To want to tell this girl's mum about how nasty she has been to DD?

[MurphyJim]

DD has just started secondary school. She has gone up to secondary school with a group of friends that she spent most of her primary school years hanging round with. One of them, I'll refer to her as G, is very much the head of the group of friends and has been unkind to DD quite a bit over the years. Mainly low level nastiness such as telling others in the group not to talk to DD, or making fun of DD and getting others to laugh at her. She is very manipulative.

G's mum is, unfortunately, one of those mums who thinks her DD is absolutely perfect and is the first to get on the phone to, or approach, the mum of any child who has made a tiny or perceived slight towards her child. I have heard of it happening many a time throughout primary school, and she has phoned me a couple of times in the past about things such as my DD not being her DD's partner in PE and her DD being upset.

Anyway, today it's G's birthday and she has had a huge party/disco in a hall, followed by a sleepover with several friends. She has told DD since they went back to school 3 weeks ago that she was inviting everyone except DD, as she doesn't want DD there. And true to her word she invited the rest of their friendship group, as well as every other new friend DD has made at secondary school. And didn't invite DD.

This in itself was upsetting enough for DD. However all through the party this evening G has repeatedly sent DD texts with photos of her and all of DD's friends having fun at the party with captions such as "I love my besties". She also tried to facetime DD several times throughout the party, presumably to rub it in DD's face that she wasn't there! DD sensibly ignored the texts and calls, but was understandably very upset.

I am so angry about it all and feel like giving this girl's mum a call or a text tomorrow just to let her know about how upset DD is by G's behaviour. Especially as the mum is always the first person to complain and to kick up a huge fuss if her DD is upset.

WIBU to contact the mum? I don't want to make things worse for DD.

Agree, don't contact the mother, the daughter most likely learnt this behaviour from her.

Do let the school know, but encourage your DD to talk to her form tutor rather than you rushing in.

I believe in tackling these things head on, ignoring doesn't work. bullies can persist for a long time, increasing their attempts to get a response. Just isolating your daughter will be enough fuel for her to keep going. My daughter had a wannabe queen bee start to bad mouth her. I encouraged my daughter to take the bully to one side and in a calm and detached way confront her about why she was doing it and that it was upsetting. We talked through that she was likely to deny it but not to accept that. When confronted the bully first denied, denied some more, tried to blame someone else. My daughter said I don't believe you but if it happens again I'll go to the headteacher. Now let's go and have some lunch. It completely stopped.

And if you go to her she can turn it round as you being 'threatening' when the school raise the issue.

You are right ClopySow.

Reading this brings back memories I'd rather forget!!
I literally went through the exact same thing at your DDs age (except just texts on a black and white phone, no pictures or FaceTime) with people I'd been friends with since the start of primary school.
I remember once a ''friend'' texting me saying 'mybugslife is so annoying! We need to get rid of her. Let's just not talk to her at school tomorrow'
And then a text right after saying...
'Just joking'
It was obviously meant to go to one of the either girls....
I hate to even think about how they made me feel even after 12 years! They were meant to be my friends.

My advice to you would be not to contact the mother...like pp have said they get this behaviour from somewhere.
Encourage your DD to make new friends, could she join a club maybe?
I can guarantee that once they realise that she isn't bothered with them they will move onto the next girl to bully....most likely in the same group.

I really feel for your DD, girls can be so nasty. I know it doesn't help now but by the time your DD leaves school she'll have wonderful friends and these nasty girls will have no one! Xxx

Your poor dd - imagine having to cope with this in the first few weeks of yr 7. i would contact the school. if they say 'sorry that's outside school, nothing we can do', the response is that you're telling them because you don't want similar behaviour to occur during school.
I imagine that occasionally contacting the parents can improve things - i'd like to think if i discovered that a dc had done that i'd be furious and take immediate action! And judging by the responses here, so would other mners. In fact i would want to know if my dc was doing this. But g's dm will have her own view of the relationship, seen through g's eyes, and who knows what that is? So i think contacting dm is more likely than not to make things worse.

Meanwhile i second encouraging dd to look for new friends, join lots of school clubs, and a couple of out of school activities - easier said than done, i know!

Can we have a thread/MN rule to cut out the "girls can be so nasty" misogynistic crap? Most of the issues I had at school were due to boys. Can we just say "kids can be nasty" from now on, please?

3amEternal. Good for you. You sound like a great mum. And your dd was very brave. That's a brilliant approach.

my bff at school did this to me - right down to excluding me from her leaving party but inviting all the other girls in the class and telling me all about it afterwards. she also used to turn the entire class against me so no one would talk to me for days. awful girl, but i liked her. she msg'ed me on fake book a couple of years ago and i was tempted to say something but i left it. we are not friends.

ignore the mum - she is part of the problem and won't take your side. she'll just defend her dd. best thing your dd can do is find new friends and cut this girl out. engaging will not make anything better.

"Girls can be so nasty" is appropriate for this thread because we are talking about a specific group of girls. If the thread was about a group of boys, then "boys can be so nasty" would be appropriate. I think refusing to say if the children involved are boys and girls is ridiculous.

Thanks mummy she did really well, but I wanted her to call the bully out on it while her self esteem was still intact. I think if the victim confronts early on it stops the bully gaining power, also lets them know the behaviour won't be quietly accepted. They are cowards at the end of the day and rely on victims staying silent.

Op I would prep her to take the bully to one side and calmly say I know you had a party and for some reason decided to not include me. That is fine. But I do have a problem with you sending me lots of messages about it. Why did you do that? It felt as though you were trying to hurt me. Then stand back and watch her squirm.

