Everyone invited but dd - am I being U?

[Ihaveyourback]

DD (12) started secondary school last year, she found a great group of five girls pretty much on the first day and they hang out every day at school. DD stayed in touch and her friends came over for sleepovers, dinner, they did loads of things together (mainly at our house I may add) etc over the summer after the lockdown, the girls get on very well and all is good. DD noticed that 'Zara' one of the girls was playing two of the girls off against each, and they were vying a little for her attention. No big deal - these things happen between girls.

Fast forward to last week. We booked an activity for this group of friends over the half term and invited them all - dd missed out on her birthday party over lockdown so I had promised her a treat. We then found out that Zara had already booked the activity for her birthday, and she sent dd lots of messages via SM saying she was going with laughing emojis and that dd could still go ahead with her day but they would all be 'pros' as they would have more practice due to her party.

It turns out that Zara has invited the whole group except for dd.

There was not a problem with numbers as we are still allowed six here, so she invited other girls that she never sees and hardly knows over dd - whom she considers to be a very close friend.

DD was very so hurt and cried for a few days. It put me in a terrible position as we had already invited the others girls to the activity including Zara.

Zara is entitled to choose whoever she likes for her party, of course, and if she does not want dd to come then that is fine, however the endless messaging boasting about the girls all going, how fun it was going to be, how much they would be than dd was abit much, and seemed to me quite spiteful.

Zara's Mum meanwhile having accepted the invite, then declined because they were away - so this seemed like a solution, but then she called me to say Zara was so upset not to go with dd could she please be included again, knowing full well Zara had invited everyone but my dd!!!
By this point I was absolutely tired of the messages to dd from Zara, the calls from her mother and cancelled the activity with an excuse that we couldn't make it.

DD now wants to have a sleepover, she wants to invite her friends and definitely does not want to invite Zara who she no longer considers a friend anymore. I don't feel we owe this girl anything.

What do you think? Am I being unreasonable not to invite Zara? I am obviously keen to avoid any further upset but I am really upset for dd.

We have a rule of six, there are five girls in the group so no issues at all with numbers. DD since found out thanks to the joys of SM that another two girls went instead that were not friends of Zara's just in the same year - no history - never hang out. DD's other friends that were invited made a point to say they were really surprised that dd was not there, and why wasn't she there. DD was extremely embarrassed and just said she was busy that day (fortunately she actually was with other home friends!) Thank god for old friends, so it was the truth, although obviously she would have much preferred this not to have happened.

We call the Zara's 'trainee psychopaths' (not when talking with the kids when we try and present a balanced and compassionate view of the inner turmoil that leads to people feeling the need to do this sort of thing). She is clearly a troubled child but that does not mean your DD has to be her savior. I think a polite but clear message to the mum re: why Zara's invite can no longer be reinstated would be appropriate. Plus hold onto the hope that Zara may mature into a much better person (I do mean that really, she's only young).

@ScrapThatThen

Excellent post.

Zara is a very clever girl, and it seems to me like she is playing games, and not really interested in proper friendship. The other girls that were being played against each other have distanced slightly from Zara, and one in particularly has decided to leave the group.

TBF there's every chance that Zara has lied to her mother too. "Oh yes, I invited DD but she couldn't make it." Especially as she's tried to manipulate two of them and your DD wasn't falling for it. See, DD and I are the closest but I dropped her and I can drop either of you.

Why on earth did you cancel the activity?!!!
You just had to say, “no, sorry, we don’t have the space now.”
Just go ahead without Zara now. Your daughter has sorted out herself what she wants to do - good for her.
If you get any more calls from Zara’s mum just say, “I think they’ve grown apart a bit, you can force these things.” (or tell her the truth, but you’ll gain nothing from that)

Your daughter has already handled this, you don’t really have to do anything.

If you have a rule of 6 how can they all sleepover (and SD as well). Could use that as an excuse if don’t want Zara to come, but both she and her mother sound hard work so would try and distance myself from them anyway

Zara's mother knew that dd had not been invited, she said they 'wanted' to invite dd but because of covid could not, because of the limit on numbers. This does not explain why Zara would invite girls that are not friends of hers - I think pp is right. Zara was making an example of dd to the others.

DD’s friendship group at school kept arranging things outside of school for them all but excluding DD. During full lockdown they’d zoomed lots and seemed to be close but afterwards they never invited DD out with them.

DD was gutted but in the end she’s now moved over to a smaller group of different friends at school. It’s still early days and I’m hoping she’ll start to go out with them soon and that they won’t exclude her.

Teen girls are so tricky but I try to teach DD that you can’t control how much of a dick other people are. You can only control how you react to their dickishness and that you decide if you put up with it or move on.

When Zara Mum rang and asked if Zara could be reinstated you should have said your dd had invited another friend so sorry too late. You should have gone ahead with your dd belated birthday treat.

If your dd no longer considers Zara a friend she should go ahead and do what she wants but Zara will find out and may be nasty to your dd. Also it may force the group to choose between Zara and your dd. Maybe better if group split into two.

We cancelled the activity with good reason as I had a health problem, so in fact the timing of this could not have been better.

DD's other friends very kindly invited her to their house and out for the day etc whilst I was out of action. So in fact the cancellation of the activity turned out to be a good thing in the end.

At the sleepover bearing in mind there will be you / other family members at home you won’t be able to have the full group anyway so there won’t be room for Zara (or all the others?)

