I made a teen friendship fall out worse - what would you do?

[Figamol]

I could use some advice on a difficult situation with my 15-year-old daughter and her former best friend.

My daughter had a long-standing best friend she adored. Over the past year, I watched this friend change completely. They both met a new girl at summer camp in 24 and the dynamic shifted. Suddenly, it was all about boys, alcohol, “fun” that often meant filming themselves doing dumb stuff, shopping for designer labels, and generally being very shallow and materialistic.

This friend also started pushing boundaries in worrying ways. On a school trip, my daughter and her were suspended for bringing alcohol for the friend group. .Id seen messages since where my daughter said in the days before that she didn’t want any part of it but seems she did it anyway from pressure. At camp one summer, the friend snuck out at 13, got drunk, and ended up with an ambulance involved. My daughter was back at camp covering for her. My daughter often played third wheel — either to the new friend or to whatever boyfriend was in the picture. I always wondered why she put up with it, though they did still laugh and have fun together at times especially when just the two of them at our place. I can’t emphasize how fusions they both were,

When the suspension happened, I finally said to my daughter, “That’s enough. You’re not allowed to see her anymore.” To my surprise, my daughter looked relieved — but also scared and broken. She lost a lot of weight and seemed devastated by the change, even though she admitted she was struggling to accept what her best friend had become.

Almost immediately, this girl turned whole friendship groups against my daughter — including groups they’d built together over years during and since primary. My daughter is not a wallflower but is more introverted and not one to compete for attention, so she just couldn’t (and didnt) go up against this “queen bee about town” dynamic.

During the school suspension drama I tried to do the “right” thing and spoke to her mum, just to say I was worried about her daughter. I only mentioned one example (the sneaking out/drinking at 13). But her daughter saw this as a betrayal, told everyone my daughter had “snitched,” and has gone nuclear — posting memes about “shitty fake best friends,” freezing her out, and turning others against her.

The result: our town is small, and my poor girl can’t escape it. She walks into a café and hears girls she’s never even met loudly talking about her. Old friends are leaving her off invite lists. Girls literally turn their backs on her in the street.

The one silver lining is that she’s just started a new college and has begun forming a really nice new circle. She’s also still got her kindergarten friends and her sports teammates (she’s a national champion in her sport, and also volunteers in her spare time). She’s got so much depth, kindness, and potential — but she was always slightly in awe of this old friend, who had unlimited spending money, Valentino trainers, and the “right” labels. My DD does have an impulsive side - has a quiet dose of diagnosed ADHD and does like a bit of excitement. I’m not in denial - I don’t believe my dd was some kind of hostage, she also knows right from wrong and was starting to wobble off the path. My daughter also tho never saw her own beauty and qualities clearly, though I can honestly say she’s both a beautiful soul and a beautiful girl.

I’ve been coaching her to “be like the Royal Family with Harry” — don’t react, don’t feed it, keep her head up. She’s doing her best, but she’s stopped going out socially in town because she feels so intimidated. It’s really so bad. She spends a lot of time crying.l
and we’re on month five. The campaign against her hasn’t slowed down, nor has my daughters resilience to it. She had a great night out last night at some posh teen thing her old bf wasn’t invited to and I think the ex bf has gone nuclear on social again today.

And now I’m torn:

• Do I try to reopen dialogue with the ex-friend’s mum and daughter to try calm the waters, or will that just pour petrol on the fire? I actually don’t mind my daughter being friends with her it’s just this new girl is such a weird influence it’s never going to work (esp risk taking wise).
• Do I allow my daughter to patch things up with the ex-friend for a “quiet life,” even though I know this girl is trouble (and that the new friend egging her on would hate it)?
• Or do I just keep steering my daughter towards her new friends, her sport, and away from this toxic situation — even if it means she feels excluded and gossiped about in our small town? At what point will she start to feel mended,

I also can’t shake the feeling that I made everything worse by speaking to the other mum. I genuinely thought I was protecting both girls — but it’s backfired massively.

Has anyone else been through similar? How do I support my daughter without overstepping and making things worse?

Re-opening dialogue is a very bad idea.

speaking to the mom in the first place was bad idea. Speaking to her again will make things much worse.

let your DD make her own choices. She’s too old for you to be managing friendships and you will only make things worse.

Keep doing what you are doing self absorbed teenagers with narcissistic traits get bored eventually when they are not getting energy to feed their drama. Give them absolutely nothing. It will die down eventually.

Definitely not option 1 - this will make things worse. I'd go for option 3. Things will die down eventually.

Take a step back and let your dd sort her own friendships out.

The timeline of your post is really confusing. Is your daughter 15 and her friend is 13? Or are they both 15 and you’re only now getting worked up about something that happened two years ago?

