Why do kids always pander to the mean kids?

[Scrubadubdub1]

There is a really nasty piece of work in my 9 year old DD’s class. She starts rumours, she puts “friends”down and always has to be better at everything and will very bluntly let them know it, she enjoys watching others discomfort to the point it’s almost disturbing, she is extremely cutting but will claim “it was just a joke” then turn the tears on and claim “so and so is being mean to me!!!!”, if anyone else is ever receiving praise or attention even if this is when they’re upset, she will find a way to engineer the spotlight back onto herself. She is insufferable. As you may have guessed, my DD has been upset too many times to count by this horrible girl, I have spoken to school numerous times and they have been totally ineffective.
Im doing all I can to build up DD’s confidence and make sure she has fun things planned for weekends, she goes to lots of clubs, but what absolutely baffles me is how this kid is pandered to by the others in the class. She’s invited to every party, despite being such a piece of work. She’s never called out on anything. I don’t understand how nobody sees through it, I know full well enough of them have been on the receiving end of it. DD tries her best to stay well away from her, but because this girl seems to have everyone in her thrall, I do worry this means DD is then by default avoiding most of the girls in the class at break times as they’re always with the mean girl who she wants to stay away from.
someone with experience of this stuff, please shed some light or impart some wisdom to make me feel better about it all please! DD is genuinely the most lovely little girl, she’s so kind and gentle, and in summary it really winds me up that she finds herself on the edge of the class in a bid to avoid someone who is truly horrible and I can’t see how nobody seems to see it!

Fear. Nobody wants to be on the receiving end.

Because they don’t want to be next. Adults do it too, unfortunately. Some dysfunctional people have a deadly combination of personal charisma and a toxic personality, and it’s just shit if one happens to turn up in your child’s class, or your workplace. I think all you can do is try to fortify your child with the strategies to deal with any nastiness, build their resilience and other friendships, and be vigilant so you can hold the school to account if things go too far and they don’t act appropriately.

Honestly - if the other girl was genuinely as bad as all that then she probably wouldn't be invited to all the parties.

The other girls may find her mean at times, but are dealing with her better and maybe see other aspects of her personality that they like, rather than just constantly seeing her as "the mean girl".

Some of the problem may lay with your daughter's perception and her reactions. Does she know you have complained to the school on various occasions? Is she expecting the school to miraculously make the other girl "not mean" and is therefore not making any efforts of her own to improve the relationship?

It is hard when it's your own child, but at 9 they need to be able to start to navigate the ups and downs of friendships. In a couple of years she will be at secondary school and out and about more on her own and you will be less involved.

Self preservation/survival of course.

She genuinely is that bad - I’ve seen it with my own eyes numerous times, numerous other parents have mentioned their children having issues with her, she’s very sly and I think operates with the constant threat of tears and a big fuss to ensure her own way with lots of things. I’ve watched this for years now and cannot believe she continues to get away with it 😂

They definitely won’t forever. There was a boy like this in dd’s primary school. Always kicking off, always a victim, parents constantly coming in and kicking off, threatening the school and every single other parent in the year with legal action.

They are in Y8 now. Guess who has no friends? No one wants to be friends with a jerk. When they are still figuring it out, they don’t quite know how to respond. But as they grow up, children like that won’t be the ones with the nice friends. They’ll be the ones struggling and falling into bad crowds and being lonely.

She seems to manipulate kids into being her minions, hanging on her every word and desperate not to fall foul of her. This has even extended to getting previously fairly nice kids to do some mean stuff to other kids on her instruction - that way, if a teacher is made aware, she can play innocent and say “it wasn’t me……”

She may well get her come uppance. Teens get wise to this behaviour and the nicer ones find their strength. I have seen several former primary queen bees reduced to meek teens.

A girl that was consistently unkind to dd at primary is now at the bottom of the social league not invited to parties etc.

Because it's the excitement. Russian roulette. Will it be me she targets, maybe. But if it's another girl then I can join in and feel included in the powerful gang. And I always have hope it won't be me...until it is.

I think this is just school. I talk to my dd about how she must think of the motives of the behaviour not just the behaviour itself. She lashes out, why? Is she jealous? Is she copying someone elses behavior suggesting alpha girl is also bullied by someone else? I think this helps process it and stops internalising of it.

I agree with pp - she won't be flavour of the month forever. My DD experienced some of this kind of thing in primary, but in secondary school it's completely different and this kind of child has a lot less power.

Sorry that’s happening to your daughter Op but I think it’s very common in society. The most popular kid is not always the nicest kid.

As pp have said adults to
do it too. I was bullied in a work place in my late 20s by mainly women aged 26-60.

The ringleader was awful and even others had issues with her, but they still joined in with ostracising me and undermining or sabotaging my work. Or at least trying to.

