To ask why do girls exclude each other?

[Swonderful]

Just that really. And does anyone have any advise how to help DD with feeling upset. And does it get better?

For context DD is in year 7 and lost her best friend who moved away. She is in a class with mainly kids from another primary school.

She is really struggling with breaking into a friendship group. She always has lots of friends but ends up being the third wheel or being excluded if they meet up outside school. She always makes friends easily when she goes to clubs etc outside of school.

She's also finding there are so many friendship dramas with girls falling out and being forced to takes sides!

Anyone experienced similar and how do you help them when they're upset but it's lots of small things rather than anyone being obviously mean?

Aww, sorry to hear this. Year 7 is a tough age. Why, I think it can be lots of reasons, they can seem very grown up by that age but there's a huge range I find in emotional awareness and social skills in 11-13 year olds, some are still quite 'young' acting and feeling and into similar things they were at primary school whereas others are full fledged teens with more 'grown up' interests, some are going or have gone through puberty and all the slew of hormones that entails while some are still years away, the move to secondary school is quite stressful for some, super exciting for others, disrupts lots of existing friendship groups, some want to cling to old friendships and are jealous/defensive of anything that might threaten that, while others want break away and form new groups, many are super-concerned to fit in and be in the cool gang (which can lead to real fear about stepping out of line e.g. to be friends with the new kid that no-one quite knows where they 'fit'), and basically none of them quite have the emotional intelligence and empathy to deal with the whole thing without inadvertently (or on purpose, some kids are just little sh*ts at the end of the day also) hurting others. From a parent that's been out the other side of it with my now grown up kids, yes it gets better in the end but I'm afraid to say you probably have a few years more yet, once they start getting boy/girlfriends that adds a whole other layer of drama too I'm afraid to say so buckle in (esp if you have more than one kid, I think I had about a decade of teen tantrums and dramas in the end)...

How to deal, I try and cultivate a caring yet mildly detached persona around it all, you cannot get dragged into the drama or go OTT with your own fears/sadness as that is both stressful for you and also tends to make it worse for them, mum getting upset validates that this really is a huge, life-ruining disaster where really it hardly ever is that bad objectively speaking. Don't minimise or laugh at their feelings though, however ridiculous or exaggerated the drama, give plenty of hugs while they'll still accept them and try and provide a calm, comforting base for them to come back to (I used to do lots of movie nights when I had distraught teens with blankets and hot drinks and comforting films, mine liked things like Mean Girls that echoed their own experiences in a funny way, maybe it's too old now for today's teens to relate but there must be similar things out there), but equally reassure them that school isn't for life, yes friendships are important but she is lovely/wonderful and will always be popular so the fact that X has cut her or Y has stolen her boyfriend or Z has created a rumour about her won't be as devastating in the long run as it seems now. If they'll accept some gentle advice like 'why not speak to X calmly about what's happening', 'how about telling your teacher about Z' then offer but I find that meets with a 'muuuummm, you're so uncool, I could never do that' type response so feels a bit pointless really. I think faciliating lots of out of school activities is brilliant as a way of broadening her social circle and giving an outlet - if she's having a bit of a rough time with school mates can you offer to take her and some hobby friends out or have them over to your house instead so she doesn't feel too much like she's missing out or gets lonely? Good luck!

It's a really difficult time. Have you read Queen Bees and Wannabees? It's the non-fiction which inspired Mean Girls and it's a fascinating insight into developing teenage psychology / the anthropology of being a teenager.

From personal experience it is difficult, but all you can do is empower her to keep trying and make sure she's got plenty of nice fun things to do when she's not at school. It might also be worth seeing if there's a club or sport she wants to join outside of school where she could have a different pool of people to get to know?

These things do straighten themselves out, but every single one of the girls in her year is trying to work out how to exist in the world, and they're all struggling to a greater or lesser extent.