A girl being awful to my 12yr DD

[RachieSteves]

Hi

I’m just after some advice please.

My DD is in year 7 (first year of senior school) she has stayed friends with a small group of girls from her old school and their friendship group has expanded to include some new girls. My Dd is a shy girl but has been growing in confidence with the help of joining clubs outside of school. Shes a gentle soul and so I was worried about how senior school was going to go because she’s always been a bit shy but she seemed to be doing ok.

One of these newish girls in their group is very loud and seems to have made herself the queen bee of the group (for want of a better phrase). She has been being sly mean to my DD for a while now, not enough for us to get too involved but certainly enough to upset my daughter, she’s been ignoring it and we thought it had stopped.

The last couple of weeks the girl has gone on the attack of my daughter. Been chatting to her other friends behind her back saying she doesn’t like my DD, made horrible snap chat stories about her, told their whole friendship group that she is going to exclude my DD from a sleepover she’s having…so she made a whole group thread with their friendship group added my DD and then said “oh we don’t want you there” and then unadded her from the group. Shes trying hard to turn my daughters best friends that she has since primary school against her and one of them is turning against her. Thats just a few examples, its just been very unpleasant.

My DD this week has been so down and depressed about it, she’s not eating, she’s not sleeping. But she is saying she does not want me to message or call the school as she doesn’t want it to get worse.

I genuinely don’t know what to do. Do I go against my daughter’s wishes and call the school? Do I speak to this girls parents!? I have never been in this situation before and I am struggling to know what is best to do for my DD.

I am at work at the moment and am crying for her, I hate that I’m sending her in to school knowing how sad and worried she is.

I would definitely speak to the girls parents. She sounds like a little cow!! Your poor dd 🙁 I hope the other girls in the group see sense.

She sounds horrible. I wouldn't mention to parents as often the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and they'll try and blame your dd in 90% of cases.
You could mention to the form tutor and ask them to pretend that another child has reported it instead of parents. If nothing works you could maybe ask for your dd to move to another form group.

Go into school and ask to speak to the safeguarding officer. When this happened to my daughter I did not react as quickly as I should have because I thought it was just girls being silly and they'd work it out. My child ended up with anorexia and severe mental health issues that have impacted her life (she's an adult now). I ended up removing her from school. It was an horrific time.

Stamp on this quickly. Make the parents of her primary school friends aware and go to school. Do not delay. I cannot bear these vile little bitches and the only way to deal with bullies is give them a taste of their own. I have a young teen son who started to get similar treatment and I have come down like a ton of bricks on it. It stopped immediately. I don't care what people think. I will not have another child affected the way my daughter was.

Also a lot of schools have somewhere kids can escape to for support if needed,that you wouldn't know about unless you ask.

How big is the school? Are the girls in one form? Is it possible to move your daughter away from them within the school. My DD is yr 8 and what you’ve described seems pretty normal for girls unfortunately. My DD has made some really lovely new friends and she stays away from the bitchy girls. She’s also shy and quiet and probably a bit of a geek so isn’t bothered about being friends with the popular girls. Could you encourage your daughter to step away from the whole group for a while and make new friends. The Queen Bee will then find someone else to push out / pick on and slowly the others will see that she’s not a nice person (which is what has happened with one of DD’s ex friends).

What is important is to see it also from the bullys view and why they're doing it. It's not ok to bully but it won't stop untill the real reason behind it is known. They make blame the victim but there's many factors. For instance they've been bullied, there parents jobs, decisions the parents have made in the past that incites the bullys parents to get them to target other people's children. If you know why you can't stop it

It’s always really hard in situations like this when one person in a group has a ‘strong’ personality, because all the others, although probably feeling awful about what’s happened to your dd, are going to be afraid that the same will happen to them if they are seen to support her. I don’t have much in the way of advice, except to be there for your dd, which you are doing anyway. Are there any lunchtime or after school clubs she could join, to get to know different groups? If she can, I would try and distance herself from these ‘friends’ for a while. Things change, and friendship groups in Yr 7 are rarely the same by year 9, especially if one of the group behaves in a toxic way. She’ll inevitably pick on someone else, if your dd removes herself from the group, and people will hopefully start drifting away from her. I know it’s easier said than done, though, at an age when friends are everything. I hope things improve, and if your dd is getting really upset, I wouldn’t hesitate to speak to the head of year.

Contact the parents of her primary school friend group and tell them what is going on. .. ultimately their daughters need to decide how to behave and who to be friends with but it might help.. especially if their parents have been friends with you too.

