Daughter left out because mums don’t like me

[greyeyedgirl]

My daughter is in year 7. She’s just seen on social media that most of the girls in the year have been to a sleepover together and she’s not been invited. She’s heart broken. I can’t tell her the reason is that when she was in year 3 one of the mums took a dislike to me and has systematically turned many other mums at the school against me with untrue rumours. She is a proper queen bee. So I was excluded from the friendship group of mums which I feel sad about but have other friends. Consequently the girls are always on day trips out in the holidays, play dates, Share after school clubs go on holiday together and are tight. I thought in seniors this would matter less as kids choose their own friends which are not driven by parents friend choices. But it doesn’t seem to be the case it’s awful to see myDD left out because of my friendship dynamics. Any advice ?

I thought this. I’m mid sixties and l’ve grown up with the phrase.

There seems to be a lot of things attributed to Motherland (I suspect by women in their 20's and 30's) that have been around for eons. Makes me feel old!

I'm sorry that your dd feels excluded. My dd went through something similar in Y7, when lots of the girls who moved up from primary stuck together in a large group. Thankfully Y8 and onwards the dynamics changed massively, smaller groups were formed and friendship have been much better.

Oh, I’ve been there too OP. It feels utterly awful at the time ….not helped for my dd when her siblings had such great year groups. I would acknowledge and talk about situations where she’d been left out - point out the sometimes valid and sometimes ridiculous reasons…point out that some people behave like that but that if she continues to be kind & decent it will come right eventually.
Edited for spellings and to say she’s now later teens and seriously resilient which is a great thing!

This is why I'm.not a fan of schools with a small cohort. A lot of posters are arguing that this doesn't happen in year 7 but, trust me, it can happen especially when some parents are quite controlling and used to engineering their children's friendships.

This happened to my dd in primary school. It's still happening among the same group in year 7, to the point that, the girls are unable to spread their wings and make new friends. I feel sorry for them. One parent, in particular, is in a tailspin because she can't control the narrative in secondary school and her child is suffering as a consequence. It's very sad.

Your dd needs to make new friends and concentrate on individuals whose company she enjoys. If it doesn't improve, because of the pre-existing dynamic, be prepared to change school.

Would you have allowed your dd to go a sleepover even if she was invited where she's been excluded from everything since yr3? I know I wouldn't. It's time for your dd to move to a new school as there is no breathing space left for her having to mingle with people who aren't her friends. Allow her to have a fresh start.

Sign your DD up for activities away from where you live, so she can make other friends not connected to school. This worked well for my DS long story but he had issues with kids at school, we signed him up for activities a drive away where no one from his school went, he made loads of new friends and it gave him resilience to deal with the petty stuff at school as “ he didn’t need them” for company outside school. Bonus was he ended up being very good at one of his activities which really boosted his confidence.

But you do realise with a school with that few girls yours is the one that is unusual. I am assuming yours is a private school because in state schools y6 and y7 are two different schools.

Well said. Stop giving this mum such power to affect your mood. I agree with PP, in secondary school parent friendships fade away to nothing. I had a similar situation at primary and now my kids are at secondary school none of those parents are even friends any more. Focus on creating good relationships with others, this mum does not matter and you wont even remember her name in 5 years time. Your daughter will learn from you and modelling a healthy confident attitude that if someone excludes you, you let them, you dont let it affect your self esteem or value and you focus on the people who are caring, kind and supportive- of which there are many- I promise you. This is a life lesson and if handled well, will really help your daughter in adulthood.

Moving schools?
Secondary Kids organising themselves?

Nice idea but less likely if you live rurally.

We live rurally. DS attends the nearest secondary school and catches a school bus to get there. The next nearest school to us is a 45 min drive away.
When you live rurally, your kids rely on you 100% to get them to places to visit their friends. Public service buses are non existent. The kids who are also very rural can’t organise their own meet ups without involving their parents! My son also has dyspraxia so can’t ride a bike as he has balance and co-ordination difficulties.

This Christmas holiday period he saw his only friend (who goes to a different school miles away) on one occasion because I drove all the way out to the friend’s house to collect them and took them back afterwards as friend’s only parent doesn’t drive.

Sadly DS has no real school friends due to being bullied in the 1st two years of secondary. I had no idea this would be the case as he had a few friends at primary but they’ve since deserted him. One of his best friends from Primary changed and became the Bully which was a dreadful shock to me. DS was diagnosed with Autism in 2nd year of secondary school which I think is at the root of the issues.

