DD wants to exclude one girl from her bday party

[Gf347]

DD (in high school) was very good friends with a girl last year but the friendship made her very unhappy. Has since managed tio distance herself from the girl and is feeling much happier. Fast forward and her bday party is coming up and she doesn’t want to invite this girl. She feels bad though as this girl doesn’t really have any friends and DD will also be inviting everyone else from her friendship group so it would be obvious she is excluded.

WWYD?

Or one of my concerns

It’s not like that at all. Many of the girls have spoken to her about how they feel but she has not wanted to move away from the group as currently she has no other friends. Whilst this person is not toxic she has no insight into her behaviour despite the girls discussing this with her. DD does not want to be cruel but feels that she has spent over a year sacrificing her own happiness so that this girl would be happy within the friendship. She has finally been strong enough to prioritise herself.

We’re really no further forward OP, except it doesn’t sound like this girl is causing harm to the others by her actions.

What are the girls supposed to do? If they tell her they don't want to be friends anymore they'll be in trouble for bullying, even if the girl did something really bad, kids in school aren't allowed to say that

It is a very difficult situation and while DD would never want to be mean and exclude someone she also wonders at what point she keeps sacrificing her own happiness (ie it would make her unhappy to have this person there at her party but at the same time she knows that it would hurt the girl if she wasn’t invited). I am torn because I would never want to actively exclude one person, however I do not feel it is a healthy lesson to continually ignore your own feelings in friendships just to make someone else happy.

Is the girl possibly ND
When a group of girls turn on one girl, it can be quite nasty

Ok so she isn't toxic so I'm presuming we can rule out bullying and being nasty?

So what is this behaviour that makes your dd unhappy can you give an example? Is she an attention seeker, is she too quiet and boring, does she take over, what?

Friendships evolve but at the moment if this girl is still part of the friendship group then just to exclude her would be very unpleasant.

I agree with this entirely.

I used to teach this age group and normally the ones excluded are the quieter, sometimes socially awkward ones.

The ones doing the excluding are often the bullies.

I would need to understand the 'makes her unhappy' statement. I'd also like to see it from the other side.

Agree

What has she done that they all seem to dislike her so much

Clear as a blur in a smudge factory.

Why don't you actually say what it is that they don't like about this girl? Why her "behaviour" makes them "unhappy"? The more you keep wafting veils in front of the supposed problem, the more I think it's likely that your DD and friends are bullying this girl for their own entertainment. This is just phase X in the drama of "Poor us having to navigate dealing with that loser, sigh, we're so cool and brilliant, she isn't good enough for us." Is this really the type of human you wanted to raise?

Is the girl just awkward? Is she obnoxious? Is she sexually precocious, which can be a source of ostracisation, or sexually inappropriate? Is she the only LBGQT+ girl in the group and having trouble coming to terms with that? Is she perhaps on the spectrum or struggling with her MH? You still speak in riddles.

Anything shading into sexual harassment would of course be a reason to exclude.
If the girl is hanging out with the group, unless there is super obnoxiousness I am really struggling with the rest.

I agree with the posts above mine. I do mean super obnoxious. Hard to fathom obnoxious. Need to see it with an adult’s eyes obnoxious.

I was fully expecting OP to explain that the girl had actually done something awful, possibly multiple times. But OP hasn't explained anyting other than they just don't like her.

Poor girl.

As a mother of an ND child, at secondary school, I would not have wanted my dc to be invited by ‘friends’ that didn’t want him there.

Even less so if those children were bullies!!

Dud it mean it took him a while to find like minded people? Yep. But at least he didn’t feel he needed to try and be someone he wasn’t.
There is a lesson there to be learnt around protecting yourself and not appeasing others at all costs. Whether the child is ND, shy etc….

Yes sadly teens friendships can be very toxic so to hear that she doesn't make them happy does seem a bit like they've all just decided she isn't cool enough to be in the gang.

Sorry if that is incorrect op, but we need examples and so should you rather than this vague 'doesn't make me happy' stuff.

Your DS is lucky to have a mum like you and this is the right long term solution.

If the girl is ND - which is only one amongst many guesses - she does need to find her tribe and this isn’t it. But I cannot see that the shock of Mean Girl behaviour is the right sort of wake up call. Also, she may not have her parents’ support: ND girls often face extra challenges to fit in and mask like nobody’s business. If her parents are pressuring her to be normal, which is sadly common, she may have very little support after a social exclusion.

Again, just one amongst many hypotheses!

What would be the impact on your daughter and the friendship group if this girl attended the party ? Would it spoil or be no different? Then think about the impact on the girl who isn’t invited and weigh it all up. Ultimately at the end of the day it’s your daughters call isn’t it and all you can do is support her with the decision.

For teen girls being ostracised from the group and trying to find new friends is extremely challenging and difficult - and potentially unlikely. Girls are not always the same as boys, just rubbing along until they find their tribe.

Most girls can’t just shrug and not care, it just does not work like that! She will have no one to go to lunch with, she will become an easy target for bullies, she won’t have anywhere to go for break. Becoming the school leper is the biggest threat to teens girls. This is terrible advice for a teen girl - as she is likely to suffer terribly.

Why does it have to be something awful?

Why isn’t being needy, or difficult, or mild stirring, or controlling, or exposing others to mental health issues that they don’t know what to do with enough? Or simply incompatibility?

Do you often hang out socially with people you dislike , that don’t make you happy or that you don’t click with?

It has to be something. Not making someone happy has a mean girls ganging up feel about it.

If the girl about to be excluded is difficult, controlling and unpleasant that is of course very relevant.

I get your point about not teaching girls to be people pleasers.

but it really comes down to what this girl has done to be pushed out of the group. And that’s an unknown.

If this girl has been toxic, mean, disrespectful then absolutely, she shouldn’t have to invite her.

but that doesn’t sound like the issue here. As I and other PPs have pointed out, OP is being vague and opaque about what exactly is happening here.

It actually is pointless us debating it really, as if the scenario is one that you are assuming, you’re right. And I’m the scenario I’m assuming is right, than I am!

Everyone knows you don't invite an entire class except one child in front of their face. My sister's school banned party invites for this reason.

Totally agree with this.

I get the impression that OP wants to justify her DD’s behaviour ( which she herself knows is off) by getting everyone on mumsnet to pile on in support with the line that this is somehow a feminist act because we’re teaching girls to be assertive and not people- please.

How would your daughter feel if it was the other way around and the friendship group were invited to the friend’s party but not your DD? I would let that guide my decision.

Interesting to hear everyone’s opinion and quite helpful actually. We will invite her as excluding one person does not seem right.