If you have any evidence of the snapchat stories, I would contact the school head of year / pastoral lead / your daughter's mentor / class teacher.

Definitely contact the school - this type of behaviour is quite common in first year of high school and they’re usually very good at nipping it in the bud. Your poor DD - hopefully you can get it sorted.

Why is the go to thing is putting responsibility on the school. They have hundreds of students and what 20 teachers max. You fix it. Get info work out why and fix it.

Nonsense - it’s not the OP’s job to ‘fix’ another child. Pupil support does that.

Do you have teenagers? 20 teachers in a high school?!

Of course you have to involve the school. It's happening in school hours on school premises and that is why they have safeguarding officers and anti bullying policies. You have already made clear that you are a bully apologist, suggesting that the OP finds out why the bully is doing it. It's not her job to do that! Her job is to protect the welfare of her child and ensure school is not something she has to fear. The bully needs to be dealt with swiftly and with impact.

No they don't alot of the time, not when the parents don't know how to deal with there kids behaviour. What do parents do ? What is a parent's job? Feed and house. Is that the bare minimum requirements to be a parent.

I just don't understand how someone so young can be so bloody downright nasty. If I was their parent I would be utterly ashamed and furious.

I think this is one of the times you absolutely do against her wishes and get the school involved and speak to the parents with a teacher present.

Your daughter cannot go on like this. It's really unfair.

I'm so sorry, OP.

Still not the job of the OP to fix another child.

I never said don't get the school involved I said why is all the responsibility put on the school staff. You need to do something to.

It's the parents job to stop it. Not knowing why won't stop the behaviour. If you really cared and not just addicted to arguing with others you'd understand that. Like I say bullys go on to be bullied. And that's not ok. Bullying is never ok we don't need it we don't need to. We don't need to be toughened up by bullying to be strong.

You've clearly never been in this situation before. Or you've been the bully 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think you'll find that school advice is never to approach parents directly but to approach the school and let them deal with it.

Your poor dd! If it is an consolation this us very very typical of girl friendship groups particularly at your dds age, and they will soon get bored and move onto another target.
The school can't really do anything about the sleepover, similarly the gi t l is entitled to dislike your daughter.But the snapchat messages are out of line ! Although as 11/12 year olds they should not be on SM

I didn't want to read and run OP. I'm so sorry your daughter is going through this. From what I've read on here, it's NEVER a good thing to approach the child's parents. Always use the school's official channels and have everything documented. For now, it seems there isn't much you can do as your daughter doesn't want the bullying reported.

However, it might be worth putting all incidents down, complete with dates, so you're ready with the details when ready to escalate.

In the meantime, would it be an option for your daughter to seek help from the pastoral care team at the school?

She doesn't need to report the bully, but she could ask for advice on how to handle it.

I hope others come along soon to give more advice.

School should be dealing with bullying which happens at school and should also be made aware of stuff going on outside school too for context.

They will recommend this in their policies.

Whether they do have the resources or nous to deal with it remains to be seen, a lot of schools still just brush it under the carpet. But it is certainly correct to contact the school.

Plus communications between parents on these matters can be heated and unhelpful. Particularly if the parents are bullies themselves, or think their child can do no wrong. If I already knew the parents well then I would speak to them. But chances are if the child came from another school and it's Y7, the OP won't know them from Adam.

I am not a bully. I've been bullied when I was a child a few times. Bullying meaning a group of people all siding with 1 person and targeting me. It was really unpleasant and still lives with me to this day. Now I'm grown up and realised the multiple factors that made them feel like treating me like that. There friends were toxic. Alot of them have died. I don't want that. Drug overdoses car crashes all sorts of things. I learned how much they were suffering and the emotional pain they were suffering from and wanted others to feel the same so they could feel like they're not on there own. Bullying is not ok but come on think with your heart and brain.

How about this then since you're all moaning about my rational thinking. Find the girl slap her face off or get your daughter to. Problem solved. Well it's not tho is it. But you won't listen to me. Why post on here for stupid answers that you already know. Contact the school, find it what's behind it. Get the problem fixed. Or others may target her.

Oh and a side note. Children lie all the time. For all you know your daughter is instagating it. Find out what's going on or you'll never fix it.itll be deep probably. Parents are so dumb and self intitled always wanting others to fix there problems. Grow up you adult children.stop leaving others to fix your problems it's annoying. Other people have to have life's to ya know.