queen bees and wannabees... at 9?

[Vi8]

My daughter and her three best friends have been close for years. There is another friend who they have all been spending more time with. This girl organised a band for the school music festival with my DD and her three friends. A few weeks ago she told my daughter she was out of the band, and keeps the other girls on their toes by switching favorites, and deciding who is in or out as she pleases. The other girls realise what's happening, but seem so grateful when the "queen bee" lets them "in" that they won't stand up for themselves, or for my DD. A few days ago she made some horrible comments about my DD's appearance. My DD feels she has been isolated from her friends and thinks that this must be due to her being "less pretty" than the others, which is absurd. My daughter is in fact extremely pretty. I have let this run its course for a while, but it is affecting her confidence now. I don't know what to do as they are only 9!

anyone?

My DD is 19 months so I have no advice, but some suggestions.

Invite the queen bee round to play with your DD on her own. Make it a structured thing that you know your DD is brilliant at, be it baking, swimming, horse riding, whatever. That way you get to see this queen bee away from the herd and she might end up being nicer to your DD. then you could invite them all round together for something like a 'grown up' afternoon tea. You could say what a nice thing it is to have 4 friends so loyal to each other yadayada so they can see there's no need for divide and conquer. Or you could just invite the 2 older friends round and they can gets back some of their closeness.

Oh, and when my 'friends' did that to me when I was 9, my mum always told me they were just jealous. So as she's pretty, this girl is obviously a jealous boots.

I have a 3.4yo DD and they are already starting the "best friend" thing. It's horrible! You can spot the Queen Bee even at that age.

OP, that soudns so familiar!! My dd is in the same position as your dd. I find it comes and goes - sometimes the queen bee plays nicely and sometimes she goes and bothers other girls. I just try to reassure dd as much as poss, and invite ehr older friends round to play. Like the idea about inviting Qb round to do something your dd is good at though Think we're in for a few more years of this with our dds!!

The Queen Bee problem never quite ends, does it? I also like the idea of inviting them all around. And i've found that it helps to have a few completely different sets of friends from different activities, so that you're not relying too much on one friend or set of friends. Maybe you can encourage her to focus on friends from, say, swimming lessons (or whatever), for a little while, or she can get involved in a new activity.