Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

183 replies

Orangeorganic · 25/11/2025 18:19

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!

OP posts:
SantiagoShaming · 28/11/2025 10:28

Thankfully it’s behind us now, but definitely. 9-12 year old girls can be little vipers. They’re all hitting puberty at different times so it’s very easy to be called babyish if you’re one of the later ones. My foster DD went through it all in Y4/5 and sadly (for her, because men are gross and she had a rotten time) she looked about 20 by the time she was 13.

Their bodies and brains don’t keep up with each other. The hormones are raging and now we have social media, filtered images and AI to make it so much worse than the early 90s when I was in it myself!

Zero tolerance on bitchiness, I’d say. You don’t tolerate bitchiness from a tween girl towards you or anyone else and likewise we as adult women need to make sure our DDs don’t tolerate it from anyone else.

ERthree · 28/11/2025 16:15

Imissgoldengrahams · 25/11/2025 21:12

Seems common. My daughter is 8, one of the older ones in her class.
Majority of her class already have a phone, in fact a girl she has played with since nursery but is only 7, has just been given a phone.
All wear makeup, have their eyebrows shaped, won't play outside if its windy incase their hair gets ruined.
They all fall out quite a lot but make up just as quick.
I have two younger girls also, pray for me. And maybe send ginGrin

I feel so sorry for those poor little girls, their childhoods have been stolen from them. Shame on the adults who have allowed that.

PersephonePomegranate · 28/11/2025 20:54

I hate that people normalise this behavior, or the 'wait 'til their teens' comments, as though girls being horrible to each other is par for the course. It's not and the ones that are like this are swallowing one huge mouthful of patriarchal bullshit that will fuck them up for years to come. The question is, who is force feeding them this shite?

Growlybear83 · 28/11/2025 21:27

I think it’s very common for girls to be really horrible to each other by that age, but definitely not normal for 8 and 9 year olds to be buying skincare and using makeup.

Skybluepinky · 29/11/2025 21:30

Drama often happens at that age, would depend on family life to whether or not makeup and comments about appearance etc were brought up.

QueenieL · 05/12/2025 23:47

Martymcfly24 · 26/11/2025 17:25

You want Women supporting each other and then post...

"Made me very pleased I didn't have girls"

If we want girls to support each other maybe older generations should lead by example and support them by not resorting to the girls are bitchy stereotype because your boys said so.

What a bizarre response to a quick reply from me.
Along with details from my sons, I saw first hand what was going on, saw the girls upset, spent evenings with their mums (my friends and relatives) and I can assure you I’m not resorting to any such stereotypes. The girls were and continue to be horrendous to each other - fact. The way the 17/18 year olds have carried on has blown my mind.

So yes, massive apologies to you and all females out there if you feel my my personal relief at having boys that weren’t anything like this, only having to help others and not see my own children go through it was somehow holding the women of the world back.

jezlifecoach · 06/12/2025 00:38

ReadingSoManyThreads · 26/11/2025 16:19

Oh give over, did you not see the sheer amount of commenters bang on about their "year insert number" children? Do you really think people outside of England should have to then count up every single time to work out their children's actual age range, when it would be so much easier for them just to simply state "my 10yr old", or "my 6 yr old", etc.?! I wasn't even referring to OP, as she actually stated the age in her post, I was referring to the many people replying who only put the English school year down. This is the problem on so many UK based sites, the majority just assume everyone is English/in England.

You’re right nor does it account for people that may only speak German too or people with a low reading age.

people talking about England on an English website? The absolute audacity!!

OneLilacHare · 06/12/2025 00:41

I teach this age range and in my experience it varies massively class to class. Some Y4 classes have real friendship issues and unpleasantness which takes a LOT of my time trying to sort out. Others much less. Sorry I can't more helpful

New posts on this thread. Refresh page