To think I've f*cked things up for my daughter even more

[smokingpoppy]

ND yr 7 daughter has a few nice but slightly rebellious friends. She struggles with school anyway, on a reduced time table due to overwhelm etc.
In her absence an older 'wrong'un' from the year above has infiltrated the friend group, giving out vapes and generally being a bad influence/ pushing boundaries even more.
My daughter has no filter and made her feelings known to the other girls. They told the wrong'un who has now turned on my daughter and is threatening her. Long threatening voice notes etc. She's got a history of fighting, suspended for it etc.
The wrong'un is demanding my daughter makes a big public apology to the whole friendship group for 'talking shit about her'. (She hasn't been talking shite she was just honest that she felt uncomfortable about stuff to her friends)
I mistakenly told one of the friend's parents who went straight to the wrong'un mum and told her. So now the threats have gone up a gear.
I have definitely made it worse. I shouldn't have trusted the other mum. I now have exactly 100% chance of getting my daughter in to school ever again.
WWYD? Tell the school? What can they do at the end of term?

Hhm it's difficult but I'd tell the school given the threats.

Does your DD have other friends she can see over summer?

It's crap that the other mum did that but you've learned an important lesson on who you can trust.

I think you should stop calling them a wrong’un for a start.

Sounds like she gets her no filter from her mum. Maybe she should focus on her own overwhelm and not running her mouth.

Your daughter did ‘talk shit’ though, she talked about the girl behind her back to her friends. It was a bad move! Have you spoken with this girls mum
yourself?

Long threatening voice notes with implied physical violence are threats. Threats of violence are illegal. Take them to the school (noting that your DD is now scared to come in due to fear of violence), and if you get no joy, to the police.

The 'wrong un' as you charmingly call this child didn't 'infiltrate' the group, they simply joined it surely?

The giving of vapes should've been reported to the school obviously.

Can you explain what you mean by 'generally being a bad influence/ pushing boundaries even more.'?

Yes tell the school. In future school should be your first port of call, not other mums.

I think your daughter should tell the group chat

'Hi girls, things have all gone a bit silly with our parents getting involved.
Wrong un, I'm sorry that I upset you I can see how it would make you angry to think I was talking about you when you weren't there. I like you as a person and I think you're funny. Mainly what I was talking about was I don't like vaping, and everyone doing that, but that's an issue with vaping not with you. Next time I will say it to you not to the other girls when you're not there.
Now my mum has started calling everyone's parents which is really embarrassing. I've told her to stop it.
Can we drop this and just move on as I don't want any of us arguing? '

But she also needs to know not to trust any of those girls with secrets about other girls again

sourcing and pushing vapes on younger kids
starting fights and being suspended for violent behaviour
Truancy
smoking weed

but if a 12 year old telling her established friend group that a newbie pedalling this stuff is shit talking in your world whatevs.

Seems some of us never really leave school.

Let the school deal with it.

Your DD does need to understand though that if her friends accepted the vapes, that's on them.

She starting hanging around uninvited when the other girls hung out after school, following them, bombarding them with messages/ phoning my DD 84 times in one night to ask if she could come over when I said no first time. One of the other girls knows her from way back, but she’s only latched on recently since the fighting means she’s lost her own friend group in her year. She’s intimidating and has a big reputation in school so the year 7 girls are mainly scared of her.

Why do you think her established friendship group betrayed her and told the other girl what your daughter had said about her?

How did she get their phone numbers?

I would NOT send my daughter to school when being threatened, I would escalate this right up the chain, I would also report it to the police and let the school know you have done so and make sure they get involved. This other child is a bully and you have no idea if she will carry out any of her threats or not.

Perfect x

Children do things like this all the time, especially when bullies are involved

apparently one of the friend group has known the wrong’un (let’s call her Cece because I realise wrong’un isn’t appropriate) since way back (family friend since before Cece went off the rails). Anyway Cece took friends phone and was going through her messages (she does that) and saw messages from my DD saying k Cece scares me. Do we have to hang out with her? I don’t want to’ I’ve seen the messages. They are not offensive at all.

You tell the school and let them deal with it.

So, now the story has changed from the friends told Cece to Cece snuck a look on a friend’s phone?

Yes, I love the attempted victim blaming (not from you from the person you responded to) - like it matters at this stage why OPs child is being threatened and bullied.

Story changed?! What are you implying? Cece nabbed phone and then confronted the owner about messsge from my DD, friend told her. ‘She doesn’t like you’ it’s hardly a massive plot twist?!

Don't ignore this. Her bully will escalate. Report as high up the chain as you can, if they are actual threats report it to the police and inform the school as your child is not safe she will not be attending until they have dealt with the threats. Kids commit suicide over stuff like this. Don't ignore it.

She's on the bully's side, probably the mother of a bully.

Seriously? Some kids are ‘wrong ins’! The OP could have called her far worse! If you think otherwise then maybe you need to go back to school yourself. There are some awful people in this world and they don’t just wake up on their 18th birthday and become that way! I don’t understand all this making excuses for little shits, when was it universally decided that teenagers weren’t responsible for their actions?

So you think grovelling to her bully who has threatened her, pretending that she did anything wrong and hoping if she rolls over and plays dead her bully might move on to someone else is the way to go.

Well, that's one way of dealing with it, I suppose her threatening bully might just move onto an even more vulnerable target, and then OPs daughter can try to avoid her forever and pass on the message to her friends that bullies get their own way.