She’s not dd(11)s problem?

[juneisjuly]

Dd(11) was one of two girls from her primary to go to this secondary.
Dd and the other girl (that I’ll call Sarah) weren’t friends in primary, Sarah was basically head girl and was on occasion mean to dd eg would tell tales on her and refer to her as one of the boys excluding her from girl things.

Dd already knew other girls in secondary school from out school groups and quickly made other friends.
It’s seems Sarah hasn’t. Dd did hang out with Sarah for a while and attempt to include her with other friends at lunch and inviting out with them on a couple of occasions.
But says she finds her difficult and says she either doesn’t say anything or is really negative, none of dd’s friends like Sarah or want to include her.

After Christmas dd was called out of class and asked what was going on with her and Sarah, she explained and nothing else came from it.
Dd has never been unpleasant to sarah.

Sarah’s mum messaged me to ask if dd went out over Easter as Sarah was upset to have not done anything. I said that dd has gone out with friends and that I just don’t think her and Sarah are friends, they never were in primary and haven’t clicked now.
She’s said she’s going to have to go to the school as it’s not fair that Sarah is being excluded and the ‘primary school name’ girls should stick together.

I dont think Sarah is dds problem and that she shouldnt have to be friends with Sarah or hang out with her.

AIBU?

Agree.
More respect of the rights of boys to self determination!....even in friendships.

I encourage my daughters to be kind to herself first. I'm sick of girls being socialised to put themselves last.
Not my daughters!

But DD cannot be forced by this school to be friends with Sarah just because they went to the same primary school - especially as they were never friends there. That is unreasonable and I will intervene with the school if I feel she is being singled out in this.

Totally agree. And (in my experience at least) schools push this “we’re all friends” here rubbish, often because it suits them and allows them to brush behavioural issues under the carpet. Your DD needs to be civil and courteous to Sarah; even better if she can do so in a generally pleasant fashion. But that is it. She’s allowed to choose her own friends and is allowed not to want Sarah to be included in their number. And this is not excluding Sarah.

Bit weird of school to call your dd out of class to discuss this when the girls aren’t really friends. I regularly receive instructions to split up Year 7 students because friendships have fractured or they aren’t getting on for whatever reason.

I find it very odd that the mum is so insistent and I’d talk to the head of year pdq re the unpleasant behaviour of ‘Sarah’ in primary and that you don’t want them forced together in school. It isn’t appropriate for school to try to force friendships and the mum needs to understand that they were never friends. Your dd is entitled to spend time with whom she wants.

Sarah needs to find her crowd not be forced into one that’s a bad fit. The mum is trying to support her but has misjudged. There’s a number of girls from dtds primary that they have no interest in hanging with and from the outside it’s been fascinating to watch. Even my identical twins have totally different friendship groups - very kind and respectful of each other now (year 9) but that took time and navigation.

teen friendships are tough but mums need to step back at this point. Hard when dc is struggling.

So if your child was struggling to make friends you would encourage them to become friends with the child who was repeatedly nasty to them in primary school?

Because the girl named OP’s daughter as the problem.

I had something similar when I was at high school. There was a girl in the class who everyone picked on. She was quite a mean kid but didn’t deserve to be treated that way. I was guilty of laughing along when she was made fun of in class and never stood up for her, but never actually engaged with her at all. I could have been nicer to her, we all could have, but there were kids in the class who were definitely bullying her. They pushed her, locked her in store cupboards, called her some horrible names. My friend and I were called out to speak with guidance because she had named us as being the ones who were mean to her and she just wanted to be our friend. We weren’t particularly happy about that as we didn’t have much to do with her, but said fine, we’d think about how we reacted. Their response was to try and force a friendship. She was sat next to me in every class, and put in all our groups, she had to be in our team in PE etc. We were polite to her and spoke to her, but we had nothing in common, we liked horses and music and reading, she wanted to talk about boys and her 4 cats. The last straw came when she complained to guidance that my friend and I were going out places outwith school and not inviting her. We were told we should invite her just to be nice. My parents got involved at that point and said absolutely not.

We had nothing to do with her after that, but she bore a grudge about that and years later when she had left school but we were in Sixth, we had a mess up day and her (unknown to us) younger sister got caught up in one of the pranks we pulled. She came storming into the school, found us in a corridor and physically attacked my friend screaming “you won’t do to her what you did to me” We did nothing to her, she just seemed to think because we didn’t want her as a friend, we were responsible for how she was treated at school.

If her mother had called mine and said we had to be her friend, my mum would have laughed in her face, probably.

She was quite a mean kid but didn’t deserve to be treated that way. I was guilty of laughing along when she was made fun of in class and never stood up for her, but never actually engaged with her at all.

