9 year old dd Friendship troubles

[Liadan]

My nine year old dd is in year four. She is a very kind, sweet girl but almost too much so, if you know what I mean. She is very gentle with younger kids and absolutely loves animals. She is just a very nice kid.
However, I have noticed a big change in friendship groups this year. The girls she used to pal around with now exclude her. My dd doesn't have a phone and they are all on Tick Toc, which again is another black mark against her. With lockdown, I've been unable to have play dates over to the house and obviously all parties, sports and social events have stopped.
She has a few friends she still plays with and is happy to go to school, so I'm lucky in that respect. She is also very academic, which probably doesn't help.

In easier times, I would enrol her in some new extra curricular activity to help her make new friends but obviously that isn't a runner at the moment.
I feel so helpless and am worrying the situation will deteriorate as the girls further mature. I don't want my daughter to have access to a phone for a few years yet but just feel she is going to become isolated. I also worry she's a bit soft and maybe I should have done a better job of toughening her up. Has anyone any advice?

I know it's hard but access to a phone is quite important these days...especially with Covid. Mine both had access from ten onwards...a cheap phone each. Obviously I had passwords for both and they were no allowed on Instagram...or anything where they could be open to abuse such as a Snap-chat.

But if you can, I would seriously consider letting her have a phone.

If you monitor it correctly, it's fine. There are parental controls to use.

I think it is quite normal for friendships to jiggle around at this age, and perhaps slim down from larger groups to smaller ones. Being excluded can be a very hurtful thing, but is it more a mutual drifting away if your DD has different interests and still has other friends to play with? You say your DD is soft and nice, reading between the lines these friends are being mean to her, so isn’t it better to encourage her to see that they aren’t true friends if they treat her badly simply for not having a phone? Is your DD begging you for a phone so she can fit in, or is she happy without one?

In some ways, if a lot of her friends have an exciting new pastime (playing on their phone) then of course she is excluded if she can’t join in those conversations. If they don’t cheerfully include her again when the subject changes, she does need to move on and focus on playing with her few remaining friends who don’t have a phone. You will find this becomes a vanishingly small group, as she moves toward year 6.

Try to encourage your DD to look positively at the remaining friendships and foster these as actively as possible. I know that is hard in lockdown, maybe there is a friend who happens to go to your local playground sometimes?

I have personally relented on my rules about phones during 2020, for DD in Y5. I notice a lot of mums have done the same. My DD literally cannot otherwise speak to four of her best friends who are in different classes and so bubbled separately from her, unless they chat on Skype. They play Roblox, but they don’t have access to TicToc or WhatsApp or Insta. I supervise loosely, and basically they have VR playdates on games like AdoptMe which are essentially harmless. It is rather lovely hearing them play online together. COVID has broken two of her close friendships, simply because she can’t keep in touch with girls who she is not bubbled with and who don’t have phones. Who knows if in 2021 things will relax and she can pick up these old friendships, I rather expect it won’t happen and every one will have moved on.

Equally my DD has managed to stay friends with some girls she has a lot in common with, but who don’t have phones. It is just lucky that we see these girls at clubs which have gone online in lockdown, or we see them at the school gates for a few minutes.

I know other mums who have banned the use of phones and instead are breaking the lockdown laws to let one special friend come over for play dates. I still see a number of kids going to play dates together, and obviously bubbles are broken at after school club. So there are your options!

I am sympathetic to your decision not to allow a phone, but yes, you are making life harder for your DD to make connections out of school. You haven’t chosen the easy path.

Why doesn’t she have a phone?

Can’t you see by refusing to give her a phone during a pandemic, you are socially isolating her? With the impact of coronavirus, the only time she can speak to people her own age is at school however schools may be subject to closure or pupils told to self-isolate etc. Therefore she doesn’t have guaranteed routine contact with others as we’re not in normal times. Meanwhile all her friends stay in touch with each other - their friendships are blossoming whilst your child is on the sidelines

My grandson's school positively encouraged phones in yr5 so that they could start walking home on their own. His mum put every safeguard on it she could think of and also a tracker - he also knew she would check his phone at any given moment and that it was non-negotiable. He's now in yr8 and the same rules apply but to a lesser extent. I don't see that being a member of a WhatsApp group is a bad thing tbh but have the talk with her about ducking out if girls become mean. You say she is academic and I take that to mean she likes school and learning which is a good thing but this might get her labelled 'a tryhard' by some of the others and make it harder for her to fit into certain groups. There will be others similar to her and it might be that she can find common ground with them - remind her, real friends have your back. We all want our children to be happy but I'd sooner have one who's 'academic' than being distracted by the ins and outs of friendship groups. I hope it sorts itself out but perhaps rethink the phone.

My is 9 too but in year 5 and will be 10 in February. I always said she wouldn’t be getting a phone until she was 10 and then lockdown happened.

I gave her my old iPhone 7 with no sim in but she uses it for Adopt Me (Roblox) and Tik Tok which I’m unsure of now as my older dc, 17yr old ds said that it’s dangerous! He does tend to worry about her though.
Dd has an iPad too but loves her phone and it was a massive help in lockdown. All of her friends have one. They also play a new game called “among us” which extends to the playground at school so I can see why someone could easily be excluded for not knowing the rules etc.

What I have found is that my dd has matured massively in year 5 and that extra year has made my decision easier. I’m not sure if I would have allowed it last year, probably not.

Essentially it’s your decision and you need to make it and own it. Your dd sounds lovely and she still has friends without phones as my dd did in year 4. Encourage play dates for when it’s allowed and this is all over ( it only ) and promise her a day out at X with Y friend maybe? Then you may find out who she is actually close to. My dd has a new best friend this year and they’re super close.
Good luck with it all