Heartbroken for my 12-year-old always being left out by friends

[Gymmum82]

My daughter is 12, she’s a sweet, kind girl but always seems to be a last resort in terms of friendships. She has friends, but she’s always left out. She’ll ask to join in things but is always told no I’m going out with X etc. Friends are always too busy to see her. She spends a lot of time at home on her own.
Over the holiday she’d arranged to go out with 2 of her friends then was told last minute one of them was ‘too tired’ it then transpired she’d invited the other girl to her house and excluded my daughter. She found out by seeing all the pictures on their WhatsApp channel.

We live on a street with a few families and she’s struck up a friendship with one of the girls, I was pleased and encouraged it. The child is often at our house, stays for dinner, sleepovers etc. It has never been reciprocated but they have 4 children so I thought well maybe they just don’t have the space etc. Then I found out last night one of the other neighbours children stayed over at their house, another time where my daughter isn’t chosen and another child is when we’ve done a lot for this child and their family.

Im just heartbroken for my daughter and don’t know how to help her. She’s a nice child, she’s not rude or difficult, does well at school, works hard. So it’s not a personality flaw that the parents don’t like her

Any chance for clubs and family weekends away or day trips?

So friends will want to spend time with each other. It sounds like these relationships aren’t reciprocal. It’s okay that the others don’t see her as a close friend. It’s just that she sees the relationship as something that it’s clearly not.

Mine is 13 now, but friendships had a huge shake up when they started secondary. Many of my dd’s close friends are also from a sport totally unconnected to school or our village. It sounds to me like she needs to find her tribe. These girls aren’t it just because they live on the same street. What does she love? Who are her people? I’d start trying to foster connections with girls who might be more her sort of person.

I’m sorry that this is happening to your daughter - I saw it with my own daughter too and it’s just so heartbreaking. Would she be interested in joining air cadets or something similar? That is what my daughter did and it has given her a wider circle of friends and really helped her confidence. With activities also often taking place at the weekends too it has made a whole world of difference to her. She still doesn’t really have e very good school friendships but at least she has others who she can mix with.

Good luck to you and your daughter.

Ac pp have suggested, activities with other similarly aged children are the key here. There for the activity so less pressure but friendships can develop. I made my first truly close friend when I was 16 - still friends now. Sometimes it takes time to find your people.

Definitely try and find a club or an activity where you think she might fit in.

My DD had a challenging start to secondary friendship wise and her swim club sustained her. She does many training sessions, there are trips away.

Heartbreaking with the friends leaving her out. I’d try and keep her busy over the summer.

Friends come and go. I don't want even to share our whole story, a girl, 12 also, friendships issues also. You know what she told me: as long I got my family and normal life and can do what I want with you guys on the weekend and we have our nice holidays, this is all that matters to me.

I looked at her and thought: I am proud with so much intelligence and mature understanding at this age for my child

There are moments in life where we are our own confidence, love and warmth pump. We self pump in ourselves what we need from others when others are not available - consider this also as a fact of life

This sounds just like my daughter. I don’t know why she seems to be on the fringes or simply on the outside so often. She’s not strange in any way - I know that’s an odd comment but she’s so sort of…normal! she’s a really lovely girl with a kind and calm nature, smiley and polite and gets involved with plenty of clubs, decent if not stellar in terms of sports but she gives everything a go. She’s relatively quiet though and this does really hold her back. She makes friends quickly but they seem to fall away as she just isn’t interested in bitching about other girls or making stuff up, which really depressingly seems to be a major bonding activity for her friends. I find it completely heart breaking too but it’s not something I can fix for her and I just need to try and build her confidence and resilience and send her back out there, hoping she’ll find the right girls. I feel your pain! Sometime last year she was upset and I was reminding her what a lovely person she is and if she just keeps being herself the right people will notice…she cried and said being herself was ‘not working’. I was just crushed to hear her say this! Although credit to her, she hasn’t changed. Argh, teenage girls can be a cruel group!