AIBU to make excuses for dd’s mean friend?

[queenceleste]

Dd has a “friendship” group in 6th form that has been together since year 8 with some personnel changes. One of the group has always been fairly snarky to my dd. It’s always been presented as teasing but the impact on dd is very negative. Of course she needs to work towards better friends but this group holds people she is hugely invested including this girl who is sometimes a good mate.
I tend to excuse the mean behaviour because this girl has a challenging home life at the moment, a very unwell younger sibling and parents mid divorce.
Does that make her treatment of my dd acceptable? To excuse it or at least explain it? Of course my dd should just change groups but that is not at all easy - if it were then she would do it. Does this home life excuse this girl’s mean behaviour? Dd is wary of directly confronting this girl as she is sort of protected by this situation.

It might explain it. Or it might be that she isn’t a very nice person and thinks she can get away with being a cow to your DD but not to the other girls.

Either way, your DD should tell her to fuck off. It isn’t banter. It isn’t ok.

I don’t necessarily assume. - I just hope she isn’t! But she was truly poisonous and I don’t believe people change all that much. I’ve often wondered if she went on to have children, and how she’d feel if they were bullied.

The DD is broken hearted about this - how is she going to tell her to fuck off? Do you think she could handle the fallout ? I guarantee that she won’t be able to because she’s clearly a nice person who hasn’t experienced the realities of difficult friendships and life yet.

Would she be able to cope if the girl turned on her?

I think you’re approaching this from the wrong perspective. You don’t need to understand the rationale or the group dynamics. Nor do you need to make excuses for someone. You can’t fix someone else’s behaviour or problems. That isn’t your role and certainly isn’t what you should be teaching your daughter.

All she can do is focus on herself and her own boundaries about what she will and won’t tolerate from others. She shouldn’t waste time and energy trying to understand why that girl is behaving in the way she is. Ultimately it doesn’t matter and nothing makes it ok to bully or single out your daughter.

You are currently teaching her to accept terrible behaviour and to try and understand and excuse it. That isn’t a helpful life lesson. It will make her a magnate for bullies or those who manipulate and use others as they know she will tolerate it. You should be encouraging her to stand up for herself and to call out ‘banter’ for what it is. Otherwise you’re going to end up with a daughter with no confidence that is consistently taken advantage of by people.

She doesn’t have to leave the group, but she does need to stand up to this girl! Tell your daughter to stand up for herself. Or to say outright to her “why are you being horrible to me?”

The phrase we would use at the school where I work is: 'it explains her behaviour but it doesn't excuse it.'

Say what you like about schools in the 70s and 80s, people of that generation don’t tend to tie themselves in knots about friendships because they know that in reality many people aren’t ’kind and inclusive’ so you shrug and move on

ETA - should have said most people, not many people

OP - how would your daughter react if she did confront her and the girl doubled down on the nastiness? Would she be okay with it? Because that’s the very high risk here

Agree, don't excuse it.

I would encourage your dd to challenge her if possible, give her a hard stare, or just ask what she meant by the comment.

Thank you all. Dd is definitely shifting a bit in her attitude. She is a strong character so will only do what she thinks makes sense. I only ever try to support with strategy ideas.
She will be cautious I’m sure. She doesn’t want to lose all the friends. I think she needs to go through a process of standing up for herself and also developing the discernment needed for choosing friends who like you as you like them and maybe are kind and good hearted and maybe even - act like friends!

YABVU and not teaching your daughter to value herself.

And how to not need them or get invested in them. She isn’t a child anymore and needs to be able to handle these things.

I’m curious - you describe her as a ‘strong character’. As someone who has been described the same way, it usually relates to someone who can be a little bit difficult themselves.

Just a thought - it sounds like she doesn’t want you defending this person as she wants to vent so perhaps a change of tack from you?

Stop this immediately. You need to have DD’s back first and foremost. You’ll teach her tolerate bad behaviour.

Sometimes real, true friends don’t come along until people are at a much later stage in the lives (40s/50s even) so resilience will help her greatly.

I think ‘kind and good hearted’ people are rare so if I were her I would concentrate on hanging around with people I could have fun with and not getting emotionally invested

All of this. It genuinely doesn’t matter why someone is being terrible, your daughter is your only responsibility here.

none of these people are really her friends if this is all happening as you describe. Any chance of encouraging her into a new hobby to meet some more people? She needs out of this whole situation.

You are absolutely being unreasonable. Everyone has shit going on. A lot of us manage to not be dicks to others. Encourage your daughter to stick up for herself. My mum always made out I was the problem and made excuses for horrendous behaviour from others (even other adults), and now I’m having to fork out for therapy because I’ve become depressed and anxious due to bullying in the workplace. If I’d had support as a youngster to stand up for myself I think the picture now would be very different.

My DD also in sixth form has been through something very similar. She decided to call the person out on their behaviour . It was happening on a daily basis and none of her other friends appeared to notice and never backed her up. It didn’t go well when she called them out on it and she’s now had to remove herself from the whole friendship group and they all turned on her.

She feels better she’s now away from them, despite them being friends for years but she’s having to find new friends which is hard at that age. She doesn’t regret doing this and it will make her more resilient when dealing with friendship issues in the future,

I wouldn’t let your DD endure this. I saw what it was doing to my DD , it’s bullying and it’s heartbreaking to see them go through this.

Thanks Luluco. I’m definitely getting her round to not taking any mute sh** from this girl.
everyone’s advice helps!

That would be my concern - that it gets out of hand. The DD’s ‘strong personality’ doesn’t sound like she’s a shrinking violet - is it possible that it’s not all one sided?

Standing up for yourself isn’t about confrontation - try that in a work environment and see what happens! Although most negative feelings are fairly hidden in most workplaces, sometimes they spill out.

It’s about not spending time with people who don’t like you unless strictly necessary and having other options in your life if you are someone who gets too much emotionally involved.

She should be able to cope with this kind of thing which is why I wondered about the ‘strong personality’ - it’s usually a euphemism for ‘stroppy, gobby, difficult’ - and yes I know that because I have it applied to me by some people.