DD 10 friends being mean on messenger. Best way to advise her?

[mykiddies]

My DD 10 is a great girl. Outgoing, energetic, friendly. She goes on msn messenger with a few girls from class (am not sure whether to let this go on or not). 2 of the girls are best friends. My daughter is friendly with both of them, birthdays, outings etc. but when these 2 girls get together or if the 3 of them are together they are so mean to my daughter calling her names etc. Tonight the 3 of them got chatting and things started to get mean ie you don't like us being best friends so deal with it, you want us to fall out don't you, your hair is a sight, no wonder boyz don't like u (?). I told her to come away from it and ignore it. They seem to get on like this with my dd when they are together. I don't understand it! They are best of friends when just 2 together but when these 2 get together they are so horrible towards my dd. She has other friends in class and I have told her to try and keep her distance a bit which she says she does but then the next day they'll be ok as if nothing happened. When my dd said tonite my mum can see what you're writing they responded with and....... like we care. Can anyone advise please best way to explain to dd what way to deal with them or at 10 should I just be leaving her to figure it out herself. I don't want her to get hurt. I just cant understand why girls get on this way with friends?

Should I ban the msn? Tell her to not contact these 2.

Gosh your poor dd. Honestly some girls are such cows.

If it was my dd I'd ban msn. It seems to be causing nowt but grief for her and 10 is very young to be coping with such vile behaviour from the other girls.

I would have a chat with her about bullies being essentially cowards and try to encourage her not to engage with these two. 'Tis a shame and I would be so on my dds behalf.

I think 10 is too young for msn really, so I'd ask her to stop using it. I'd also be looking to discourage this friendship (not that you can really do anything, of course) perhaps by encouraging her to invite other friends to play. Sometimes three really isn't a good number, and it sounds as if these two have a particular dynamic with your dd that sounds very hurtful.

I like MadamDeathstare's advice about saying you have printed this off. I don't think you are doing anything wrong in that either... it is cyber-bullying even if it is two 10 yr olds. They probably don't realise the dynamic particularly - just that it's fun to taunt your DD .

MSN is a nightmare but lots of 10 year olds use it. It might even be worth having a word with the school to ask if they could do something around the dangers of the internet and perhaps cover cyber-bullying etc.

A friend of mine had something similar but with a slightly older daughter and texting. She (the mother) pretended that it was her phone and told the girl sending the texts not to send them any more. (They are very scatty with phones, so it does ring true.) She also kept the texts just in case.

Could you say that you saw the conversation and tell the girls it wasn't on? I would definitely print it out and save it - it'd be good to have even if you decide to do nothing now. And yes, I'd either ban msn for now, or if she usually uses it without a problem, then at least block those two girls.

And yes, have a word with the school to see if they do anything about cyber-bullying, or google how to deal with it and go over it with your daughter. I've done this with my older son because of the situation with the girls as he knows them both. He's actually dropping the bully as a friend - his decision and not on my advice, although I'm pleased.

Thanks for all your advice. What I did was delete these 2 girls from her contact list and said to her I do not want her to have these 2 as contacts on msn. I said she can keep using it but if anything like this happens again with anyone then we will stop it as why chat if it's going to be like this. Her dad last night said he doesn't agree with msn anyway (1st I heard of it!) but only voices his objection when this happens.

I am quite annoyed about what happened last night. I am also upset as one of them said when dd wrote I was reading them your mum's over protective anyway don't mean to be rude or anything like so they knew I could see them but they didn't care. To think that in particular one of these girls has been to my house countless times and I have taken her to the zoo, ice skating and this is thrown back in my face and when she is at our house it's all thank you very much. I think these girls are very two faced.

I have told my dd to try and steer away from them a bit. Try to let them see that she has other girls and doesn't need them all the time. I think this is the problem. They know my dd likes them and she thinks they're her best friends. Actually on her msn heading tab she would put things like BFS forever me and so I think this must be annoying them a bit if you see what I mean. I am going to invite another friend to the cinema Saturday night and start inviting her round more. These girls have all been in the same class from P1 so friendships have been formed and there is no real way to make new ones but she only has one more year left so I have told her that when she goes to big school that she will meet lots more girls.

tbh I think I'm more annoyed than she is (well I hope so). I am aware of this cyber bullying and I think she is too young to be handling these kind of comments.

