DD13, mental health and friends

[Brightlights23]

Hi everyone,

I am hoping someone has some ideas that I haven’t thought of.

my DD 13 fell out with her friends at the beginning of July and since then they have ostracised her and she has spent break and lunchtimes in the toilets and then latterly in pastoral. Mediation was tried but this was just the other girls ganging up, not admitting they could have done anything different and made it worse.

unfortunately prior to Christmas my daughter was bullied by a member of the friendship group and no one else stood up for her. That eventually resolved itself with them being able to be in same friendship group and DD had counselling via school to address how she felt as none of her friends stood up for her and continued to be close friends with the bully.

we have all year tried to encourage her to reach out to other girls that she knows, but she has a very set idea on the social scene of they are my friend I talk to in x class and can’t talk to them anywhere else. Joining another friendships group is a no go as even if someone says come and sit with us, the rest don’t want you there and don’t talk to you.

she did not attend the last 3 days of term as she was just so upset after weeks of being so isolated. She has reached out to people before and got no reply so this is now a reason for not doing it now.

for September school have moved her forms to other half of year, to encourage making new friendships and into a form with someone who has redhead out to her. She doesn’t want to do that as although no friends in her form so at least knows them and can just sit there - her words today.

from sept school have arrange a mentor from a mental health charity and we have looked at a local organisation that helps teenagers but she refuses to give consent to go to the 4 2 hour seasons (groups do about 12 kids) so without her consent she can’t go. The same organisation can be 1-1 sessions at end of august. We even found a psychotherapist locally but DD was not keen and with the other local organisations decided to not pursue this. Also no guarantee she would open up and talk and could take many sessions and no gain. Still an option though.

she has a friend from junior school, year above and year below. Junior school friend is difficult to pin down in terms of making plans to meet up.friend in year above goes hot and cold and difficult to pin down and then gets annoyed if day they are available DD has plans. Then doesn’t reply to messages until they decide to weeks later as if nothing wrong.

she has seen friend in year below and they are in constant contact. Took her to see her cousin on Friday who is same age but again she wouldn’t even message her to see if free - I ended up contacting my brother.

all options are shot down with a negative answer. She is unhappy, low and we are worried about her mental health (now not surrounded by it at school her MH is marginally better).

her father is worried and wants a solution to improve the situation before back to school in sept so don’t have the same issue as before term ended.

at a loss as not sure what other options will be accepted.

any ideas?

Does she do any hobbies out of school? If not is there anything she would be interested in trying? My DC formed a lot of friendships this way.

It does sound like school are doing a lot to support her which is great, I would be careful of pushing her too hard to contact friends/people she knows. Support her with her mental health and let the rest come with time.

It’s a brutal and difficult age but I’d second finding an outside interest she can excel at and make her own eg an art club, sport or similar. Also, get her off social media or check it with her as girls can be vile to each other on it (I work in a school and often deal with issues that arise from SM abuse).
Keep offering the external counsellor or therapist - it seems she needs someone to offload to and to build her confidence. Could you start with a family therapy session and then she continues on her own?
School sounds good, which will help. Do they have a mental health lead or mental health first aid trained staff member who she can touch base with when she is feeling vulnerable?

I'm a secondary safeguarding lead, I deal with this kind of situation all the time. Is she Y8 into Y9? Y8 is most common for these kinds of issues.

The actions of school sound good - attempt meditation, offer pastoral support, put in place mental health support.

Gently, you need to bear in mind you are only getting one side of this friendship story. I'd be weary of saying bullying when it's actually just children not getting along, your daughter not being liked, others making it clear they don't like her.

That's not to minimise how it feels for your daughter - but what's needed is resilience and the development of confidence. This is where mental health and pastoral support comes in.

In terms of a plan for September, if this was my daughter my focus would be on resilience - chin up, you're better than they are, you got this, you're awesome - and all the other clichés.

I'd be supporting her to face this head-on, she'll have to learn at some point that not everyone in life will like her, and thats OK. She can hold her head up, show them she's the bigger person - her confidence, self esteem and resilience will grow as a result.

And anyway, it will probably sell be forgotten about by Christmas and the girls will have moved on to fill out with someone else (be encouraging your daughter to reflect on how it felt for her when this happens).

I really feel for her. This happened to me in year 8. My parents moved me to another school and in some ways this allowed the wound to never heal as I didn’t face up to it. It sounds so good that the school tried mediation and there is some mental health support. This is much better than 30 years ago. Keep on going with the psychological support if you can. Encourage outside hobbies for friendships as much as you can. Keep proactive. I hope you can get her help. It damaged my social confidence in a long term way so try to avoid this.

Absolutely 💯 agree with this.

This happens all the time at secondary school and unpleasant though it can be, the more you focus on this issue, the more your DD will think this is a bigger problem than it is.

I know this is really hard as a parent but you really need to step back and let her get on with it and try and resolve it on her own.