Also are you in the US or the UK? Summer camp, kindergarten etc makes me think US but ‘mum’ and ‘petrol’ are UK terms. I would say that a UK teenager trying to sneak a drink from their parents’ booze cupboard is very normal and yes, obviously it’s not OK to steal booze or take it to school, but it’s also not something I’d think was the end of the world. I’d have a conversation about lessons learned but I wouldn’t be fretting.

I would say that given that your daughter is now 15 rather than 5, you need to stop trying to engineer her social circle. Of course it was always going to end in her being ostracised if you stopped her from seeing her friends and started reporting back to the other girl’s mother. Anyone could have seen how this would end. You should have just waited for the friendship to come to a natural end, which it doubtless would have done anyway without the rancour you’ve generated.

Lastly, do stop being so judgy and sneery about girls being ‘shallow and materialistic’. It’s very normal and entirely natural for 15-year-old girls to be interested in boys (or other girls) - they’re not children. Of course they’re going to fancy people. It’s also perfectly OK to be interested in fashion and experimenting with makeup etc. It doesn’t make them worse than a teenager who behaves as if they’re asexual and/or does wholesome sporty hobbies and doesn’t like makeup. Nobody calls teenage boys ‘shallow and materialistic’ for being interested in girls and wanting Nike trainers and drowning themselves in Lynx, so let’s not do the equivalent to teen girls.

It’s fine if your teenager doesn’t like that sort of thing but it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with her former friend - one isn’t superior to the other.

I feel your pain. Girls can be so mean and when you are in the middle of it all it can seem heartbreaking for your children. Having been in similar situations all I can say is that it will pass. I would continue to steer your daughter in the direction of her new friends at college. Take a break from social media so the girls posting the mean posts have no audience. Sometimes when I remind my girls of awful times when they were younger they struggle to remember whereas it is still clearly in my memories. I think sometimes we feel things more than them. I remember one time taking my daughter out for the day because she had once again been left out. I mentioned it recently and she couldn’t remember the friends issue - she just remembered having a great day out with me. Just be there for her.

Yes I agree. Which is why it’s been 5 months and I haven’t tried to fix anything. She asked me the question - would it help if you spoke to her mum, and I didn’t know the answer. My gut is no of course not. But wanted other mums guidance here just to be sure. It’s my first rodeo. I want her to handle but she reached out to me on this one x

I had a DD in a similar situation. She has always been attracted to alpha female friends who are (perceived in the mainstream as) more attractive, more popular. She became part of a very poor and damaging friendship group. Thankfully shortly after an enormous reckoning where we as parents decided that this group was unhealthy and would no longer be allowed or facilitated, Covid arrived! It allowed distance.

Dd then applied to an arts school and got a place (similar to yours going to new college) and found another friendship group. It wasn’t all plain sailing and there was another disappointing friendship along the way. I encouraged and
welcomed the positive new friendship groups
that sounded as if they were supportive and healthy for dd. I made my house the one they all wanted to stay over at and gather at despite being ‘in the sticks’.

Today dd is 19 and has left school, is pursuing her dream career very independently. Has an amazing place to live in an
exciting city thanks to one of her lovely new school friends (he is coming for Christmas). It has worked out thank goodness.

if it isn’t already obvious! Option 3 all the way for me! I wish you and your dd freedom from unhealthy friendships.

Btw! I also spoke to some parents way back when she was 14/15 and got nowhere. Understandable I suppose! No one wants to accept their baby is in the wrong.

Disappointing friendships are part of life unfortunately. I would let your DD navigate it in her own way and only get involved as a very last resort. Friendships change and move on over time and at some stage it will no longer be an issue. It’s really hard though when it’s there here and now. Support her but don’t get too involved.

Thanks for the check! I agree, my dd is very interested in these things too (and can be materialistic!) - my point was more that there has to be something else too. They’re supposed to be becoming contributing adults, so when my dd was mocked for volunteering with handicapped kids by her ex bf my point was just that yeh it’s a bit shallow to have such a linear focus on superficial stuff. And yeah experimenting is normal and ok - she went out last night and had permission to drink - but suspended from school for it crosses a line for us.

Hear you on the rest tho!

Option 3. Something similar happened to me as a teen and there would be people I’ve never met who hated me based on what my ex best friend had been saying.

I took the approach that they “won” if I didn’t keep going out and socialising with my actual friends. There was some overlap in our friendship group too so that at one point one of the main instigators was shouting at my in the street. I turned and just walked away and didn’t engage and she was SO angry that she couldn’t impact me.

Also other people will quickly grow up and cease to care about childish drama, and won’t be whispering when she walks into places. Push her towards her new friends and teach her to keep her head high. Avoiding confrontation doesn’t mean avoiding going out.

Thank you this is seriously useful!!!