Sonjadog I agree !!!!! I was trying to convey something similar but wording wasn't right ! Go you !!

There is no need to say "girls can be so nasty" at all. You can say "These girls sound nasty". Can you honestly not see the difference? Nastiness isn't confined to one gender.

OP, this is soul destroying. My DC is 18 now, but went through this. They were bullied, mercilessly, the school did sweet FA. It went to the Board of Governors, I was told my DC was too sensitive. They were pushed into a river & one of the bully's dad pushed my child. The police were involved & only then, did the school do something about the situation. When we talk about it now, my child says that what got them through was my unwaivering support. Oh, and I did go to the bully's dad, who then told the school that I was harassing them

I really wish that schools would do more on bullying. They seem to talk the talk but never walk the walk. Please let the school know, but bypass the mum. It's not as if she will put a stop to it & then you have her to deal with too. However, if you do involve the school, they may want to set up a meeting with your daughter, G, and the parents (as they did in my case).

Your poor, poor daughter.

Another thing I talk to my daughter about (and we should all be talking to our sons and daughters about) is not standing on the sidelines while someone gets bullied. And that if you do so you are as much at fault as the bully. So I tell her she has a duty to speak up and say 'that was a nasty comment' 'that will have hurt her feelings' 'imagine if someone had said that to one of us' etc.

What a horrible little girl

I wouldn't contact the girls mother, as she is unlikely to be punished for what she has done.

ChickenSalad I agree with your comment.

But girls can be so nasty?
That's not to say boys can't but we are specifically talking about girls here...and nasty ones

And, just to add, the bullying was physical too. I took pictures of the marks that were made on my child. Nothing done. I took the pictures to the meeting with the BoG but was still told my child was too sensitive & that the bully was having a hard time at home. WTF?! Like I said, it was only when they were pushed & the police were involved, that the school paid attention.

You're right, nastiness is not confined to one gender, but this thread is about teenage girls and it's mainly women talking about their experience of teenage girls.
If it was a thread about teenage boys, we could speak about that experience too. It's not misogyny, it's different experiences.

I think telling the mum or the bully that your DD is upset gives the girl too much power - and that is what she wants.

Go straight to the school and let them know what is happening.

I'd also try and prime your daughter with some fairly neutral responses to any jibes at school. 'Oh, I was far too busy that night to facetime.'

Good luck OP.

I hope everyone on this thread talks to their children about how to behave in such situations. Not if they are being bullied, but if they are pulled in as part of the group. If just one or two other kids stood up and were brave, this couldn't happen. We as parents have to equip the silent majority.

Make your child the one to help.

You definitely should NOT contact the mum.

We had a slightly different issue with my DD and her BFF. It took a couple of weekends for me to notice that DD was just sitting at home in her bedroom, no sleepovers, no nipping to the shops, no going to the swimming baths. I realised BFF and her were no longer on the same page.

Now I had got on very well with this girl's mum. We'd been out for drinks, round to her house, went to a New Year's party together. So I texted her and said crikey there's been a lot less contact recently - did you have any idea what the issue is cos they've been such good friends for so long it seems such a shame - maybe we could help them to reconnect?

Yes, I'll ask in a subtle way and get back to you.

3 days later no reply. So I do a prompting text.

Same type of response. ie None. A week goes by, absolutely no response at all and clearly no intention to respond or try and help - the penny finally dropped.

Sadly even the 'good' parents are really shockingly flaky when it comes to protecting their own child's incorrect behaviour.

For those saying oh you shouldn't talk about girls being nasty, no disrespect of any kind, but girls can be fucking nasty. Horrible, vile, vindictive, bitches. And it's valid because boys don't tend to behave like that. So these are valid comments and they are deliberately gender specific because girls bully in a way that's far more to do with social standing, than boys do. That's just facts, not sexism toward girls. Any of the boys who've joined in with any ostracising that my DD has suffered were very much on the periphery, not the instigators, not the drivers of the appalling behaviour, all that was the queen bee girls.

No-one is suggesting nastiness can be confined to one gender. No-one is saying that boys cannot be nasty and that only girls are. Girls are being referred to here because the people in this situation are girls.

Saying that you should say that "they sounded nasty" is just playing with semantics. You are also changing your own argument. In your first post you said you think that posters should say "kids can be nasty". So your focus was on a problem with the noun "girls". Now you are saying that you have a problem with the active verb. I suggest you decide what you are getting offended about.

I wouldn't contact the mother. Would contact the school.

Please do your best to encourage your DD to make new friends. I went through similar st school (ironically I became a target because I stood up for someone else who was being bullied by someone else in the friendship group). It became a horrendous environment, lots of children in the group all sniping and competing- for some reason, I don't think any of us thought walking away was an option. I ended up doing things that I'm not proud of as well- basically hurting others before they hurt me, etc.

Fortunately I had a realisation aged 15 that I didn't want to be 'that' person, and that I didn't want to go back into the environment and put myself in a position where I would ber upped to shreds again. Luckily, another local school had a place, and I moved there. I make a conscious effort to avoid getting into 'that place' again- even as an adult, I have to distance myself from nasty people. I wish I'd walked away aged 11 and found other friends at the first school, rather than spending so many years of my life miserable.

Your DD sounds really sensible, and you sound great. Maybe invite her newer friends around soon?

You have to speak to her, there is something wrong with her daughter to be doing that. She sounds awfully jealous of your daughter, is she in a happy stable home environment? If my daughter had been this awful to someone I'd want to know, it would be the last party she'd ever have!