To give daughter friendship advice or not?

[Debopdobop]

DD is 11 and just stated secondary. Didn’t go with anyone from primary due to where we live which I saw as a good thing and nice to have a fresh start. Primary friendships were always dominated by one girl, didn’t matter who was friends with who she had to be involved and couldn’t just leave any ‘besties’ alone.

DD has made a good start. Big group of girls who seem to split off into smaller groups too. All fine. She’s made friends with one girl, R, who seems super lovely.
R seems keen to be friends and it seems like they could be besties maybe (DD never had a bestie, always been more of a floater and never anyone’s first pick at primary). DD likes R too so all great.

Every so often though DD will do something and I’m like arghhh lol.
Today’s example is R said shall we meet at the gate. I usually drop DD at the one further up as it’s a nightmare outside the school in the morning and she meets another girl, S there.
Instead of DD saying yeah I get dropped at the other end I’ll be at the bottom gate at X time or come to the top gate - she just said oh I meet S at the top gate just go in I’ll see you there. R responds ok. 🙈

For context DD walks in with M but then they split off anyway.

I know this is a really tiny thing but I stupidly feel really anxious for her friendships after watching her always be on the sideline at primary and don’t want her to mess up with R.
I always tell her to see things from the other point of view and wonder if R might have felt a bit deflated with that.

I know I do probably need to butt out (haven’t told DD any of this) in my mind but I don’t want to be wiping tears if she gets ditched.

Someone tell me how to stop worrying about this all the time? 🙈

How was your friendships at school and now? Do you have close friends? A friendship circle?

Oh OP this sounds like the inside of my head when DD started high school. I was hideously bullied at school and it made me so anxious. Can I check how you found school yourself? We can't police our children's friendships they have to learn for themselves what works and what doesn't so however hard it might be you have to take a breath and back away. My DD found a large and very close knit group who have all gone off to Uni now. She's a maths and science girl and some of her most fabulous and supportive friends are boys you'd never see at the school gate.

I had a bestie at primary school, she moved schools at the end of year 4, but we are still friends now and meet up regularly even though she lives about an hour from our home town.
I had a group of friends in secondary but fell out with the queen bee and the others sided with her. But I soon made friends with someone else in a similar boat and we got each other through year 11.

I then went to college and still friends with someone from there 20 years on, we see each other usually every other or every 3 weeks ish.

My best friend I met at a job about 15 years ago.

2 other friends in the group with me, college friend and work friend have been around for about 15/16 years x

I know how hard this is, my dd is 10 and I’m very anxious about friendships for her - but, I think you need to leave it and let her manage friendships herself unless she comes to you for advice. Unless she is being unkind or rude, the other stuff is nuance and part of how she is and her personality.

Surely one of the points of being a parent is to learn from our life experiences and help our kids? I've loads of advice to give around friendships. There's no harm in sharing our wisdoms and experiences, they still have to do the hard work themselves

Thank you. I think I kinda know I need to step back but needed someone to tell me!
I know I can’t ’police’ everything like I did when she was little but it’s so hard to stand by and watch too! 🙈
I am a people pleaser though and just like everyone to be happy, I do note that the kids now talk to each other in a more harsh way than I think my generation did? (I’m 38 for context)

Im glad your DD found her tribe xx

I think that the gate thing is completely normal for tihs age group - they don't have the level of organisation or thinking ahead, and frankly, it's going into school so they don't need to. I'd let that one go.

Overall, encouraging her to include people is probably a good thing but I don't htink this level of micromanagement is necessary or appropriate.

Thank you. I think I needed to hear/read this!

So to be clear you have close friendships and you feel confident and at ease in them?

because your anxiety about this and wondering what to do would indicate maybe you had a distressing history

You can give advice but you can't micromanage to that level, no. If you do you'll affect her confidence because she'll always be serving guessing herself.

I'm similar to you and would worry about R being offended but for all you know she just took it as a factual thing or is able to shake it off very easily.

I do advise my 12 year old (y8) and we talk things through most weeks. Girl friendships are quite political at this age. Dd and her peer group are still incredibly immature and there is hormones, expectations and different parenting and home lives at play. And then there is whats app, group chats and politics of all that.

My dd is in a nice group but one girl is being incredibly difficult, pushy, needy and quite rude, which has negative impact on all the group dynamic. I have explained this girl is probably going through a difficult time and is struggling plus e her social skills aren't amazon at this point. I usually encourage dd to speak kindly with a friendly voice and open attitude but to never take pushiness or manipulative nonsense form others. It's easier to be assertive if you are generally nice and well liked. When I asked dd if she had ever noticed there are politics at play in friendship groups she said no never, until now. tweens tend to be so self absorbed.

I know they have to get there by themselves but a little advice and guidance can't harm. It's a balancing act. They also have to make mistakes with some repercussions and learn from that, if we don't let them fail they won't really learn and grow.

So I think YANBU, a little wise advice can go a long way at this age (or any).