How can I best advise my DD on dealing with social cliques and social media at secondary school?

[OccidentalPurist]

This is more an Am I being unreasonably concerned (and sorry for the long post!).

When my DD left junior for secondary last September she was a very happy, bright, creative and slightly eccentric girl with a lot of friends. Until recently I’d got the impression that things were continuing as normal at secondary school, but I had a rather worrying conversation with her today.

Since starting the Spring term she has become rather pale, grumpy and emotional. Me and my DH initially put it down to hormones, but today she (and her best friend) really opened up about the pressure they feel under to be popular at school and, in particular, on Instagram. It really threw me and I’m worried that this is only going to get worse.

My DD is in a class with her best friend from junior school, but there is a large, dominant group of girls there from another school, who seem to lord it over the rest of them and whom everyone seems to want approval from, including the boys. This on its own I could offer advice on, as I remember it happening at times in my school, but now it comes with a whole other strata of pressure from Instagram as well.

My DD and her friend follow these girls on Instagram and they have three times the followers my DD has and get hundreds more likes and many comments etc. Just writing this is making me think how ridiculous it is, as it’s not real life, but I’m not a 12 year old girl in 2019 and I really don’t think telling her to just come off Instagram is the answer, as she would be known as that girl who’s no longer on Instagram etc.

My maim worry is that, until now, my DD was the sort of person who was so above this sort of rubbish, but that it’s just so pervasive and overwhelming at secondary level that she’s going to end up being some sort of compromised and watered down version of herself just so she can ‘fit in’, in real life and on social media.

Instagram is such a recent phenomenon and I just wondered if there were any mums out there whose DDs were currently navigating it or who had ‘come out the other side’ who could perhaps offer me some advice, reassurance or anecdotes I could pass on to my DD!

[OccidentalPurist]

@DoesLittle am definitely going to get her to start attending one of the really good drama clubs in our city, as she loves it at school!

[AlphaJura]

My dd is in year 6 and they all have smartphones with tick tock and instagram. I've always encouraged her to talk about things with me but she has recently become very miserable and critical of me. I am wondering if it is down to SM. I am going to try putting limits on her phone and see if it makes a difference. She's at her dad's this weekend and hasn't taken her phone so we'll see if she is any happier.

[MrPickles73]

Yr 6 shouldn't be on instagram. I would report this to the school.

[exLtEveDallas]

What do you think the school could do @MrPickles73 ?

[GreenTulips]

So you thought your DD was popular at junior school and it’s come as a bit of a shock that she’s less popular than other girls in her year? And she’s not happy because she doesn’t get the likes the other girls do?

Dear me!! I think you should’ve taught her some resilience.

[Ratatouille76]

Sorry but why are year 6 children on ticktok and Instagram? Just say no, we have and it's been fine.

[Warpdrive]

I think it’s great that she’s shared her concerns with you.

My eldest is 15 and has gone through some stuff. It’s been tough but as a result of how unhappy it has made her, she’s stepped away from the social media that upset her (unfollowed and blocked people) and reassessed her fundamental friendship group and stepped away from people She’s hung out with since primary. As a result she’s sometimes lonely now, but she’s the one in control. Her friendship group will develop on her terms now and already she has some new friends.
And, she’s thrown herself into schoolwork and her hobby (is taking her grade 8 piano this year) and is thriving with them.

I think it’s tough call for parents, to help their children navigate these 21st century issues, but I am raising a strong, independent, hardworking young woman who is capable of making tough decisions and doesn’t bow to peer pressure but focuses on achieving her own goals instead.

Remember that challenges help kids grow and develop - we shouldn’t shy away from them, but encourage our children to take bold steps in tackling them - if it makes her feel bad, why does she continue with it?

[JuliaAndJulia]

Mine is in a similar boat. She got a bit fed up and decided to delete TikTok when she discovered things her so called friends were doing without including her. Since then she's a bit detached but WhatsApp is distracting & written words can brew trouble even when there isn't any before. She's not on insta & only allowed to use snapchat for the filters. I don't mind her using SM but not yet. I'd rather she first navigates y7 & settles into secondary, makes firm friends and knows where she stands first.

I think deleting the app will give your DD immense relief & freedom because she will have nothing to compare. It might feel strange at first & get talked about but in a few days the benefits will outweigh the issues & she won't look back.

Good luck!

[floribunda18]

When there was discord or nastiness years before, you'd go home, moan to your Mam, be allowed maybe 10 mins to call your friend on the landline (before you Mam would yell at you that it was peak-time expensive!) but essentially, it would cool down and diffuse overnight and your head would be allowed other distractions and be given a break from it.

Nope. I never told my parents about bullying and friendship problems, and there was no social media. It certainly didn't blow over overnight.

