls she studied were home educated in a similar way to British girls so the book felt relevant to me. (Sometimes American "homeschooling" can feel very different to British home education, though there are similarities.) Sheffer observed that while studies of schoolgirls have shown that an individual girl's self-esteem tends to drop steadily throughout adolescence, and that schoolgirls as a group have a worse self-image than previous generations of girls, the homeschooled girls she knew appeared to be immune from this trend. Her extensive interviews with these girls on a range of subjects showed that they were comfortable with who they were and that they became more confident with every passing year. This applied both to girls who had never been to school and to those who had left school several years previously. It would be interesting to pinpoint the reasons for this and see whether this information could be used to alter the school environment so that schoolchildren might have an equally positive experience of adolescence.

I think that if I weren't already keen on home ed for other reasons, this book would have drawn me toward it. After all, what better gift could you give a young woman than confidence and a sense of inner peace? If she is happy in her own skin, everything else is just icing on the cake.

Have you considered moving her to an independent school? Almost all offer some kind of bursary system. Although girls in any school can be mean, in the independent sector children are generally more tolerant of those that are just nice kids (rather than 'cool' kids), and a healthy work ethic is encouraged!

I took my dd out of her unsuitable school in year 8. Home edded her (sort of) for a term. Then a place came up in a much better school. She's much happier now.

Home educating was a horrible experience for me because my dd is uncooperative, lazy and aggressive. Your dd sounds absolutely delightful, and if I was in your shoes I'd have her out of school in a flash. She would be a great candidate for home education. And I'm sure a place would come up in a better school sometime this year.

Oh, and I would also like to reassure you. I have a younger dd who is 7 now and she is like a friend magnet, though a very kind one. They were parented the same way -- though, of course, first children are always sort of experimented on. Honestly, I will always be thankful that I had another child because the guilt I felt over my first dd was so heavy! Now I can see that there is just something in these girls' nature that makes it so they don't fit the moulds of society.

Also, we are reading My Name is Mina by David Almond and I bet you two would just love it the way we do!

manicstreetpreacher, you are describing my own eldest dd, so my heart is just breaking for you because I know exactly what it means to be the mother of such a child.

My dd started to be bullied at age 5, though you could say she was already disliked by other children as early as 4 (a prominent memory of mine is going to a birthday party when she was 4 and the birthday girls running to the gate, all excited, and then saying, "Oh, it's just so-and-so" and walking off while my dd held out their gifts). She was excluded and verbally abused at school from the moment she started. When she was 6 she was physically abused by the boys (once, two held her arms up while the third kicked her in the crotch, hard...the school did absolutely nothing). We kept at it, despite my belief that home education is superior) because of circumstances that pretty much required us to send her to school. I finally took her out for a year and did home ed. After that, she wanted to return to show that she could do it. We put her in a new school (a tiny one) and she blossomed. She had the best year ever last year (Yr 7) with not one incidence of bullying. And then we made the stupid decision to move here to the UK and we're back at it again and all those victories and huge accomplishments from last year are already dying away after only four or five weeks of school.

Like your dd she simply can't relate to the other kids at school. She doesn't talk about what they talk about, she's not interested in what they're interested in...

My daughter is the kindest, most loyal friend anyone could ever want. She is so neat and interesting, so poetic and just wonderful.

I wish they could meet!

Some thoughts - first, your dd sounds lovely and v mature. Ufortunately, there are nasty, insecure kids there who will pick on any kid who daresto stand out for any reason (having been picked on once before could be enough). But it is NOT your dd's fault or your fault in any way.

When my dd experienced mild bullying, I taught her that bullies bully becaue of their own self-esteem issues and that she should feel sorry for them. It was easier as in her case this was self-evidently true - a boy who bullied when he had hearing problems, another when new to the school and one whose mother had deveoped MS. So they were dealing with their own demons. It's not alwaysso obvious - but your dd needs to know it's not her it's THEM and needs to have her self-esteem boosted big time - in my dd's case, having a teacher who recognised her self-esteem was low and did her best to boost it by making her being clever seem cool not nerdy and giving her special encouragement for this, made a huge differemce.

Plus good friends out of school - from activities, family, friends' kids - so she can ignore it. It will pass - I teach 16-18 year olds and some of them were telling me about terrible bullying they'd faced - but they were all past it and over it now. 11-12 year olds can be cruel - because they are insecure and immature. They will grow up!

manic, stop blaming yourself! It's not you (or your daughter) it's them! How can it possibly be your fault that all these children keep treating your daughter like this?
Does she do any after school clubs, or have any other interests you can help her pursue? I am just thinking that perhaps, while there are no friends to take up a great deal of her time at present, perhaps it would be an opportunity for her to take up a new interest or two? Learn an instrument? Do something she's always wanted to have a go at, or find out more about? Try out some new sports? My DD was in a roughly similar situation and took up a new sport. It has been hard going (it is a tough sport) and she has stuck it out for several years and now she has a great bunch of friends, and is part of a club of people of all ages, with a family atmosphere. as such there's a certain amount of ribbing and joking and teasing which she takes as a fun part of the whole place, and the teasing or being left out at school no longer gets to her. (she's helping me write this!)

Never mind about any other girl being a Queen Bee, your dd is your queen bee, and when bees get lemons, they make lemon flavoured honey. Or something. (My DD says when you get lemons, send them back you don't want them. Or throw them back. hard. Or...make Nutella and have everyone guessing how did it.)

SecretSquirrels I used to think like that too about home education. Our reality however when ds was at school was battles and cajoling in the morning to get up and breakfasted, teeth washed, bag and lunch ready for school. Followed by a sullen monosyllabic stressed child at the end of the day who just wanted to watch TV. Followed by battles and cajoling to do homework/reading and chivvying up to bed at a sensible bedtime because of school the next day.
Even holidays and weekends were times when anything remotely like reading/writing/schoolwork was shunned completely because 'it's the holidays'.
It is so very much different now. Ds gets up when he is hungry for breakfast, is relaxed and excited about what we are going to do and full of plans. He goes to bed when he is ready to and loves late night reading and researching.
I think he is develpoing a trust and a self-esteem/motivation now that was so missing before.

Oh manic :(

Does it start of well but then go pear shaped? What seems to be the trigger for the bullying?

This is so bloody awful for your DD. Poor girl.

Problems tend to dissipate a bit around year 9 as the "queen bee" gets herself a boyfriend and it is then not cool to pick on other kids, just to be snogging outside school at lunchtime - that's how it worked at our school anyhow.....

So keep your fingers crossed!

I reminded my DD that she is nice - the other is horrid and everyone knows it underneath. and that as her "nemesis" wants to work in childcare to remind her that she is old enough to be held criminally responsible for her actions - so could end up being banned from her family business should anyone go to the police.... The campaign against DD didn't stop - but it was lessened by that - and NEVER violent....

Could you switch to a different school?
That was the cure for me & DS when we suffered similar.