Thank you for the replies.

the bullying happened before Christmas and the latest situation is unrelated to that. She felt excluded, which others have agreed that other members of the friendship group were doing and it escalated. To be fair the group dynamic is a bit toxic and the girls were never going to be the friends she wanted. Individually the girls are ok but the group dynamic not so good. We have tried for months prior to this to get her expand her friendships but met with barriers if they are in that friendship group and can’t join a new one etc.

the school have been really good and pastoral very helpful. They have arranged the mentoring.

she is year 8 going into year 9. And yes does appear to really common.

she doesn’t feel the form move will help but has no friends in current one.

maybe the answer is to just give her space over summer and see if she can contact/meet up the three friends she has, plus her cousin as much as possible. So far it’s been one friend and cousin.

her answer is that come sept she can just go to pastoral again in form time or lunch and break.

she does netball outside of school but again won’t contact anyone. Although one girl lives nearby so maybe able to persuade her to contact her. Offered other suggestions of activities/hobbies and all no.

We have been encouraging her to go to school and being resilient etc. there is 4 x2 hour sessions run by a local organisation on resilience, mental health and self confidence but she will not consent. They have offered 1-1 at end of august.

the concern is that come sept she continues to isolate herself and we end up with school refusal, which we were close to.

she most definitely has some form of social anxiety behind why she won’t message etc and a fear of rejections. For both she has examples of friends not replying etc.

we explain different peoples view points and are not parents who just assume our child is saying the truth all time. The bullying did affect her self confidence which is now rock bottom.

earlier this year she was poorly for around 2 months and all blood tests were normal so dr said it was viral fatigue. None of this has helped in a year when friendships are so rocky.

she just believes she has no one. She did speak of so many different girls at school so she does have friends but has compartmentalised them and has this strict social structure in her mind that she won’t breach.

maybe she just needs to spend the summer being in contact with the couple of friends she has and not try to do much else at this point as she is not going to engage currently

I suspect things will change in year 9, she will gradually find a new crowd. In September email pastoral and her new form teacher and ask them to encourage her to join lunchtime or after school clubs. It's an opportunity to meet new pupils. My ds is friends with kids from all different year groups through the drama club. The suggestion might be better received if its from school rather than you. In the meantime play all this down a bit, don't encourage more drama.

My dd is the same age and has struggled with friendships. It is so hard to watch them withdraw from people but i think I've learned to be more casual about it, recognise that it's not ideal but that it is school, she just needs to get through it, find some people she can pass the time with, and learn to be comfortable doing her own thing. Friendships have developed more naturally as a result- they're still waxing and waning a bit, but they're not the be all and end all for her so in some ways she's having an easier time than some others who have invested a lot more of their self worth in their friendship groups, and she has a strong sense of her own interests.

Give her some space over the summer OP.

I have two teens and realised pretty quickly that secondary school is a particularly brutal environment for many kids.

My DS had a spectacular falling out several months ago with his long standing friendship group and it was clear my anxiety and upset over the situation made things much much worse for my DS . Instead of putting it down to normal teenage idiocy I tried to sort it out for him, which was never going to work.

It's a huge learning curve and he's learnt the hard way there are consequences if you betray a friend.

It's great you're there to support your DD but getting her to do something out of school would be very beneficial. My DS is in the scouts and has some mates there which helps.

Mine won't contact people either, certainly not to suggest things. A girl from her class lives next door and constantly seems to be with friends, it's hard not to compare. But it is what it is and I know child next door isn't always totally happy with the dynamics of her friendships friendships either, she's just. more willing to compromise. After a year of being being quite withdrawn my dd is dipping her toe into things again- a small birthday outing,, new club, end of term trip to chip shop. I've not not succeeded in getting her to suggest more meet ups over the summer but am more comfortable she has a balance.

@Brightlights23 why does she need to socialise over summer? Maybe she doesn't want to. She could just spend time with you and the family. No harm done.

I think you need to make a very conscious effort to make her see this is a non-issue that needs mo brain space or worrying about

@Brightlights23 hi op - I came across your thread as my DD13 is in a similar position. How have things have panned out so far in Year 9 for your DD? I hope it's improved a bit. Any tips? It's hard not to get over-invested in it all really - it's such a worry.

Might be a red herring - but the thing that stood out to me in your post is the strict social structure and compartmentalising friendships.

My dd does that and is very likely autistic spectrum (just going through private asst now; she is 17 and hated high school)

For girls, things often fall apart during teen years as social conversations, friendships etc become far more complex when teens start hanging about in larger groups. And the scaffolding provided by parents in a younger kid's life (parents arranging activities and playdates) drops away.

As i say - maybe not relevent for your dd but might be worth just reading up on autism in teen girls and see if anything fits.

the summer was hard and she was not receptive to any suggestions of help.

since starting year 9 she has moved form and joined a new friendships group. She has started with a mentor at school as well.

she is much happier and even was out after school with the group yesterday.

things are definitely improving and she has more confidence although still long road ok this one.

had a few wobbles and the issues with the old friendship group seems to have settled as people are now talking to her and not so many looks.

positive start and hoping to build on this. Do hope the mentoring will help her self esteem and confidence.

DD is not on spectrum although can see why think she could be.

seems many friendship groups last year broke up but my DD just wasn’t aware of how widespread it was. A new friendship group was needed and the falling out escalated it. The old group has less girls in it now and only yesterday 3 of the girls asked to join DD new group as don’t want to be with the rest of their group for similar reasons to my DD (although they could not see this at the time).

teenage girls are hard work. My niece who is 15 is having friendship issues as well.