DD's mean friends

[SarfEast1cated]

My DD (8) has been friends with a group of children since nursery, and I am friends with their mums. Unfortunately although I still really like the mums, their daughters are quite mean to my daughter. They are all alpha female/mean girl types, sometimes not letting DD stand with them in a queue, not letting her play with them, being generally (and thoughtlessly I think) mean. My DD, who is quite geeky, and not even vaguely 'political', just gets upset by their behaviour and does what they tell her. The mums are pretty oblivious too. I don't know what to do...

1. tell the mums
2. Mix with other people and help DD to find nice friends, or
3. stay doing stuff with these people at weekends and help her deal with it. I am torn. She will meet more people like these as she goes through life, so learning how to deal with them now would be valuable, but I can't bear to see her treated like this. I'd rather find her nice new friends. What would you do? (and how do I help her deal with people like this? I'm an adult and I don't know!) Thanks everyone - I don't know what to do!

Are they all in school together? You don't say....if they are then it's obviously tricky.

First of all, have you seen the bad behaviour with your own eyes?

Secondly, does DD say if there is one girl who seems to be the ringleader?

Hi Violet thanks for the reply, she isn't at school with all of them, but she does got the same after school club with them, and we socialise a few times a month together.
I haven't seen the bad behaviour as it happens, but the aftermath, DD standing at the back of the queue, or sitting on her own on the train, she cries about it when we get home. They are mean and she just takes it.
It makes me sad. Is it better to try to teach her how to deal with the meanies, or try to avoid seeing them? I don't know. I don't actually know how to deal with them, as their mums are quite permissive, and I am a bit more old fashioned.
My DD isn't mean, a) because she isn't wired that way, and b) because we are polite and kine and would never allow it.
DD and I both need coping strategies for this! Help...

Ohhhhh, I had this! Dc who would happily play together when they were younger but couldn't when they got to this age.

I tried to teach my dd to be a cow back but she just isn't like that. I think if she could have answered them back they would have left her alone.

I didn't make her spend too much time with them. And if I could, she took one of her friends with us. And I kept an eye on them all when we were all together. Ready to cut in if necessary. But not in 'excuse me Melanie, don't be unkind to my susan' sort of way.

I made sure she was good at things to keep her confidence up. Plenty of out of school activities.

Thanks Savoy I think you're right, we will spend more time with real friends to get her confidence up. It happened again at a party this afternoon, and I gave MG a stern look and she came over and apologised to DD and then. I think they know they are being mean, but just do it anyway! Little buggers!

Definitely avoid and tell the others why. At this age they certainly DO know they're being mean. It may be that they're not doing that well socially at their schools and so can exercise their "authority" in these other situations.

Dont' make her attend these things if she's not having a nice time. I would also be open to my friends about it. If they work with you to fix it then they're real friends...if not then there's no loss to you.

Mean friends? They are clearly not her friends. Stop putting her in the way of harm and socialise with your friends separately.

I think you're right violet they were feeling a bit out of their comfort zone and were asserting authority - I hadn't thought about it like that. My DD is a bit of geek, and we were at a geeky event, so that fits really well.

Barbarian they are friendly 99% of the time, and DD enjoys being with them most of the time, but there it always the very slight danger they may turn on her. DD isn't like that at all, so hard for her to deal with.

It actually happened at a party yesterday and I spotted it and dealt with it there and then - Mean girl apologised immediately and they ran off and played.