Another teen mum feeling the strain

[Ceinwyn]

Hi all,
I'm a MN newbie but felt I needed to join to find like-minded stressed out mums of other teens. I have a DD (13.5 - year 8) who is lovely. She's quirky: loves art, the environment and is doing well academically. However we have the (what seems to be) usual friendship woes. Feeling in and out of friendships lots. She does have 2 close friends but she seems to insist on trying to be one of the popular crowd and then gets hurt when someone rejects her. I said to her to focus on her own little friendship circle but it doesn't seem to be enough. Recently one particular girl she was getting close to then suddenly that girl has turned away from her and DD has found it hard to take. I guess why I'm writing is all this causes my great anxiety. I'm trying to be supportive and positive but sometimes I find it all too stressful. I worry so much about her being happy and doing well in school that it's hard to concentrate on anything else. Thank goodness I have just one daughter - I don't have any bother (yet) from my DS (9.5).

Any words of wisdom? Really glad I found this page,

Ceinwyn xx

Hi Ceinwyn
Your daughter sounds lovely. As a parent of two teens I have been through this, and above all you need to have faith in your daughter to work it out and accept as a parent it's not for you to control. I think they need to experiment a bit with friendship groups and learn for themselves what healthy friendships feel like, with your support st home. Above all you can listen to provide a sounding board, and make home life as happy as you can with other distractions, friends outside school too if possible.
My older daughter made lovely friends when she started secondary, but then tried to move into the popular gang and had a bit of a miserable year - mainly just feeling like a hanger on and left out of plans rather than downright meanness but she was shocked at some of the mean stuff going on. Eventually she went back to her old friends who welcomed her back with humour ("are giving up trying to be popular?") and became much happier. By mid teens it all shuffled around anyway. So when my second daughter started experiencing similar I just let her work it through, although I did encourage her not to just dump her nice friends.
I found the book Queen Bees and Wanabees great at explaining the dynamics and just why the mean popular girls are so desirable to hang out with (it's fun!), and also watching movies like Mean Girls and the new Eight Grade with my daughters gives us lots to talk about.
By the way I hope you are using a fake name ?

Hi there,
Thank you so much for your lovely reply. It's so reassuring to hear others have been through all this, survived and come out the other side. Yes completely fake name :-) (presumably my email is hidden?).
She has one of her nice friends coming over today thank goodness. You're right in that she needs to figure it all out. It's in her face a bit as all the 'popular' ones are in her class but they'll be all split more next year as they will be put into ability classes more so she'll be able to meet others.
Someone recommended a teen mag on another thread called Teen Breathe. Going to buy her that today. And she has a dance club outside of school (in another town) where she has met some brilliant friends which is good.
It's the social media thing that's the worse. When they are all posting on Instagram, Snapchat etc what they are all up it makes it worse. But I've banned her phone from a certain time on an evening and also make her put it down on weekends. We never had this back then. It's not good at all xx