Helping 11 year old cope with being left out

[Icantfindausername]

Hi All
I'm just looking for ideas of how to help my daughter cope at secondary school. She's basically being left out of things (I think because she's quite shy and stays quiet when they are chatting etc, she's fine in small groups but things like dinner times with loads of kids become a problem) anyway the last few days at dinner time so called friends have been telling her to move, your not sat there, I've saved that for such a person etc. She's refused once and the girl literally manhandled her off the chair then today she did move along a seat and then the girl said that one is saved for someone too. I hate how mean they are. How can I teach her not to let it bother her and give her ideas for coping? x

Your poor, poor daughter. This sort of stuff is just awful and I still remember it happening to me forty odd years ago. Starting high school is a particularly bad time as there are often shifts in alliances/friendship groups and girls can be easily influenced by dominant/bossy ringleaders who decide to exclude a particular girl in order to assert their 'power'. Sadly quiet sensitive kids are often the easy target for this sort of crap.

I would firstly talk to the school as exclusion is bullying. It needs to be nipped in the bud before the exclusion behaviour escalates and she completely loses confidence. Your daughter needs to cultivate other friends at school so that she is not so reliant on that group of 'friends'. Easier said than done I know. Can she join any lunchtime activity groups to get away from those girls? It's always good to have a strong social group outside school as a buffer from the impact this sort of thing.

Can your DD join an activity outside of school? It would be good for her confidence and resilience, and she may even get to know some other girls who also go to the school that she doesn't even know yet.

Take action on this, you and she need to be really proactive. Good luck, I really feel for your DD, it's an awful experience.

@Mum2OneTeen Thanks so much for your lovely response. She does quite a lot of after school activities and she does dancing and netball outside of school. I also encourage her friendship with her old best friend who she misses dearly (they went to different schools and she was the best friend she could wish for) I often have her round for tea and sleepovers and encourage them to do stuff together like swimming shopping etc.
It's basically just lunchtime she has this problem and I'm not quite sure how to get her to address it, stick up for herself, refuse to move, just move if asked - what's best? Some kids are so cruel and I hope karma catches them and quick! xx

Same thing here. I keep messaging the school and nagging them. They said it wasn't bullying so I referred them to their policy! Ugh why are kids so nasty.

Icantfind...I am so sorry to hear about your dd - as a mum the whole friendship thing is something I struggle with.
My dd is in the first year of secondary school and she had what I thought were two nice friends plus one older one (a couple of years older.) Anyhow it turns out that one of these friends in her year group is not very pleasant...bossy, manipulative, cunning (getting my dd into trouble). DD was warned by us, right from the word go to make several friends but she didn't and just stuck to these two. Now it is slowly dawning on her that this one friend doesn't make her feel good to be around and that her confidence is being undermined. We have talked about her making other friends and she is going to attempt this with another girl she gets on well with (but feels worried about being accepted etc.) The difficulty is, I think a lot of the children have by now formed alliances. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for dd today because she is trying to summons up the courage to move out of her comfort zone and join another group of girls. I have also asked the form tutor if my dd can be moved away from this particular girl in class because she is disruptive (form tutor already aware of this apparently),. Exclusion in your dd's circumstances is bullying...this happened to me and I still remember it well though it was thirty years ago. No real advice but maybe work on your dd's self esteem...what is acceptable and what is not. My daughter is not a push over but she is learning fast what is acceptable and what is not...it was a real break through when she said she did not feel happy or comfortable being around this particular girl when comparing her to the older girl she is friends with. It is good that you are encouraging old friendships too, dd has one of these, though unfortunately, through circumstance, she doesn't see this girl as often as she would like. It's tricky...is there a form tutor etc. you could talk to about this - my daughter's form tutor rang us after I sent an e-mail (we did this without dd knowing though because she would hate to think we are doing this but this girl was making dd's life very unpleasant and could lead her into trouble and possibly affect her school work too).

The saving spaces thing drives me nuts. My middle dd is in Year 10 now and they are starting to outgrow it, but lower down the school it drove her mad to try and sit down somewhere in class! Some of the girls wanted everyone to shift along one to make room for their friend.

I don't know why schools don't clamp down on this behaviour. Teachers must know it goes on, it wouldn't be that difficult for THEM to decide on a seating plan and stick to that.