Mean girls, need advice please

[Whycantpeoplebekind]

My beautiful kind and gentle teen daughter is struggling. She has been excluded by her former friends and I could really do with some advice .

She earned a scholarship to a academically challenging school but she has struggled to settle in. The other students are wealthy and are already in established groups, and my daughter feels behind both socially and academically. She has cried herself to sleep on many occasions, feeling overwhelmed anxious and isolated. She also has additional worries and responsibilities because I have been ill over the last few years with a brain tumour.
She has been so exhausted by the stress that she has gone out less and fallen out of touch with her old friends. The problems really started though when her best friend agreed to go to a concert My daughter paid for the tickets, but later, her friend said she couldn’t afford to go and told my daughter to find someone else. Her friend comes from a wealthy family and gets whatever she wants. My daughter couldn’t find anyone else to go with her since the tickets were expensive and it was a school night. On my advice she eventually told her friend that she was hurt that she’d been put in this position but her friend didn’t react well, she stayed in touch was was cold and completely different to how she had been
My daughter also noticed through social media her old friend group had been going out together without including her. She’d been invited to a birthday party of the girls in the group. We were driving there but running late, so I suggested she text the birthday girl to let her know she was on her way. In the text she received back , she was told she couldn’t come because she hadn’t RSVP’d. My daughter had tried texting the girl the week before, and nothing was said at the time about an RSVP. She felt devastated , humiliated and deeply hurt, and for weeks, she couldn’t even talk about it.
my daughter later found out from another girl in the group that her former best friend had spread a lie to the birthday girl, claiming my daughter planned to attend a different party that same night. Apparently, this friend had been stirring up trouble for some time , casting my daughter as the villain and turning the group against her.
This happened months ago, and my daughter is still struggling. She is exhausted and anxious , has not reconnected with her old friends and continues to feel isolated at her new school. She recognizes that the girls in her old friend group are not nice and that she’s probably better off without them but I know it bothers her that no one knows the full truth.
Her former best friend has been the cause of all of this and has destroyed friendships and completely gotten away with it.
My daughter , back then and now , feels too exhausted to explain her side of the story or deal with the potential fallout, but I can see how deeply it affects her. I’m also concerned that she might run into them at some point, and they could treat her badly. With everything else she’s dealing with, I don’t think she could handle that on top of it.
I wish the other girls could know the truth, that my daughter did nothing wrong, and that she could have some sense of closure and move on .

I’d really appreciate some thoughts/ suggestions.
I’ve suggested talking to the parents but my daughter is adamant she doesn’t want this at her age
She’s really fragile and not up to any drama that could result if she approaches the girls though.

I’d really appreciate your ideas

I think I would focus on finding something and somewhere else for your daughter to make different friends, like a new hobby or sport. Ideally something a bit unusual or depending on her age perhaps where she can be with a mix of ages including grown ups so there is no childish bullying. I got into badminton with an adult club at 14, and my niece goes rock climbing. In both cases, we got new friends who didn't judge us by clothes, school results etc and the mixed age group totally knocks teenage bullying on the head. Hopefully that would give her both new friends and some self confidence. Or if you are feeling better, join a choir and sing together. Wishing you and your daughter the best of luck x

Please don't talk to the Parents, they is never, ever going to end well and could lead to the situation being much worse for your DD.

Can you DD talk to a trusted Teacher about how she feels or her year lead or Pastoral Care. Are the school aware of her caring responsibilities too?

I think I would be talking her through how this is normal and she's not at fault at all. She's done absolutely nothing wrong and friendships do grow or stop overtime. I can remember my friendship ending with my BF and it felt like grief.

Do you think that one of these books might help her? And I can recommend these books might book Untangled for you. I had it recommended to me and it really is very good.

Like the PP said I would encourage other activities and stress how none of this is her fault, just draw a line under it and move on. It can take several attempts sometimes to find your true friends

Oh and I'd also ask @MNHQ to move this over to the Teenage Section where you'll probably get some MNers with more experience replying

From experience, please don’t talk to the parents. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in a lot of cases and it could always potentially make things worse.

I think she needs to completely move away from these old “friends”, they sound nothing but trouble and your daughter is better out of it. Sounds like she’s probably had a lucky escape.

I would maybe suggest speaking to her school, pastoral or her form tutor, about how she’s struggle and see if they can put any measures in place, maybe get her together with like minded pupils.

And support her at home. Show her how loved she is, her family will always have her back and how unimportant these people are to her living a happy life.

They all sound horrible. In these situations it is best to move yourself physically and mentally away and on to new things. A hobby or a part time job where she may encounter new people. A book club, climbing, a walking group etc.. She would benefit from a couple of male friends. There seem to be a lot of really horrible girls around these days, ironic really in the age of 'be kind'. It is actually quite the opposite in my experience.