Are little girls capable of being catty?

[Alvira]

Mothers, is it possible for little girls to be so nasty that their behaviour translates into an adult woman's version of female competitiveness? The girls in my daughter's school are very competitive over how they look, who they play with and not letting other girls join in who 'don't fit in'. My daughter goes to a private school? Does this make a difference do you think? Are children of middle class families more competitive? I can't understand why i seem to be the only Mum who's telling her daughter to be nice and kind to everyone at school while the other children do as they please

I am not a journalist. I am a very ordinary female. I addressed my message to 'Mothers' because it is my intention to find out if other mothers are having to manage their daughter's expectations on the social friend making front at school.

Agree with those other suspicious minded MNers on here. Sounds too much like another DM article and given that they have yet again today re-hashed the style & beauty thread they plagiarised last week, I shall not be giving my opinion on this topic.

In a word, yes!!

Alvira - I work in a state school. As I said before I believe, from observation, that ALL children, regardless of age, gender, class, type of school, etc are capable of having their unkind moments.

I am genuinely lost as to why people here think I'm a journalist.

Little girls are just SO awful.There is always the 'queen bee ' who is the ring leader and her sidekicks and some poor unfrtuante who is the victim in it all.
I wonder whether mothers who think all the girls play together beautifully is actually mum to the queen bee or one of her inner circle.

sherby at that story. but it sounds so...."normal". which is what makes it even sadder. I think it's the way of the world laid bare. A harsh representation of what adult life can be like. like I said, we all just have to keep plugging, chipping away at it. teaching them to curtail their more base tendencies in the hope that it's in their self-interest to do so - and those who do will come up trumps in the long-term. nasty people (adults I mean) are rarely happy. imo.

Blimey, katiestar. Why not add a few sweeping generalizations and a dash of polemic to your post next time?

By katiestar on Fri 11-Sep-09 14:42:32 Little girls are just SO awful.

I actually disagree with that statement whole heartedly.

ALL children, girl or boy, have the ability to be mean to one another at times, both verbally and physically. But all children also have the capability of being loving, caring and so kind to their friends too. And fortunately the latter is generally much more the case, with the moments of unkindness being just that - moments.

have to agree

Katiestar - that is such bollocks. Girls are capeable of being horrible. So are boys. And the Queen Bee theory sounds like you have been watching to many American High School films.
Do you actually know many young girls?

I do think there is some similarity between the way parents behave and the way their children behave.

In my experience (one DS, one DD), girls are not worse than boys.

One of the problems of year 4 is that there can be a big difference between Summer and Winter born children. The Winter one are often moving on to more mature interests and ways of behaving, while the Summer ones haven't got to that point yet.

In general, mean spirited children are far outnumbered by pleasant ones (of course almost all children will sometimes be mean; nobody is perfect). Being really mean frequently actually takes a lot of effort; most children and adults simply haven't the energy or focus to bully. They have better things to do with their time and thoughts.

I think that children should have as wide a circle of friends as possible. Perhaps it is the formation of best friends or tiny groups among girls that makes the occasional negative remark into a bigger deal. Having a wider social circle means you can just go off and play with someone else.

I do actually know lots of girls .I have an 8 yr old and also have been Brownie Tawny owl for 15 years, so i thinkl I am well qualified to speak.The likelihood of getting 14 girls -none of whom have gone through the catty Y3/4/5 stage is highly unlikely.
What I HAVE observed though is plenty of mums who are absolutely oblivious to how manipulative and unpleasant their DDs are when they are not there.
I am not saying these girls are of a nasty disposition , more that it is a stage of development.The grouping up in 3s so there is always an odd one out.being best friends with a girl one week and then excluding her the next etc etc
I disagree that it is common to children of all ages and gender - it is not the same as it is with girls in the 7-11 age group.

My son often plays with the little boy who lives a few doors down from us. My son is nearly 5 and the boy has just turned 7. My They get on absolutely fine together when it's just them.

But there is a 9 year old girl who most weekends comes to stay with her grandmother who is one of our neighbours. When she comes round to play with the boys, she completely changes the dynamic for the worse, whispers in corners with one of the boys excluding the other, tells the other boy he has to go home, brings a biscuits for herself and my son from her house and nothing for the other boy, writes lists of rules for my son's playhouse which state that the other boy is not allowed in, makes up passwords for entry into said playhouse which are not shared with one of the boys. I could go on....

I am forever threatening her that she will not be allowed to come round to ours if she doesn't improve her behaviour and we have sent her back to her grandmother's more than once now(both these kids practically lived with us over summer). She's a total bitch.... but my son absolutely loves her

Yes......my DD1 (who is 7)has 'friends' who can be quite catty and I'm sure she's no angel but some are worse than others..this has been going on since 5/6 yrs old...I was never particularly catty as a child in my own little dream world if I'm honest...tis both a personality and social dynamic thing...

perhaps?

