Is this now normal 8/9 year old girl behaviour?

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Those with girls in year 4 (so age 8/9) - is it normal for the girls to be absolutely horrible to each other? I am getting so exasperated by the daily accounts of sly comments, very blatant attempts to cause upset feelings and undermine others confidence by starting rumours, dirty looks, plus also when did 8/9 year olds start talking about buying skincare at Sephora, applying lip gloss in the classroom, wearing crop tops on mufti day and sneering at those in the class who don’t 😳
is this normal? Or is it just the school I’ve clearly stupidly sent DD to?
Advice welcome! Thanks!

I spent a day with y4 girls on a school trip this week and they were all so lovely. Really sweet and still very much acting like kids rather than pre-teens. Make up is unheard of in school, very few have pierced ears or ‘label’ clothing etc. I don’t know if it’s your school/area or mine that is the anomaly.

I think it can be for some but not all. When my eldest was that age there was one particular girl in her class who was an absolute demon for shit like this. She never really changed but the girls in the class changed how they dealt with her as they got older. I think that’s far more effective. My daughter and I had a LOT of bedtime chats about how she could manage it over the years.

I used to help out at a primary school years and years ago and year 4 girls were a pain back then. I remember it when I was at school too. Not the skincare back then, but the nastiness, leaving people out, friendships chopping and changing by the day or hour.
When my daughter was that age she didn't hang out with the girls because, she said, they were too much drama. Her friends were mostly boys.

My daughter got very into make-up, nails etc in year 4/5. She had no social media so no idea where it came from. Then Y6/7 more obsessed with beauty products, crop or fitted tops have made an appearance.
she’s definitely not a mean girl and avoids drama but Y6 did seem to be the worst year in terms of friendship resets due to girls being into different things - some into make up, some had phones and Snapchat etc.
it seems better now that she’s at secondary - lots of the girls (and boys) at her new school not allowed smartphones etc and more into sport although she’s still skincare obsessed.

my youngest daughters class on the other hand nave had mean girl behaviour and drama since probably year 2/3!! I thin often it depends on the personalities and dynamics in the class.

Girls were like this when I went to primary school. It was just those 50p make up sets you’d get from the newsagents though

Mine is now in year 11 and there were some really spiteful witches in juniour school, mothers were the same.

I think it's group dependent. I have 2DD. DD1s class started this in Y4- luckily my DD refused to get involved and made it through with friendships intact. DD2s class (same school) didn't start with this until Y7/8. She was less successful at avoiding it but has a nice nuclear friend group now. Their school worked very hard with the girls to avoid the worst behaviours. And skincare is huge and expensive and completely unnecessary.

My oldest has had some properly brutal nastiness from one girl as early as year 1. She seemed to manage to mainly avoid this girl through year 2 and 3. Year 4 was pretty horrific though. I was grateful this girl was moved to the other class at the end of year 4. I was hoping for a much more happy and relaxed time now my daughter's in year 5. Unfortunately over the summer it seems that every other girls turned into a nasty kid. It's awful, if it wasn't for the fact my daughter has her best friend there I would be moving her to a different school.

I’m 52 and even in my day Year 5 was a nightmare. Same in my daughter’s year 5 several years ago now. Pretty sure it’s always awful at that age.

Not in my experience. If they are talking about Sephora etc blame the parents for that.

My daughter is the year group below and there are two girls in her class that ate always trying to be the queen bee. Not so much the skin care or crop tops but definitely the mean comments, excluding people etc. my girl was crying to me last year that she must be weird because she didn't like makeup

Mufti day??

Probably something else going on

8yo (yr4) DD here.
very into makeup, skin care etc, but shes not allowed to wear it everyday.
no phone or social media
likes to play out on scooters etc
no real interest in toys as such but loves family games (cards, uno, boardgames)
loves branded clothes/trainers and crop tops
shes very confident in school, has a close little group of friends, one of which shes brought out of her shell.
tells me all the tea from school, dont hear about much bitchiness though

Non school uniform day.

