Do mean girls start so early?!

[Pamalarrr]

DD is in Year 2 and her class and year is very girl heavy. There are 18 girls in her class.

DD is sensitive, a bit of a stickler for rules, hates getting into trouble etc. She's what I would call a typical 6 year old - she is one of the younger girls in the class with a summer birthday so not quite 7 yet.

The class has a group of 4 girls who are all share birthdays Sept - Dec. When the school has a non-uniform day they've been known to turn up in crop tops! My personal view is I think they look awful on 7 year olds and are far too old.

DD has a lovely group of friends, all very similar to DD. However, little comments have started creeping in from the older group of girls, particularly towards DD and another girl about how they wear there hair, babyish clothes they wear when they don't have to wear uniform etc. The ringleader pushes them out of the way, laughs at them and generally says unkind things.

The mum of the ringleader has accused parents of stealing her DDs school jumpers, shouted at the teachers when it was meet the new teachers accusing them of not being on it compared to the previous year group.

Whilst I suspect some of this behaviour is learned, is there anything else we can do to make DD more resilient? I didn't think this started so young. I want DD to be stronger than I was and to be able to stand up to girls like this.

Is this typical Y2 behaviour?!

@Pamalarrr There were definitely mean girls in my son's class from y2. My friend's daughter in the same class told us about it in the beginning. It stopped very quickly though thanks to a vigilant and strict teacher. If they know they are going to be pulled up on their behaviour every single time they'll stop.

If I were you I would ask for a 5 minute meeting with the teacher. Tell her about your concerns and that even though you're not asking for anything to be done at this stage you wanted to alert on something that is starting and might grow bigger. This will make the teacher aware and she'll be on the look out for bullying behaviour. It's not always easy to see because friends can play push each other so she needs to know the dynamics.

And building up a child's resilience is not equal to not interfering when that child is being bullied. The fact that she knows you have her back will make her feel stronger and therefore build up her resilience and confidence. Good luck!

I say this as someone who would be considered peak trash and a no hoper but I agree with that poster if the other girls are saying mean things tell her to say something mean back, turning the other cheek dosent work with bullies.

And fair enough your girls do gymnastics but when there are so many clothes to choose from I find it weird some parents chose to buy their seven year olds crop tops.

Crop tops were'nt allowed in primary school and not now in my son's secondary school either. A child that came in with a crop top would be handed a school t-shirt to wear for the rest of the day. I thought this was standard in all schools 🤷‍♀️

Lots of misogyny on this thread. Let’s hold ourselves to higher standards. They are mean humans, their sex is irrelevant

From our experience it happens with girls and boys around Y1/2 in primary. Boys tend to be more physical than bitchy but the group psychology is the same; wanting to be top dog/shout the loudest.

I think girls being more verbal can increase the tendency to use words to hurt and bully - a different way to exert power than the boys who thump. I wish more parents were aware of how they discuss other people in front of their kids as often we could hear kids saying phrases that really could only have been heard from adults as they had no idea of context. Basically, if you and your partner bitch about others around your kids it is highly likely they think this is what most people do and will express this at school.

Oh yes, I had a brutal time at that age. There was one girl, Anne, who wanted to steal my best friend. She came into the group of friends and proceded to leave me out of everything. She would give out sweets to everyone but me and say 'there, now EVERYONE has had one'. Worst thing is she was successful! I had to find different friends! I was so distressed by it all that I used to have to write a wee plan every night about how I would handle having no friends at playtime. I feel so sorry for 7 year old me! So yeah, it can be wicked.

Oh they DO know what they're doing. Nine times out of ten that's how they'll grow up.

There were mean girls (and mean boys) in all my four kids' reception classes. A lot of the time the behaviour was a reflection of the parents. Bad apples raise bad kids and every barrel has a bunch I'm afraid

Yep - a lot of the parents show them how to get away with it too. You'd see the parents at the gates all fake smiling then turning and rolling eyes about the parents they were just talking to...little bitchy cliques of parents and a lot of virtue signalling while saying the opposite behind closed doors.

I try to say what I mean - so, precisely that really. I think you know what I mean, but I'll bite.

I mean girls who end up having few real choices in their lives and little, if any, autonomy. To spell it out: if they haven't achieved at school for a variety of reasons so will leave with few or no qualifications. They often have little parental support, or parents with too little sense, knowledge or life experience to be of any use in terms of advice. They may suffer from a failure to defer gratification - of which the wearing of precocious clothing is a sign -and haven't given consideration to their future lives, or the implications of closing down their options early.

I was very lucky that my working class parents, who'd had to leave school at 14, were very focused on my education. They encouraged me and taught me that investment in terms of effort now would pay off later - that's what I mean by deferring gratification. I remember a teacher giving out our exam results at age 14 and joked that the results were not so much a measure of intelligence but an indication of who had a social life or not!! I was happy to wait till university to start the adventure of a busy social and sexual life. That was my personal and very deliberate preference and I (and my friends) certainly got judged for it.

