How to help DD12 overcome embarrassment and regain confidence?

[Mandy63l]

DD is 12 and in Y7 at school. Something really very embarrassing happened to her at school on Tuesday - now I don’t want to dwell on what actually happened as it’ll only attract and feed the trolls (and I’d hate to come across as one myself, too!). It’s done, it happened, and she owns it - poor judgment call on her part, no involvement from another pupil/teacher or anything like that.

Unfortunately it’s really knocked her confidence and even though we’ve totally played it down (in the grand scheme of things it’s only something minor, but for a 12 year old it’s mortifying) and have done our best to make her feel better about it, forget and move on, she’s really struggling. She’s not gone into school yesterday or today as she’s been too upset, and I’m not sure how best to support her to overcome this so she can get back to being herself?

She’s got a pretty close knit friendship group, some who came up from primary school with her and others they’ve all met at high school. I’m certainly not aware of any bullying of any kind either before this incident or as a result, she’s been loving her new school so far and it typically a very confident, headstrong girl so I really hate seeing her struggling like this. 😢

Even though she’s at home today, she’s cracking on with schoolwork so I don’t think it’s just been an excuse to miss school for a few days, that’s just not her. But she’s been so very quiet and withdrawn, and has showed no real interest in going out at all since Tuesday.

I’d really appreciate any suggestions as to how I can help bring her back out of herself and regain that confidence, so she can get back to being the bubbly DD she’s always been?

Thanks x

Just had to comment to say the exact same thing happened to a girl I knew at school, at probably the exact same age. I have a weirdly good long term memory so whilst I can remember it, I doubt others can. I remember her close friends being similar to your daughters, not letting anyone say anything to her. And she had no issues after because of it socially 😊

When I was in Yr7, I put my lunch plate on one of those big hexagonal tables to find it hadn’t been clipped in place correctly. The whole table tipped up and my plate of food, complete with spaghetti hoops tipped onto me. The entire hall stopped & looked at me. The hall went completely quiet. I was mortified & I also badly scolded my legs. I had to wear lost property uniform for the rest of the day 😭 I’m 34 now & I have not forgotten 😂 but I imagine absolutely everyone else has! I got a few comments for a week or so & then it was never mentioned again for the rest of my school life!

I’m so glad to hear your DD has such lovely friends! ❤️

What a beautiful ending. What kind friends she has.

Well 4 days on from the actual incident, and 2 since her friends came round to save the day, it’s as if she’s a completely different person - totally back to her normal cheeky self, if a thing maybe a little more confident than she was before (and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not?! Haha).

@carrot you make a very good point about getting to the root of what caused it to happen in the first place. It’s not something that’s ever been an issue for her before, through primary school or since starting high school, so I’m going to try and delicately broach the subject over the weekend - perhaps over another hot choc. No doubt I’ll be accused of “fussing” again, and I do think it’s just been a case of her misjudging things, learning a pretty unpleasant lesson and making pretty certain she doesn’t make the same mistake again, but definitely need to be sure there’s nothing more going.

@bob nothing quite so spectacular, but I actually remember dropping my school dinner, a jacket potato with beans, all over the canteen floor when I went to visit my high school on one of those taster days, oh how I wished the ground would open up and swallow me!

@dash I obviously won’t mention that I’ve posted about this on here, she’d absolutely kill me and likely pack her bags and move out, but if you don’t mind when chatting about the cause etc. I may mention that to her, just to reassure her that she’s not alone - it’s happened before, and it’ll no doubt happen again to somebody else - but may be a nice, light way of easing in to the conversation, thanks!