You were actively involved in bullying her. Laughingly alongside the bullying is playing your part.

She came storming into the school, found us in a corridor and physically attacked my friend screaming “you won’t do to her what you did to me” We did nothing to her, she just seemed to think because we didn’t want her as a friend, we were responsible for how she was treated at school.

That is very sad, she sounds traumatised. Btw you were partly responsible, you didn’t have to be her friend but you could have helped by not laughing or asking other's to stop some of it.
Poor girl.
I was tough in school, never bullied anyone but I would never sit back laughing while a bully jeered a person.
I'd tell the bully to stop.

It was very kind of your DD to try and include her unprompted, especially after her not being particularly nice to her at primary school.
She’s tried, and it didn’t work. It’s not her problem at all. I didn’t have a lot of friends at the start of secondary school and was a bit of a Sarah. I have ASD so it’s a bit different, but making friends on my own and facing social rejection is a part of life and I definitely learned a lot about making friends in the first few years of school. It’s brutal tho, especially for girls so I feel for this Sarah girl but hopefully she can go back after Easter and make some friends of her own. A pitty friendship where your DD has to babysit her won’t help.

I went to a secondary school where I knew absolutely nobody. Over the first term, I gradually made friends with people I gelled with. This was a natural process, and so we’re still friends all these years later.

Sarah seems to be relying on her mum to produce friends for her. She reminds me of an only child I knew, Lily. I’d spent a pleasant time with her when we met at the park one day, and then her mum invited me over to her house. It was fine, but I got an unpleasant feeling there of being forced to take a position I didn’t want - that of best friend to Lily. Lily was spoilt and had been given the impression she could have what she wanted. I began to understand why she had no close friends. Her mum’s attempts to make me her best friend at the behest of Lily drove me away.

I haven’t RTWT.

This is quite common with children who struggle with going from being a big fish in a little pond, to being a little fish in a big pond.

DD has tried to include Sarah. It hasn’t worked out. Sarah needs to put the work in to be more friendly with others.

I'd preemptively go in and talk to them.
I wouldn't be happy with this at all.

Not the way the school handled it and certainly not the mother or her attitude.

Argh I've been in the other mums position and it is incredibly hard believe me.

But having said this, I think once they get to a certain age...stay out of it! Be there to listen and give advice etc but there is nothing you can do. That other mum cannot force other girls to get on with her daughter - as hard as she tries. She will be heartbroken but she isn't necessarily helping.

School instead should suggest ways for her to find other different friends.

I would maybe email school to give your side of the story in this case (since the other mum has already got in there and contacted them)

A reply to the mum might include something about them being old enough to work things out for themselves now.. in as nice a way as possible she needs to take a step back

(And I'm saying that as the heartbroken mum of a rejected child!)

If be speaking to the form teacher or head of year and letting them known he history.

Take the time to hear their side of the story of why your daughter was taken out of class.

Asking them not to take her out again.

@FuzzyYellowChicken Argh I've been in the other mums position and it is incredibly hard believe me.
You mean your child was a horrible bully to someone in primary school, then when she and her victim moved schools you complained the victim wasn't giving her enough attention or doing what she was told?

Nope just the mum desperately sad for her child who has been left out.
I don't dispute that it's often that child's fault.. but it's still sad having the child with no friends.
If you actually read my post though I am not sticking up for the other mum at all. So be kind.

I think the thing to do is to contact your dd’s form tutor ( are they in the same tutor group?) and whoever has responsibility for overall pastoral care at the school and say that you feel your dd is being put in an impossible situation by the girls mother.

It sounds as though the school actually hasnt been putting huge pressure on, apart fromthe one chat outside class, so that is something to mention - positively - but in a way that makes it clear you expect that the chat was a one off information gathering talk.

Say you need the school to be aware of what Sarah’s mum has said because this is a school issue not a home issue and you don’t think it fair that Sarah’s problems in school are being made your dds problem out of school. Finish by saying that you hope that now that the school has a clear understanding of what has been happening they will use their resources and expertise to support Sarah’s wellbeing, without further involvement or expectations being placed on your 11 year old child.

I'm 99% sure that the school will have had it before where a parent is upset their kid hasn't got a close friend group and wants the school to make force other children to be this group. The school will not do that because they will know that isn't fair on the other child or children involved. They will also likely recognise actual bullying like your daughter constantly telling Sarah she isn't good enough to join in with her, from naturally growing and deciding to hang out with others. I would just see how the school handle it. Obviously if they actually started trying to make your daughter hang out with Sarah against her wishes, or telling her off for not being best friends with Sarah, then yes complain loudly, but hopefully they won't.