I've been a teacher for most of my career and I've seen so many girls cut down their options by racing to do adult things, including having sex, and dress and behave as they perceive adults do, at a very young age. This almost never ends well.

That's what I mean - and I don't know how more explicit I can be.

I heard a mum at the school gate say something mean about another mother which amounted to 'she's a bit simple - well - she wears glasses'. And in front of children. Great example!

Yes but the clothing is relevant because OP's daughter and others are being mocked for wearing 'babyish' (ie age-appropriate non-sexualised) clothes.

Bullying about clothing choices is huge - you can't say the clothing is irrelevant! It's something that mean children always target - be it designer labels or not, or whether something is perceived as childish or frumpy. It's absolutely germane to the problem here.

Yes: DS had a “mean boy” in his class who at the age of 6 seemed to be very capable of playing his friends off against each other and excluding people.

It is entirely possible to address the bullying around what the OP's dd and other children might be wearing without resorting to judgemental comments about what these children are wearing. Stooping to the same level as the mean kids really isn't a good look.

Not all mean kids wear crop tops, and not all kids who wear crop tops are mean. Let's stop stereotyping girls because of what they wear, and let's encourage them to do likewise.

But how is that fundamentally any different from saying "she's a mean girl - well - she wears crop tops"?

From my perspective, all of this stereotyping is bullshit. I don't think the OP's dd should be stereotyped as babyish or uncool because of the clothes that she chooses to wear. I don't think the kid you described should be stereotyped as a bit simple because she happens to wear glasses. And I don't think that girls should be stereotyped as bitches because they happen to like wearing crop tops.

What I would like to see is parents teaching their kids to accept and respect the differences between people and the different choices that people make, without making unnecessary judgements on the basis of something as superficial as what people are wearing.

If kids are being mean, it is the behaviour that we should focus on.

So do I. And those awful up the bum leggings. See them on some quite young kids. Can’t be very comfortable.

At this age it’s very relevant. In our experience, girls of this age can be very mean to other girls they don’t like. Boys of this age are in general less emotionally manipulative: they tend to be more physical with other boys they don’t like or just ignore them.

But how is that fundamentally any different from saying "she's a mean girl - well - she wears crop tops"?

I don't think anyone is saying that.

The girls wearing crop tops have been bullying and belittling other girls for wearing 'babyish' clothes. So it's not a causal link - wearing crop-tops and being a mean-girl - but it does seem to be an associative link.

Sugar, accidentally hit the YABU button. They sound like a horrible bunch of chavs... My DD is 11 and nothing even close to this has occurred even now (and i'm not one who thinks my child can do no wrong, believe me!!(

It's stereotyping.

But seemingly, the stereotype is accepted by most people on this thread.

We could have talked about the girls mocking OP's daughter about what she wears without any reference to how these girls dress themselves, but we've had all sorts of comments about 7 year olds looking awful, being trash, being chavvy etc.

Not cool.

OP's description is relevant. The mum is not a person who operates through diplomacy and reason. She's the type to accuse and dominate. They are the skills that she is passing on to her child. Clothing is relevant in that the child is wearing clothes more suited to teenagers and displaying the behaviour of teenagers. It's another reflection of the attitude that the child is being brought up with.

Crop tops in isolation on a pleasant child is not an issue.

Keep going through school when there are issues.

Also work on your daughter's social skills and self esteem. Make sure she knows her strengths. Give her a broad perspective on life so she understands that the opinion of these children is not valuable. Get her into clubs/ activities with a wider range of children.

Being able to evaluate whose opinions and advice about your life are worth caring about is a huge life skill.

slightly off topic but we all just had an email home (DD1 is 6) from school to say that they’ve noticed some children are coming to school in crop tops and that only full length t-shirts are appropriate wear for PE. I was amazed anyone was sending 5 and 6yo girls to school in crop tops but apparently it’s more common than I realised.

Anyway we’ve had some ‘mean kid’ behaviour in my daughter’s first year of primary school, which shocked me a bit as I think nursery was so sheltered from that type of stuff and it was a genuinely nice bunch of kids and parents. But I try to focus on the importance on finding your own group and not worrying about the rest, and that the ‘mean’ kids may be unhappy, struggling with school, having problems at home, jealous, or just haven’t learned/been taught how to talk properly to other children. And that silence is always the best retort

What I worry about with DD1 is that she’s very forgiving, someone can be mean to her and then the next day she’ll go on about how they are friends and I worry that she’s not assertive enough, but then she seems to be able to shrug off the meanness currently and recognises it as mean behaviour, not as a truth about herself, which is something I suppose. She also likes to be a ‘shield’ for her friends; when I told her to ignore a mean kid because then they would just find someone else to be mean to, she fretted that would mean they would be mean to one of her friends and ‘I’d rather they were mean to me instead’. Which is admirable but the selfish part of me is shouting ‘But I want them to be mean to someone else, not you!’

She sounds lovely and very kind.

I taught my dd to ask the question: "does it make you feel good about yourself to say unkind things to other people?" It usually has the desired effect!

While you are clearly charm personified, oh well