What age do girls stop being so vile to eachother

[lucydaniels4658]

Getting sick and tired of the all consuming dramas DD and her friends have. Its been non stop in last year. Things are great for a week or two then they spend the next few weeks being awful. Freezing DD out ,slagging her off on social media etc . She has a large friendship circle with many lovely girls but a couple are leaders and seem to control the others . I feel like i'm getting to involved emotionally and feel like throttling them (dont worry i wouldn't do it only in my head). I know DD is no angel but she is almost to nice to her friends to keen to please . She is currently going into year 9 .Someone please tell me it calms down a bit on the drama front?! A few a year fine but nearly every week HEADACHE.

IME year 7-9 were awful. Mainly because my DDs were in a group which included the queen bees. Towards the end of year 9 they found another group and have been fine ever since. There's the odd falling out but it never lasts more than a day.

DD was fine in Y7/8, then towards the middle of Y9 it all went seriously pear-shaped being bullied, frozen out, etc. She began to change her friendship group and throughout Y10 has had two very good, close girlfriends at school whilst trying to overcome the fallout from Y9 and after. And just towards the end of term they started tentatively enlarging their wider circle. I am really hoping that this continues in Y11.

Some girls treat their friends as rivals and only calm down when in a relationship when they are 17 onwards. Sad but true.
It only takes a few to start the bitching and change the atmosphere.
My son described it beautifully in year 5 and you can see it continue and get worse.
He said. I'm glad I'm a boy. Boys go out at break. One says let's play football we go ok then and play it.
Girls go out to play. On says let's play chase. Another says no let's play houses. They then argue about what to play and who is going to play what in the game. The bell then goes and they go in. The boys have played footy for half hour. The girls have played nothing because they spent the whole break discussing and arguing about what they want to play.
I burst out laughing at this. It's so true. Unfortunetly in many cases it evolves to what's going on now.

Agree - boys are much easier. When I was in primary school the classroom was arranged with one long table and a few smaller tables. One my 'best friend' got into school earlier than me and organised it so that all the girls in the class sat on this table leaving no spare spaces for me.

I was upset and told the teacher who basically said 'and how is this my problem...?' - and told me to sit on one of the smaller tables with 3 boys. By the end of the morning I concluded that boys were much easier and straightforward!

Thanks I feel less alone. Was starting to wonder what it was with DD .Girls love a drama DD doesn't (if it involves her ;-)) she does tend to stay out of others dramas . Some seem to genuinely enjoy arguing DD ends up a nervous wreck.I'm hoping it settles down its much worse in holidays !

HeyHo111 your DS is absolutely spot on

This is why DD1 like playing with the non football playing boys. They just got on with building dens in the hedge, storming each others dens and chasing about and having fun. The game had no complex rules or hierarchy. They just got on with it.

Heyho your DS has it spot-on. DD often says that the boys at school are so much easier than girls - she gets on well with them, but that in turn can cause more bitching...

I would very much like her to be happy with herself and not dependent on others (DH and I were like this and DS is), but she is VERY bothered by what others think of her. DS said to her the other day "youre too bothered about whether people like you. Im just bothered about whether I like them" which sums it up exactly!

And yes to drama-ing things up! We often say to DD that she thinks she is living in Waterloo rd/Hollyoaks, etc!

It is like a soap opera. I really believe social media is a massive issue . DD may have a minor fall out then gets home then its all over facebook and they group chat "she said your this and that she said you said this about so and so" so a small issue becomes a massive one.Then there is the pressure to get so many likes on your instagram pictures. Then snapchat stories are all indirect statements like"everyone hates you " .Then the worst is ask.fm where i've seen kids told to "drink bleach no one likes you". It's very worrying.

In my experience it gets better in year eleven, and is at its peak in years eight and nine. It is terrible to watch though. There are always some groups who seem to be less nasty(generally those less concerned with being 'popular'), is there any way you could nudge your daughter towards them?

I have tried there are many nice girls in her friendship circle they are just dominated by two .The others are lovely but very influenced by queens bees i'm just hoping they all see sense and turn on them soon karma ;-) . They don't seem very fond of these two but are kind of scared of their influence on everyone else ie turn everyone on them !

Boys do seem to be much simpler creatures when it comes to friendships. My DS (just finished Year 8) said to me a few months ago that it must be really hard being a girl because they can't ever just be themselves. He feels they have to put up a front constantly and think about how other girls view them all the time. He said it would be really exhausting!

I used to have DD's access to Ask.fm and it was truly, breathtakingly awful. I am quite glad she deleted it from my ipad, but then I worry about what is going on that I don't know about.

My DD is about to start Y10. The dramas now are usually over boys.

Haha thanks . Boys are much less complex and she has never had an issue with any of her boy friends .They seem more honest and not do the two faced bit . They've really defended DD against queen bees which is something the girls don't. On snapchat you can do a status story which is basically pics with captions that stays on their story for 24 hours . So you get the "no one likes you your a twat" pics with them all pouting .So i suspect everyone not there thinks its aimed at them. I hate social media but i feel cruel banning DD but when my wifi broke last week we had a very peaceful few days. Although DD was having mass withdrawl!

Err, have you been into AIBU? Some people never grow out of it.

Interestingly, a lot of the AIBUs are when people have communicated via social media, when a simple face to face conversation or at least a telephone call might have deflected a falling out.

IMO it is the attention seekers who appear the most popular on FB. What does " like for looks" mean for instance?

DD doesn't try to be liked by people she doesn't care about and doesn't get many "likes" if she posts something - neither do I, but I don't really care (I have only ever posted twice on FB anyway).

These "friendships" seem very shallow, and I hope that although DD seems to have fewer friends than most people, that they are proper friends.

They don't - do you not read the posts on MN?

I think it gets a bit better when they're about 15-16. First two years of secondary school were truly vile.

Oh god this sounds horrible

My dds are only 4 months and 5 and I dread them getting to be teens

It was bad enough when I was a teen in the 90s but with social media as well, jeez. And snap chat sounds awful!!

One of the main reasons I hated school, bitchiness and unnecessary dramas.
A huge relief when I left an all girl's boarding school and went to uni.
I suffered so badly with depression that I still have to assure myself that it is unlikely to happen again.
when it stops varies on the environment and type of school.

Nice to see in a warped way that other people have the same issues .My friends mainly have boys and my friends that do have girls seem to have no dramas so makes me a bit paranoid! Ask fm is awful should be banned . I wish i knew how you to make DD not care so much .I think everyone cares what others think i just think as adults you are more selective with friendships! It really knocks DD sideways and a harsh lesson to learn that some people are just assholes for no reason.

Yes, school can be so hard. I'd encourage her to think of school as a means to an end - ie good exam results/education and develop interests outside of school.

I agree about the downsides of social media too. The horrible thing is - it's addictive. My 17YO DD looks at her phone first thing, last thing and dozens of times throughout the day - it's quite heart breaking.

The girls who are mean must be insecure and unhappy - I'd tell your DD that so she can understand why they behave the way they do.

What does she do by way of hobbies?