Helping boys understand mean girls

[NeverendingStoryteller]

My 8 yo DS and I could do with some advice from MN experts! He's been friends with a girl for the last couple of years, but she has recently been ganging up on him with other girls (one quite mean girl, in particular) and they have been trying to get him into trouble, or trying to get him to do things that will get him in trouble. They've even been coming to me with 'terrible tales' - if it's not serious stuff, I tell them to go and sort it out amongst themselves, but it is now extending to this group of girls 'not allowing' him to go in certain parts of the playground, or move from certain areas if they are all playing together.

I was a bit rubbish at navigating this kind of thing as a kid, so am not best placed to help him. I keep thinking that he can work it out for himself, but it's really bothering him, and I want to help, obviously.

Any advice, clever mums?

Am afraid this tends to happen at this age. DSs found suddenly quite a few girls at age 8 no longer wanted to play with boys and they wanted to be just with other girls. DSs got a bit upset about it too. Some girls definitley went out of their way to get boys into trouble in the playground too and then go running and telling the teacher.

Eventually, boys and girls tend to sort of separate at this age. I don't really like the idea of it but it is a natural part of growing up unfortunately.

Thanks, MoreBeta. You're right, of course. Thanks for replying and the great advice.

He's being bullied and you should raise it with school as a matter of urgency. If boys were trying to get him in trouble and excluding him you wouldn't be thinking he should work it out for himself, you'd be demanding action. Just because they're girls, that's no reason to soft-pedal. Bring it to the attention of the teacher and make sure they take you seriously.

I was rubbish at dealing with that sort of thing too, so two bits of advice spring to mind: 'Stay away from them!' and 'They can't tell you what to do!'

As for understanding it, you can tell him that some girls like doing that, beause it makes them feel powerful/important/popular.

Thanks Vess. We've been talking about 'queen bees' and how people sometimes have different ways of getting power. My DS is very good at manipulating adults, but seems very lost when dealing with unreasonable behaviour from other children. He's made a choice about this girl in the past couple of days, and has decided that they can't be friends any more. He agrees that he was letting her and her friends get away with much more than usual because he was trying to keep her friendship.

Cogito - thanks for taking the time to reply, but I think I made you worry for no reason. This isn't happening at school and he's definitely not being bullied, otherwise I would have dealt with this differently. I'm not 'soft-pedalling' because this is about girls - the situation was was a bit more sensitive than usual because of his sadness about possibly losing a friend, and he was sad because this girl seemed to change so quickly. I was the kind of kid who thought "screw them all" if people we weird to me, but I don't think this is the best approach to pass on to my kids, so was just checking to see how others saw it.