That’s how it was at DD’s school too.

But there were still 14 other girls in her class and a full year for them to get to know each other. The other girls knew kids in other classes, so there was plenty of scope for getting to know plenty of new people.

Personally I’d be a lot less dramatic about it unless you want the teacher to jump to the wrong conclusions.

She isn’t in an ‘impossible situation’ it’s just a challenge of life.

A quick note to the form tutor to say ‘I understand dd was spoken to about Sarah, I think there’s been a misunderstanding somewhere - the girls were never friends in primary and don’t have much in common so it’s unlikely they’d be friends in secondary. Any other concerns please can you speak to me?’ All that’s needed.

I’d also leave the crap over the holidays, the school don’t police what mad parents get up to.

I understand that now. I was 12 and didn’t understand that then.

I did change the way I acted in that I wouldn’t laugh along (this was in a class situation) but I never called it out. Again, I was 12, in First Year at high school. Presumably there should also have been more done by teaching staff but maybe back in the late 80s it wasn’t what was done. By the time I was mid teens, I was certainly more vocal when I saw things like that happening to kids.

The older me wishes I had acted differently. I didn’t actively make her life harder, but I didn’t do anything to defend her either. If I met her now I would apologise to her, not that it would probably make any difference to her. I can’t recall how the situation ended that day in the corridor. I do remember letting her know we hadn’t singled out her sister (we didn’t know who her sister was) but what was said beyond that I can’t remember.

The overall point I was making was, I wasn’t one of her direct tormentors. There were kids in the class who, if they had been dealt with would have made a whole lot of difference to her experience at school, but she never reported their behaviour, not once. I have no doubt her experience was traumatic and that is awful, she probably still bears the scars. If I could speak to 12 year old me, I’d tell me to try and help. But we weren’t ever going to be friends and that’s what she wanted. I expect this was because she thought if she was friends with us, others would accept her. The school chose to try and force that by saying we should invite her to be with us out of school and that wasn’t a suitable solution. Our year groups were all changed in Second Year, presumably the bullying continued but I wouldn’t know because I never saw her.

Get to the school first.

Your DD has included Sarah, Sarah has been mean, they are not friends, your DD is entitled to do what you and her agree to in the school holidays.

And tell them DD must not be called out of class for this, she goes to school to get an education not supply Sarah with whatever her whims are.

You don’t think expecting an 11 year to deal with, and sort out, the long-standing poor social skills of another 11 year old child is placing them in an impossible situation?

And yes, I do think the school need to know that Sarah’s mother has been escalating this issue out of school. Not telling the school is hiding half the problem. You would want a school to let parents know of a school situation that was affecting home life, children don’t cut off one part of their life when they move from one environment to another.

OP, I'm a teacher. Primary, not secondary but this is my take on it

Schools have been heavily focused over the years in the whole 'being a good friend' thing and have encouraged (in my opinipn) unhealthy behaviours and poor boundaries. But pps are right in that it isn't ever expected to apply to.boys in quute the same way - boys are allowed to dislike someone and not be their friend or play with them in a way that girls just aren't (haven't been).

This is changing and schools are general more aware of.this nowadays - last term, I taught my KS2 class how to both be and recognise a good friend and how to avoid being and recognise 'toxic friends'.

Schools are a lot better at encouraging children to set boundaries nowadays. A few years ago, the 'be a good friend' stuff was, to be perfectly honest, damaging.

As for why your daughter was taken from class and spoken to. It is likely Sarah named her and the staff were just getting her version of it.

I've had parents in your position give me a bit of a heads up before being spoken to by the Sarah's parent. I'm usually aware already but I can see how it might be less obvious in secondary due to the childen moving around so much.

It always helps to have a bit of context.

So I would advise speaking with the form tutor. She'll probably be aware of it but she needs to know that your daughter and Sarah are not and were not friends. This is not bullying by social exclusion or ostracisation, which is likely to be the angle Sarah's mum takes.

Your daughter is allowed to choose her own friends. She has tried with this girl but they haven't gelled. She is not your daughter's responsibility.

My advice is to get to the school before Sarah’s mum does and explain, as you have here, the girl’s relationship.

Dont give Sarah’s mum the chance to infer, imply or accuse of bullying. Then let the school deal with it.

Well, with a mum who handles things like this, you can well see why Sarah is struggling socially. My guess is mum has always been overbearing. That probably worked in the small pond of primary school with the other school mums who towed the line. But it’s not going to work in secondary school, particularly as very few parents are involved at that stage in micromanaging their dc’s friendships to this degree, and she’s going to isolate her dd even more.