Does anyone think it is a good idea to mention this to teacher or should I just leave it. What annoys me is these girls mums have no idea what they're getting up to or saying and I'd love to ring one of them to let them know but I don't want to be over-reacting.

I suppose it depends what the girls' mums are like, would they take offence or be supportive? You could have a word with the teacher at school and see if she could have a word with the whole class about bullying, specifically cyber-bullying, and how it can make people feel. 10 is very young, I would give them the benefit of the doubt to begin with and assume they don't realise the effect it is having on your DD. Presumably they wouldn't say these things out loud? Which means that either they are cowardly or they somehow think it is less hurtful because they don't get an immediate response that your DD is upset.

Yes sorry meant to say if you speak to the mums then take the angle of "I am sure they just don't realise but my DD has been really upset and just wondered if you could have a word?"

As a teacher, I would say mention it to the teacher but explain that you don't expect the school to deal with the situation directly but that perhaps they could do some work on cyber-bullying in general.

MSN is a problem and I know that this kind of thing happens loads, unfortunately. At our school, the police liaison officer came into an assembly to talk about how cyber-bullying was an offence and that people using the internet/mobile phones to bully can easily be caught (lots of children don't realise that they can be traced and that their activity is recorded). I think this shocked many of the children and hopefully had an impact.

I agree with other posters that it would be good to ban msn. Remember, it is good that she confided in you about this as many children would worry in silence.

Sorry Bertie, cross-post!

Your poor DD. I agree with the other posters, 3 girls together is a bad number. (One of 3 girls speaking).

Does your DD have her msn set to log conversations? I would make sure it was that way any future incidents you will have a record of (not sure if you have records of what they have said previously). Also, be aware that these girls may go to another child's house and be chatting on their MSN to your DD. My niece had this happening to her, blocked the girls doing it, but they then charmed another child to join in with them and got at her again through other children on her contacts list. She ended up stepping away from MSN for a few months til they lost interest.

It will be hard for your dd to reaise but I do think she does need to realise that these girls are not her friends. Definately invite another girl around, and also keep her confidence up. Girls can be so mean can't they!?

sSilverLining I would love her to get over whatever it is that attracts her to these 2. They seem to be popular with most of the girls. Can I sit beside , can I be her partner etc. I don't know how to go about telling her to stop being their friends. Can I do that for her own good. My husband tends to say leave it she will find out for herself but she is not at all a crafty child she sees good in everyone and tends to forgive and forget easily. They do come across so nice though so I reckon a few would be quite surprised if they knew. This morning her granda was dropping her off at school and 1 of the girls was walking up. Usually she would bound out of the car to walk up with her. My dad said there's your friend but my dd said it's ok i'll wait til she goes in cause she was saying nasty things last night to me. I just think that she doesn't need friends! like this but I don't know how to get that through to her.

I wouldn't say anything authoritative about them, seems she is learning they are not true friends anyway. I would just gently encourage other friendships. Have you asked her if she would do such a thing to a friend? That is a roundabout way of pointing out they are not friends of hers.

I bet there are other girls in her class on the sidelines watching this pair too wanting a 'best friend' and as you say, once they move up to big school she will have a wider circle to pick from.

If it helps at all your dd sounds lovely

MadamDeathstare - good name. I like your advice about saying to them direct. I did think about doing this the next time I am able to speak to them. My husband was of the idea though that this might make them take it out on my daughter more and I didn't want one of their mother's contacting me to ask why I had a word with their daughter but I suppose that would be a good chance to let them know what had been going on. Thanks's everyone. It helps a lot.

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As others have mentioned block access to the MSN site(same goes for Facebook/bebo/myspace etc if and when she wants to have that as well). If you don't know how to block it find a computer expert who does.

Cyberbullying is actually taken quite seriously by the police these days and it is a criminal offence to send offensive comms stuff over the net. They will get traced back to the owner.

You may also want to read "Queen Bees and wannabies" by Rosalind Wiseman as this may be helpful to both you and your DD.

"Kids have to learn to deal with this kind of thing themselves".

No. Parent needs to take the lead in this particular circumstance. Many kids cannot deal with this sort of problem by themselves; they do not have the emotional capacity to deal with it without help.