My DD is being excluded by her friends

[alltheorangesnoneoftheapples]

My DD is 11 and is being left out by her friends, she has a few who are still kind but two that she would consider two of her closest are deliberately leaving her out. I have told her to not chase after them but they reel her back in and then are mean again. One I'm particularly perplexed by as they have been friends since the age dot and this child has been round our house loads lately and no issues seemed obvious. I'm also finding it hard to not get involved and fall out with the parents who are aware of this singling out and not seeming to put things back on track, I feel let down by this and also most hurt as my DD is the most loyal person you could ever meet and would go out of her way to include everyone. Does anyone have similar experiences? Im trying to not get involved but finding it upsetting when I hear about it. Is this common at this age?

Yes. Happened to my dd all through school

Miss popularity is now one of her best mates.

Stay strong. Smile and wave. Keep busy.

It’s a tricky age for them OP. I would try not to get involved because they’ll fall out and in all the time.

It’s something that does tend to work itself out but so difficult to go through at the time.

Yes very common for girls at this age then seems to settle down until year 8/9 when they all seem to fall out again. If she still has some nice friends invite them round and encourage those friendships. Dont say anything bad about the other girls as you may find next week they are friends again. Explain to DD that a friend is someone who is kind and thoughtful not someone who makes other people feel bad. Leave it at that, its crap but not a lot you can do.

Just be there to listen. Don’t get involved.
It’s sadly very common and doesn’t get much easier for a good few years for the majority of young girls. My daughter is now at the end of her teens.
I’m sure you genuinely do feel as hurt as she does, maybe even more so. It’s horrendous seeing them treated badly, especially when they don’t deserve it. I made sure we did things together so she was distracted a lot of the time. It’s hard OP. Sending you strength.

Thank you everyone, it's reassuring to hear it's not just my DD, I wish I could let it go and not feel so sad for her. I am trying to not put upon her my views. I will definitely focus on her nice friends and make plans with them. It's just hard to hear what she's telling me and not get involved and sort it out for her, but I know I have to let go and let her get on with it and make her own choices. Not sure why girls at this age need to be so mean. I do remember from my school days it wasn't always plain sailing and especially if you are not popular!

Yeah I do think its common at that age and agree just stay out of it unless it gets quite bad. Just try to make home life as stress free and happy for her as possible.

It's okay to give some advice from time to time but if you try to apply adult logic to social situations involving children it won't work.

Is she Y6 or Y7? (Assuming in England)

Think it happens a lot at the top end of primary school, lots of jostling for position, and more pressure to have best friends which often becomes tricky in threes.

Agree with not saying anything unkind about the other girls. Sympathise and encourage her to focus on some of the others (does she do any extracurriculars without those two?).

Happened a lot with my girls. I am afraid that this is what little girls do.

I used to tell my DDs that when someone behaves like this it is nothing to do with them - they are lovely - but that something would be going on in that person's life that was making them behave badly. It helped to ease the pain a bit, and to maintain their sense of self-worth.

And lots of hugs of course.

It usually passes fairly quickly.

Thank you all, Year 6 and I think definitely that jostling for attention and being top dog. I will absolutely focus on her being happy at home and hope it passes as quickly as possible. I will eventually escalate it to the teacher I think if it continues. I'm hoping that it doesn't get that far, it's so hard when my DH and I are close to the parents too and I know that they know my DD is being excluding and they aren't trying to rectify but I think I'll just avoid them for a while as will find it hard to go out for drinks and dinner whilst I'm feeling like this

My DD is 10 and has experienced similar. Her supposed best friend suddenly pushing her out of her usual group of friends.

It was very hard to watch her being so sad and confused. All I could do was encourage her to play with her other nicer friends and to point out that proper friendship shouldn't be hard work or upsetting.

Luckily she's mostly moved on from it now and has other friends to be with. I know she's still hurt by it though and I know she really would love to have a best friend again.

She'll go to Secondary School next year where she'll meet lots of new people so I'm hoping that will help her build her friendship confidence again.

Is your DD at Secondary School OP? If she's still at Primary and moving up next year then hopefully she'll also meet some new friends. New clubs and activities could also help her make new friendships too.

Yes it’s common. DD is 10 and year 6 too and there’s been a few fall outs in her group of 5. What I would say though, is that you only truly know one side of the story and the other girls might have a completely different take on it. So to be honest, I don’t get involved. I listen when DD tells me things about who has fallen out with who and make non commital ‘uh huh’ noises and that seems to be enough. Can definitely tell hormones are kicking in and they’re at that funny stage of not little children anymore but not teens either so I do cut a lot of slack.

Yes good point that I don't know other sides of the story. She's still in primary but one of the oldest in the class, I think I will try and be more uhh huh as that sounds a good plan and have a quiet word with the teacher if I need to. I have a party planned for next week for a belated birthday celebration and it's for all the girls in her class so hopefully that may open some doors for her.

I'd try and send her to a diff comp from these girls. My dd had a toxic friendship group throughout y6 was a nightmare. She's much happier now in y7 new school didn't know anyone

I'm going through the same thing with my year 8 daughter. Always falling out with her friends, some she has been friends with for years.
It's hard not to get involved and upset, when you see them upset.

After having two boys who sailed through relationships it's hard.

I remember this from when I was that age.

It didn’t seem to happen with Dd and her friends but that is probably because they all missed the summer term of Year 5 and then the spring term of Year 6 thanks to the pandemic so when they were all back in school they were all so pleased to see each other that they forgot to fall out!

As someone else said - try and encourage her with extra curricular stuff so she has friends outside of school as well. I had a friend that I had been with through brownies, guides, rangers etc. We were never at the same school so we had a thing where whenever one of us had a friendship problem at school we would phone the other one up and spend the evening together. I think in Year 9 we saw each other a hell of a lot!

I've been going through this the last two years with my Yr6 DD.
At first I would wade in and call her teacher however more often than not by the time teacher had got back to me and arranged a meeting my DD and the girls in question were back to being 'best buddies'.
I also made the mistake ( in anger) of saying to DD how awful and spoilt these girls were and how their parents had obviously dragged them up only for them to become really quite close friends the next term.
I now keep out of it.
If DD is upset and wants to talk I'm there to lend an ear or if she asks for advice I'll obviously help but really I'm taking a step back unless things become more serious.