What's wrong with you? Why are you attacking the OP? She's done nothing wrong.

Queen bee is a descriptive phrase, and a useful one, we all know the type and knew exactly what the OP means without her having to use more words to explain the situation.

You don't have to "think you live in motherland" to recognise a queen bee type or use the word. Give the OP a break, being bullied by someone like that is awful.

You say all this kicked off in year 3, have they actually been friends since then? Because if not then why would you expect an invite for your daughter to something hosted by someone who isn't a friend?

And if they have been friends since year 3 then it must be nothing to do with her mum and any ill feelings towards you.

Same, one mum turned against me for no reason and she held a lot of power. Anyone who pretends these people don’t exist are either incredibly stupid or are one of those people themselves.

Im sorry I don’t have advice for OP just sympathy. My DS has eventually found himself friends amongst the other unpopular parents kids but it took a while and led to a lot of upset when his whole friendship group were all going out together and he was excluded despite being a popular boy, just because of one petty Mum.

Is it all the same people from primary that have gone to this high school, and no one else?

Try and get your DD to nurture individual friendships rather than get into a gang. The gang can happen naturally later but feeling left out will abate if she has her own friends.

It's easy to feel left out at this age. In my DDs school, there were 10 sitting together at lunch - a core four who were louder and spent a lot of time together. From their perspective they had their friends but were happy to sit with others as well. There were 6 feeling left out by this gang and like they had no friends. My DD started to initiate things with some of the other 5 and the parents were all like "thank goodness, she's felt so left out." It's nonsense a lot of the time, so don't let your DD make assumptions about what other people are thinking (and you too), the truth is that they are less likely to be thinking about you at all than to be actively hostile.

In year y they seem to chop and change friends a lot (in my experience), Hopefully she’ll find new friends, not from juniors school.

It's very unusual (and frankly bonkers) for:

a) any parent to host 25 children for a sleepover (or any parent to let their child go to a sleepover with that many kids, unless an organised school activity).

b) For a child to be regularly bullied because of something their mum (!) is perceived to have done in Year 3.

As this seems to be the case here, I would have taken the opportunity to have moved my child at year 7 to a school where:

a) there are normal parents who think a sleepover for 2 or max 3 kids is plenty thank you very much (and not too often, please!)

b) the kids can decide for themselves who they are friends with, rather than the parents.

I have never heard of anyone having 20 kids to a sleepover.

They're 11/12 year olds not toddlers. I really can't imagine kids this age letting their parents have much say over their friends tbh. Is it definitely the parents who don't want her there?

In any case the only thing I think you can do is be honest with your daughter about what's happened with the other mums. Be factual and not emotive. Then more importantly tell your dd to have some self-respect. Whatever the reason for them excluding her she deserves better. It's better for her to be a lone wolf with her head held high than a lapdog trotting after these girls with her tail between her legs. There are surely other girls she can approach? Starting a club outside school might also help. If nothing else it will give her perspective as to how small and insignificant a school community really is.

This is awful for her but dwelling on how awful it is is only going to create more drama and misery. These mums and kids are only as significant as you allow them to be

The other obvious interpretation (and I’m not suggesting this is you, obviously) is that the ‘excluded’ parent and/or his or her child is actually awful.

I’m certain one mother who had a child in DS’s second primary school class would claim her child had been excluded because the other mothers didn’t like her, but she was a dreadful human being, and her child was a bully (hardly surprisingly, as he had a mother who was both spectacularly aggressive and neglectful).

It was a friendly environment. DS arrived mid year into the equivalent of Year 3 (not UK) and immediately made friends, while I got on very well with, and still see, parents from his class, and when this mother and child arrived at the start of the next year, they got the same friendly reception. We certainly invited them both to after-school park trips, coffees etc. It was only once we saw what they were like that this dried up.

For ‘objective’ proof, by the final year of primary, her child had a permanent one-on-one staff member and the mother had been banned from the school grounds for being aggressive to teachers and other parents.

It's all a bit strange for year 7 aren't they in high school? Not many parents go to pick their children up from high school.

Uh-oh!

This type of cliquey group often turns on each other in the end anyway.

I echo what the others are saying about needing different friends. Friends should not treat each other like that and clinging onto a toxic 'friendship' is not a good thing.

The term ‘Queen Bee’ has been around since the 1970s, it’s nothing to do with Motherland.