Helping young teen DD with the ups and downs of friendships

[Notcontent]

DD 13 has quite a few friends, both at school and outside of school, but at the moment she doesn’t have a “best” friend. She is bit emotionally fragile at the moment and feels slightly like no one really likes her... Tonight she went to a party, where the girl who’s party it was gave a speech, mentioning three other girls and talking about how special they were, etc. I knew something was not right when I picked up DD as she seemed really tearful, rather than happy. It all come out eventually and basically dd felt really hurt because she thought she was part of their little gang and now she feels like she is not... I can fully understand how she is feeling, but I don’t know how to help her get perspective...

Resist the urge to make it better or solve the issue - this roller coaster runs its course and it's there for a reason - this is how girls learn how to he a decent human being as an adult and how to be a good friend and particularly how to choose good friends and what that behavior looks like

Be supportive and listen - a lot

Say reflective things like "that sounds hard" and ask questions like "how did that make you feel?"

Encourage different friend groups (at least two or three) through different activities (is school friends, sport friends, youth club friends) so when one is going crap she can turn to the other

Be supportive be loving be non-judgmental

Remind her that the other girls and riding their own roller coasters emotionally and no one has their shit in a pile at 13 - and it's gets better

Sorry for autocorrect typos - hopefully you get the gist

Thanks Lady. I think you are right. I just find it hard to see her like that. Why is being a teen girl so hard !!!!

@Notcontent it's sooooo not easy but it's helpful to remember that's its an important part of their development

I'll find an article that helped me and post it here

@Notcontent

Here you go

www.scarymommy.com/glitter-jar-analogy-help-tweens-teens-manage-emotions/

@Notcontent hope that was helpful

How was today ?

My dd is also 13. Nearly 14. Last summer she was in exactly the same position as your DD but this summer things were totally different. Although you want to fix things. You can't. I listened, gave her my thoughts about 'it's not about her'. She listened and things have worked out for her. They will for your DD too.

I've also taught DD to not get involved in other peoples battles and stay out of things as much as possible. She has a tendency to stick up for friends , which has its merits of course but has also backfired on her. We talk through situations quite a bit which I think helps. I generally say things like 'some people are insecure at this age' so she is able to understand it. Shes also been a bit of a cow to her friends herself and I've picked her up on this when possible.