Hell yes they can be down right evil

I have a dd she's only 3 and a very strong character. I do fear for her during her school years because of the prolonged s**t i went through from the age of 5 to 16 mainly due to one silly cow and her little gang. I hated school as a result and have an ongoing mistrust of SOME women and female friendships. So yes girls are catty!

Being the excluded one, or the one who doesn't fit in is one of the most horrible social experiences a person can have. I do worry tbh that due to my dds personality she may be one who gets involved in this sort of behaviour though rather than the other way round although I'm already trying my best to steer her away from this.

Groups of girls are nasty ime, although I'd love to be proved wrong.

Katiestar
Everyone has said that all girls are capeable of it.No one has said that some girls don't do it at all.
My issue is with your sweeping statement that all girls are SO awful.
Pleased to note though that you have moved away from that completely now by saying that it is a stage of behaviour that most girls go through - which is what most people were saying without labelling all girls as universally awful.

DD's experience of an all-girls school mirrored my own. Extreme cattiness. Really quite extreme and silly. Even in a supposedly selective school, where the girls are meant to be bright.

I do think that all girls are capable of this type of behaviour but I agree with the OP that the sheer depths of it at these all-girls schools is incredible and has to be witnessed to be believed.

Passing by the cul-de-sac where my ds plays with his mates, I quite often hear remarks on the lines of 'he can't play with us', 'I won't play if he joins in', 'if you don't do as I say you can't play with my ball', 'please mrs X, will you tell y off, he's mean to us' (and on examination it turns out that y's offence was not to do exactly as his friend told him).

Are these actually little girls in disguise or is it a little-known fact that manhood does not exclude cattiness?

Or is it just that we don't call it cattiness when it's little boys doing it?

oh and as an afterthought, is it only my experience that little boys do a particularly fine line in whingeing? I never saw so many tears when dd used to have her friends round.

Yes of course they can, little girls can be quite cunning and nasty in comparison to boys. If they dont like another girl they might leave them out of games, and get others on their side to be nasty and emotionally bully the person. No i am not a man, i have seen it both in the playground when i was little, studied it in my Psychology degree and seen it continue in the work environment.

I don't think it's the same Cory. DS goes to a boys school and there isn't the same degree of exclusion, reliance on facebook and bebo to put others down, catting about the way they look ... Of course boys can behave badly but no-one gets bullied for wearing undesigner clothes for instance.

The behaviour of boys tends to be different as i said to girls. They tend to be more physical and what you see is what you get, girls are moe catty, cunning and bully emotionally. I know females that prefer to work in teams where there are more males than females, so much easier. I am not saying all girls are like this, at school i had some lovely friends really lovely girls with not a wicked bone, I am just stating in general. This school girl behaviour can escalate to the school gates, mums froming cliques, leaving other mums out or looking down at their noses at other mums who are deemed to be not as worth or slummy mummies.

So what does all this whingeniness and trying to exclude one person mean when it's ds's little mates doing it?

should I just shut my ears to what I actually hear in the playground and pretend they have to be physical and straightforward because they're little boys? Ds's mates, particularly one of them, seem pretty devious to me.

oh and the people who bullied me for being fat and having bad teeth and wearing the wrong kind of clothes at school were definitely boys; if they had been girls I would definitely have called that catting about appearance.

And I have heard enough boys say that you have to have the right kind of trainers etc at school not to believe that nobody gets bullied for undesigner clothes. Of course they do- why else is there a market for designer items for boys?

Hatwoman - you made me laugh with your bears in the woods thing..........you are so right as are all the other posters so not much more to add.

Alvira - I had children at state schools many years ago and now have g/chd at state schools. There is a big difference between boys and girls and someone else made good points about how they deal with conflict. Boys tend to "run off" their agressions/frustrations while girls fold their arms and natter to each other! I agree that around 9 seems to be the age when girls start getting particularly catty. My g/dtrs tell me some of the things that are said about the appearance of girls at this age and it is quite nasty but that is how it is. I can certainly recall other girls being catty to each other at shcool - but not me of course!! To be honest I don't think I was brave enough but I have a very very clear memory of "carrying insults" to girls from other girls and that was about 55 years ago!!

I think as others have said you have to remember that you are only hearing one side of the story and try not to get too immersed in this stuff ............they are so many bridges to cross ahead, don't sweat the small stuff. I think the best thing parents can do is to teach their child the skills to cope with whatever comes along rather than trying to fight their battles for them. My dil and son are primary school teachers and both agree that girls are catty to each other at times and "fall in" and "fall out" all the time. Happy days!!