It took two people joining the team who clocked what was going on and independently reported the others to the manager (who’d been turning a blind eye to it) and then alerted me to the ouvert and covert bullying that was going on for things to change. I was obviously aware but had sorted of gaslighted myself that I must be the problem if everyone else was supporting the ringleader when she turned on me.

Those two newbies were then immediately targeted too. So I ended up raising it with HR for all our sakes and they upheld that I had been harassed and bullied and yes the two others had been victimised for supporting me.

Mind you only a tiny fraction of grievances are upheld in the Uk, but I had so much evidence plus the two newer coworkers who had courage and morals that backed me up that HR couldn’t deny it and had to pay me off. The two others found promotions/alternative jobs shortly after.

It was my first real experience of prolonged bullying. I’d never been subjected to that at school so it was interesting to say the least to encounter that for the first time as an adult.

Came to say this exact this but you beat me to it.

If this girl really is so problematic, one of two things will happen:

As the kids get older and move onto secondary school, they’ll widen their circles of friends and it will become quickly apparent to those who didn’t go to primary with her that she’s a dick, and she’ll find herself on the outs and maybe rethink how she treats other kids

Or

She’ll continue as she is into secondary school, be a dick to the wrong person and be politely educated by a closed fist impressively quickly

I remember both the above scenarios happening to the “mean girls” from my primary school once we made it up to the local comp that was rough as balls 🫠

She's a big fish in a small pond at the moment. Once she goes to secondary school, not many will put up with her shenanigans.

I wouldn’t be so quick to assume it will all get better with age. The cool kids in my 16 year old daughter’s year are definitely the edgier / naughtier ones and the group tends to include any mean ones (although thankfully we’ve lost the bad ones to other schools). Everyone else doesn’t always necessarily love them but they’re still the ones socially in charge and the “fun ones”. It’s part of growing up to rebel and push boundaries and the nice kids are often seen as geekier etc.

I’d just advise staying away and not getting drawn into their crowd, finding her people and trying not to care about being in the cool gang.

They're frightened of her. She has taken the social power by force of strong will and confidence and keeps it by punishing other DC who step out of line, with her insults and social exclusion. It will continue until she encounters someone who matches her will and confidence, at which point the other DC may trade one leader for another. The reason its happened is because at present there is no one in the group with her strength of personality.

Yep fear and also it is hard at primary school - if you tell the mean girl to fuck off, she will cry, go to the teachers and they'll tell you off for being unkind. DD2 is just trying to get through Yr6 at the moment and when she goes to secondary hopefully she can leave these manipulative shits behind and see if she can find some vaguely normal friends.

The 'popular' girls are not the nicest girls unfortunately. Your dd is unlucky that there's one of these characters in her class. My dd had one in infant school, but I requested in the move to junior school that she not be in a class with her. I was aware that there might be another such child of course, but there wasn't. Same with the move to seniors - lovely group of friends. The original girl has caused loads of trouble meanwhile, with other children.

Basically, people are afraid to be the next one in this child's sights. They know she's not nice, but are afraid of her.

I'm not sure what you can do, but the first opportunity you get, get your child away from her.

Her mum is unbelievable to be honest. She has been known to flag down the car of another parent to tell them her daughter is very upset because their child played with someone else that day. I’ve known of a couple of parents who have tried to speak to her about her daughter’s behaviour, she says “no that doesn’t sound like her” and walks off. There’s a pattern of behaviour where if anything hasn’t gone to this girls liking, she will come out of school with a very well rehearsed head down sad face on, her mum will immediately loudly ask what’s wrong and then finger pointing begins at whoever’s not bended to her will that day. I’ve watched how everyone seems to feel a bit awkward and say “oh no, is she upset?” and ask if she’s ok, the kids all learn not to upset her or there’s the public finger pointing that her mum encourages, it’s never actually anyone’s done anything to her by the way it’ll be that someone’s played with someone else or someone else has done well at something and it’s “made her sad” that they’ve talked about it. Makes my skin crawl but everyone seems to fawn all over her and I’m in disbelief anyone’s giving her or her equally bratty mum the time of day

Your daughter is doing the right thing. In my experience as a teacher, the girls doing this often have very unhappy home lives.

The hangers on can’t articulate it, but she has a power over them where they are hoping not to be her next target and because she is targeting, they feel extra special to be trusted and approved. It’s twisted.

Oh they do see it! They just don’t want to be the one on the receiving end, so they cosy up to her as much as possible, to be liked. Simple as!

She’s in for a shock when she gets to secondary though, she’ll no longer the queen bee. The pandering stops as there are so many other nice girls to meet and hangout with. In Primary they are limited, usually just to their 30 classmates - 15 girls. It’s tough.

Is she an only child by any chance OP?

Her mum’s behaviour sounds like an epic case of Precious Firstborn Syndrome 🫠🫣🫣🫣

I agree. I noticed it at primary school, and have seen it as an adult.