Yes! Same when I was a child in the sixties and when my daughter was in the nineties. I remember a mum of one of my daughters friends saying to me “ these children are dressed and made up like they are going to a night club and 8 year olds don’t go to night clubs.
My nana commented on girls in my school wearing hot pants and white patent boots as looking like slappers. In my naivety I thought that was a compliment as I would have loved an outfit like that!

i’m 22 and the age i noticed this behaviour creep in was the start of secondary school.

with social media etc it’s all coming forwards. kids are growing up a lot quicker i notice.

I remember mean girls and boys when I was at primary school in the 70s/80s and also nice ones. I was quite a plain looking child and the mean boys were happy to let me know about it. Call me ugly duckling etc.
When my young adult dds were at primary school, again there were mean and nice girls and boys.

My son used to say as well that he just didn’t understand all the drama the girls seemed to attract (in primary school). He was a very chilled child so it all seemed like unnecessary hard work to him. I was bullied at school by girls who just couldn't chill the fuck out.

Peak mean girl behaviour age. I honestly dread it.

Oh god we have some of this with my youngest. It was never an issue with eldest but the whole group in youngest’s Y5 are constantly best of friends then horrible to each other and then best of friends again. They are actually all nice, decent kids the vast majority of the time and do some truly lovely things for each other but when they are not nice they are blummin awful with each other. A lot of them are into lip gloss and body butters and similar but equally lots of play with dolls/sylvanians, lots of crafting, big into dance/music/drama.

There was a bit of a 50/50 split when both of my kids were about that age. A good half of the girls would be like that. These girls tended to have older sisters. My daughter was asking for spike and squishmallows for her birthday and other girls were asking for designer clothing and designer make up, getting their nails done and having pamper parties. It seemed like these girls were being massively influenced by their older sisters. Thankfully my eldest couldn’t give a sh** about what is fashionable and what isn’t. She’s autistic and point blank refuses to wear named clothing. So when her younger sister was at that age she didn’t have the older sister influence. It could be older cousins as well. Or even mothers who love to dress up their girls and do their hair and make up. The fashion conscious mums.

I run a brownie unit and we have a bit of a mix with the older ones. There can be some mean looks and comments which we need to nip in the bud. The very trendy fashion conscious girls are more likely to quit before their leaving age. Not all but some.

I also have friends who I see sharing their photos on Facebook of joining the queue of several hours when Sephora opened near us and ‘complaining’ that their child cost them a fortune when they went in.

I recall when my youngest was in nursery a few of the children in my older daughter’s class were donating their dolls etc to the nursery because they had grown out of them - they would have been y2/3 at that age and I was shocked as my oldest was still wanting to be bought dolls and would be carrying them around.

op, what you’re describing is just bullying.
make up- yes there are 8-9 year olds into make up and yes Sephora is popular, but the behaviour you’re describing is NOT acceptable /normal. It’s mean and bullying. You definitely need to speak to the teacher.

It does start at this age, escalates in year 5 and 6 and often continues well into high school.
I had boys, some of the stories they used to tell me…

Having observed that age of girls going through cubs over the years I tend to disagree. Snide comments, jostling about social position, telling endless tales to each other and adults about what friend A said to friend B about friend C etc are all common in that age range and it’s not one or two “nasty” kids doing it to the “nice” ones it’s most of them doing it but certainly not all the time. Then helpfully several of the girls who also do these things will chime in with you can’t say/do that to Amelia (or whoever), that’s bullying, you are a mean bully and I’m telling which then starts a whole new set of jostling about social position. It’s not absolutely every child but it’s the vast majority of the girls and actually a decent portion of the boys join in too. They then all go home and tell their parents it’s the other kids without mentioning they were joining in. Honestly most of the time whatever the initial comment some kid makes is pretty innocuous and it’s the telling everyone about it and bickering about who is in the wrong that escalates things to people being actually mean 🤦🏼‍♀️