It’s hurtful when you are not invited to things but try and teach DD to shrug it off as it will happen throughout life.In a group of friends there are often some you are closer to than others. It is a bit weird that you think you know how friendly Zara is with other people though! Sounds like Zara could do with learning to be tactful.

I had a friendship group that included at least one Zara and one day it came to be my turn to be punished/left out/insert reason here at about 12 years old.

It hurt like hell but in all honesty, it was good for me. It caused me to really think about what it means to be a friend, what I expect from a friendship and how I should behave in being a friend to others.

It also taught me how to stand up for myself.

It was a massively influential part of my life and I am glad it happened. I'm not trying to suggest anyone else should feel that way in a similar scenario - just trying to give an example of where the pain was worth the prize (for me).

I asked dd if she wanted to reschedule the activity, but she said she really doesn't want to do it now, and I don't blame her. She said a sleepover would be better. So that is why the dilemma has presented itself.

Is there just you as an adult in the house, OP? Because if you have any more family members obviously you can only have 3 to a sleepover, for example (3 guests, DD, you +1). Then it’s an easy get-out for why DD can’t invite Z this particular time (& as she was happy to leave DD out of the group obviously it’s to be expected she’ll be last on the guest list for a sleepover.)

In this circumstance I’d give my DD the reason to not invite Z - “Mum says I’m only allowed 3 for a sleepover”.

Things may change and change again so best not to make too big a fuss but leave the doors open whilst not being the proverbial doormat.

100% have the sleepover without zara

ghost how did you deal with it - did you stand up to your Zara?
It is definitely the case that it is dd's 'turn' to be left out, as the other girls have all had this happen to them one by one in the last year. All sorts of drama and upset, up to now dd has managed to stay out of it, and just be friends with everyone.

Can someone more informed than me tell me why on earth girls do this? What does Zara have to gain by being like this?

To be honest your daughter sounds solid, she doesn’t want Zara there and will walk away if it goes sideways.

Do the party as your DD requests, it’s a good learning to stand up for herself. Making her have Zara there will be teaching her she has to mollycoddle bad behaviour.

Can someone more informed than me tell me why on earth girls do this? What does Zara have to gain by being like this?

Big-standard insecurity, often combined with upbringing. In my experience.

It’s a control thing, playing for top dog and enjoying the attention of being it. Zara probably gets a lot of attention for being a PITA at home. Not really her fault it’s learned behaviour.

grumbly I have no idea who hangs out with who, but I do know dd and Zara and the other girls have been together since day one. The other girls invited are part of another group entirely, and dd said were probably wondering why they were even invited.
The groups at this age can be quite fixed (I don't endorse that btw) but that has been my experience.

What do the other girls in the group think about Zara? My DD (also at age 12) formed a similar group of friends when she started secondary school but a year or so later one of the girls, to quote DD, "decided she wanted to be one of the popular girls" and became very flaky around the others, dropping one or several of them in favour of her new "cooler" friends when it suited but hanging around with them when the cool friends weren't there. Eventually DD and the other girls in the group got fed up and distanced her - as in, they were polite but didn't go out of their way to include her in everything. They seemed to reach a happy status quo.

They are now nearly 15 and lockdown (the popular girls are all blatantly disregarding all regulations) has prompted this girl (who doesn't agree with this) to rethink her friendships again. She's now one of DD's closest friends :)

Short version of story - natural for friendships to wax and wane; this is partly about the girls finding out who they are as much as anything.

When the mum told me Zara was disappointed not to be able to go I would have said ‘while we’re talking about this, X is also very upset as Zara didn’t invite her to do this activity for her birthday with all the rest of their friends. Did you know X was excluded? Do you know why Zara didn’t invite her? It’s fair enough if Zara doesn’t want to be friends anymore but then why does she want an invite from X?’ I would stay very polite but I would want the mum to know Zara can’t be a little madam who gets everything her way.

^^ this but see you have updated. Actually dread these kind of scenarios (have a four year old) . Really don’t know what I would do! Probably not invite Zara to be honest.... because Zara sounds like a spoilt b*tch... who is jealous of your DD.

Zara is intentionally trying to cause trouble. There are a million reasons why a 12 year old might do this, and none of them are a reflection on your DD.

I would let your DD get on with it. She didn't invite Zara - good for her. She's sticking up for herself and exercising her self respect. I wouldn't go wading in telling her that she needs to invite Zara to stuff. Her mum sounds like a pain in the arse tbh. Don't get drawn into silly back and forths with her over stuff like this. If she contacts you again in the future over something like this I would just keep ending the conversation- "DD's party has all been finalised now, sorry. Maybe another time." Etc. If she continues to pester you then I would just ignore.

We booked an activity for this group of friends over the half term and invited them all - dd missed out on her birthday party over lockdown so I had promised her a treat. We then found out that Zara had already booked the activity for her birthday
So Zara had already booked the same activity for her birthday but you DD continued with her invite? They most likely would have talked about it before do why would your DD picked the sane week and sane activity for her birthday that was months ago?

If that's the case I can see with Zara would have been annoyed with your DD. Surely as soon as you found out she'd already booked the same activity, you should have said nevermind, we'll do something else at a later time?

DD and a girl in her class had birthdays 2 days apart. Every year DD would invite the other girl to her party but DD was only invited to the girls year 6 party (she had one every year).
DD and the girl moved to the same secondary school but didn’t hang around together. DD didn’t invite the girl to her birthday party - it caused so much drama, the girl was in tears, she was posting messages of herself on social media crying as her own birthday had been ruined by not being invited to DDs party! The girl had not invited DD to her party. Some kids just love creating drama!