[user1486131602]

I have a teen dad, and we had issues also.
The 'solution ' I found best was when she goes to bed she has to turn the phone off, its linked to Melanie ne so no cheating! If she doesn't, no phone!
Has deffo improved things from her side, but you change other people.

[Smartieshavetheanswer]

floribunda of course not every situation would cool off, but they certainly wouldn't be quite so intense nor amplified as they are now with snapchat and social media.

[floribunda18]

Pretty intense when someone is in your face every day at school as well.

[OccidentalPurist]

One comment from my DD that really stood out when we spoke yesterday was "I feel that nobody cares about me". It sounded so sad, but I felt so cross inside (didn't show it) as it's caused by bloody Instagram!

[GetRid]

Aargh. My dds are 9 and 7. No phones yet obviously. I am dreading all of this to come. I think you need to be so across all of these apps just so you know how they work. I haven't got the foggiest idea about Instagram etc.

Op - it does sound very difficult for your dd. But I do remember being this age and seeing primary friends suddenly become v popular at secondary for superficial reasons (mainly looks). It's the same thing. I guess the only thing you can do is teach resilience, and limit use of the app in favour of other activities.

[Oliversmumsarmy]

Dd at that age had one best friend. Like in your dds class there was an alpha group.

Dd had a lot of after school stuff so was spared a lot of social media issues

Dd and her friend werent really interested in the stuff the alpha group was into. They were more into giggling over silly stuff than how their hair and make up looked or who was dating who.

In the end the alpha group was a small group and the rest of the class became the bigger fun group.

[SE13Mummy]

DD1 is 14.5, Y9 and uses Instagram, as do most of her friends. She doesn't have thousands of followers whereas some of her peers do but from the outset, we strongly encouraged her to only add people she knew well enough to know their birthday/where they lived and liked enough to be happy to know where she lives. Together, we've looked at Instagram accounts that offer 'follow for follow' or 'likes for likes' as well as those that are fake followers and considered the likelihood of the apparently popular people either being less discerning than she is when it comes to who she adds, or that some of their followers being fake accounts.

Although DD1 would sometimes like to be one of those who seem popular online, she is able to see that real life and Instagram friends aren't the same i.e. how many online friends wish her happy birthday by getting in touch independent of social media? I continue to encourage her to be picky about who she follows and vice versa; there's no point following someone who ignores you in real life or, because you don't get invited to things, make you feel excluded when you see their 'story' on Instagram. She has got much better at having the courage to delete people that make her feel uncomfortable for whatever reason and I'm not aware of any of them having asked why.

She doesn't have her phone in her room after 8.30pm which does at least spare her from late night silliness and notifications. I'd prefer she spent less time watching videos on Instagram and YouTube but she finds time to ring friends, do homework, daily music practice, a couple of sports and various other things that aren't screenbased so it's part of a balance.

[Smartieshavetheanswer]

floribunda then the issue here is bullying and you should report it to your tutors. Online or real life is harrowing and awful and needs dealing with but my point here is that SM allows that bully access into your bedroom, sometimes in the early hours.

[Smartieshavetheanswer]

The most resilient pupils I teach are those that have hobbies and friends outside of the school community. It's always been the case too.

[BeautifulName]

Placemarking

[MsTSwift]

She needs to be helped to lower her expectations of her peers. Apart from a few proper friends most are going to be indifferent to her at best. That overused word resilience is needed here - getting your confidence from the views of others who dont care about you is a path to misery and makes you weak. Sounds like she is not old enough for social media at all think I would try to end her use of it.

[OccidentalPurist]

So many helpful replies on here - thank you.

@SE13Mummy and @Smartieshavetheanswer
I'm going to copy your advice into Notes to show my DD (along with a lot of other good stuff on here).

This thread prompted me to talk more with DD yesterday about everything. I didn't think she'd experienced any actual bullying yet on SM, but she told me that about four months ago one of the alpha girls had posted on a whole-class WhatsApp group that had been set up, asking "Who wants to go to Burger King after school tomorrow?!" My DD responded with "Yay, I'd love to!", to which this girl replied with "Not you, obvs". So the whole class would have seen this...

I'm starting to get a bigger picture now and need to make sure I keep up the dialogue with her about it. My DD's default setting is to be very happy and chatty, with me anyway, and you really have to eek any negative stuff out of her as she really keeps it inside.

[Ratatouille76]

Oh your poor DD that's mean.

[MsTSwift]

What a little bitch.

If you have Spotify listen to Taylor swift “mean” and “the best day”. My two girls and I listen to these songs in these situations and they always cheer us up!

[HennyPennyHorror]

What's she interested in OP? What hobbies?
I have a 14 year old DD.

[OccidentalPurist]

@HennyPennyHorror she was really into drama at junior and there are a lot of good clubs in our city, so I think that's the way forward. Not so into sport, although she's very active.