Daughter always being left out by “friends”

[Enpen75]

So I have a 14 year old daughter. She’s never been really popular and that’s fine. She’s not a girly girl, she’s quite dry and sarcastic too.
She’s always struggled to make and keep friends. Primary school I would see the popular girls who she hung out with walk of and hide when they seen her walk through the school gates in the morning. They would have sleep overs she would never be invited too. We encouraged her to hang out with other kids and she would but would always gravitate back to the same group. Fast forward to year 9 secondary school and we are still in the same situation with some of the same girls. She tells us she messages them to see if any of them want to go into town and they leave her on message seen with no replies. They all say they are going somewhere and she says she will go and what time are they going and no one answers. She had a birthday sleep over planned and invited 8 girls and 2 girls turned up, then one left leaving just the one. She spent her birthday with a friend of a friend 😞
She goes to a youth group and made a few friends there but nothing serious. She went out with them a few times then there was a falling out.

I don’t know what to do! It’s not like she’s an introvert and is happy to be alone, she’s not. She loves being out with people.

I’ve tried seeing it from the other side and thought maybe she’s not a good friend, boring, nasty etc but honestly she’s a good kid! She said she’s spoken to them about it and they haven’t responded.
It’s making me feel ill and my heart aches for her. I don’t want her to end up getting depressed about this. I just don’t know what to do about this anymore.

Any advice welcome please 🙏

She sounds lovely and if she steers away from drama she's maybe just more emotionally mature than some of the girls that are ignoring her. I think it's really hard to watch as a parent but help her to stay nice to these girls and accept any friendship for what it is but not to rely on it.

Does she do any other clubs or would she want to try something new?

My dd has a few good friends at school but some of the local girls can be really mean to her outside school. She's recently started a local dance class and met lots of other girls from different schools and is really enjoying it too.

I would tell her to stop chasing friendship with these girls - they aren't nice and all they are doing is hurting your daughter. Keep trying to steer her towards other kids and activities at the weekend which allow her to mix with kids from other schools.
She deserves better than constantly trying to fit in with kids who don't respect her and aren't kind.
Maybe she ought to move schools and get a fresh start elsewhere.

DD is exactly the same. She is in year 10 now and has never really found her tribe. She has a group of friends but rarely sees any of them outside of school and doesn't seem to be very close with anyone. I got involved a lot in the first few years of secondary but leave her to it now as she isn't unhappy and gets annoyed when I stick my nose in. I really hope she finds some close friends at college (or uni if she goes) but she does struggle to make good friends.

Thank you both for your comments.

You hit the nail on the head about the drama thing. She’s not interested in any of it. She doesn’t get involved in any drama and I think that’s probably part of the problem. We’ve always said she’s very mature and has always got on really well with her older cousins and doesn’t feel out of place around adults. She’s into art galleries, museums and going to the theatre.
I try my best not to say anything bad about the girls and I’m always friendly when I see them. She still goes to a youth club in the week and has made a few mates there but nothing outside of the club. I’ve tried to get her to join some girls boxing clubs or a gym that do classes for teens. She shows interest but then decides not to go when it comes time to do it. I think I might join our local gym so we can go swimming when the weather warms up a bit 🥶

I’ve thought about moving schools a few times. The only saving grace is I work at her school so I’m always there in the background if she needs me and she likes that I’m there. But then I see the other side to school and it can be such a difficult place 😞

I keep telling her she will find her people one of these days and they will be the best friends she’ll ever have. I see a lot of myself in her and can remember the same struggles and just hope I’m right.

**Titsywoo it’s so worrying isn’t it. When I see other people comment on their own kids going through the same I think I wish all these kids could get together and form their own group lol. They all know exactly how the other is feeling. Praying they all find their tribe soon and can be happy ❤️

OP I've got a 15 year old DD who's been having some friendship problems at school which have descended into outright bullying a couple of times. Some teenage girls seem to love drama and those that don't get involved are left out. My DD is very busy outside school with a time consuming hobby which she does with other people her age and she also has a part-time job. She has one or two friends from primary who she sees occasionally too and all these things make a huge difference. I agree with encouraging her to try activities outside school so it doesn't become her only focus.

I also have a DS who wasn't happy at school and didn't have many friends. He left after GCSEs to do a vocational college course and is thriving - he's definitely found his tribe and is like a new person - happy and confident. There is life outside/after school.

Hi op my 14yo dd is really similar, this year has been slightly better than last but she still is never invited to anything 😥

We are considering if she may fall on the ASD spectrum and she is currently having some assessments done. It may explain some of the issues she has making friends and why she is so often excluded.

For her bday this year she invited 3 friends to go bowling and I made sure she handed out invites that asked the parents to text me so I could confirm numbers. This was so I could be fairly sure they would turn up, unlike on previous years....

I’ve got a Y9 girl...she’s left an established friendship group as she says the nastiness and was getting her down. She joined in a couple of times and felt wracked with guilt. The currency of the group was to slag each other off then snitch on each other. Wall to wall drama. She now hangs out with another girl and boy in a three. So maybe your girl is better off out of it. Talk to her about which girls she likes. Is there anyone else who she doesn’t knows well that she thinks is interesting? Sometimes kids who are really into something outside school are interesting. See if she’d like to invite one for a concert/cinema. Or reconnect with primary friends? Good luck to your girl, she’ll get there.

Tell her to try and make new friends... they clearly consider her a 'hanger on' and don't really like her company.

14-16 is when teenage girls can become really nasty too so I'd be warning her to get out now. Poor kid. My mates all turned on me at that age but I found my tribe aged 22 and they're the best.

I don't think she'll make friends at swimming though - no teen wants to meet new people when half naked.

I don’t know if this can help or add some insight.

But my daughter had a few girls at her school I’d describe as loners. Girls sadly without any real friends. We always taught her to be kind and inclusive and we had many a time that her and her friends would attempt to include one girl or another in their group if she spotted someone or knew of someone lonely.

Honestly she was like the patron saint of lost souls, and would even bring boarders home at the weekend, (after many approvals) if they had no friends and were constantly stuck at school.

The problems arose always in the girls behaviours. One for example always suggested getting drunk, early teens, another spoke about sex, in a way that was a bit show off and disturbing, many of them either tried to dominate everything, or got over excited and made it all about them, and so on.

With each girl the parents could not understand why their children couldn’t fit in.

Something I couldn’t say to them, but I thought then watching it over the years,, and I still think now, the issue was one of deep social anxiety with these kids.

They tried too hard to fit in when they got the chance. That they behaved in a way that was unsettling for the others. They behaved in a way that they didn’t behave ever in front of the parents.

If this was my kid I’d speak to them about how they interact when they are included. Show them how they show interest in the other kids. Genuine interest and show them how not to dominate conversations for attention, that showing off isn’t cool, that they don’t need to make shot up and impress.

Show them how to interact in conversation and let everyone have their say.

For me. Witnessing what I saw, there was always, always a very obvious reason. And often, as said, it was one I think rooted in social anxiety where the girl didn’t know how to behave with friends and simply couldn’t chill.

I don’t know if that helps, but I hope it does, because I think with the right parental guidance and gentle steering on social interactions any issues can be resolved. 💐

It's saddening, but reassuring to see that my son is not the only young person going through this sort of thing. The group of lads he has hung around with since primary school (he's in S2) seem to have played games with him in the last few years in terms of including/excluding him. I have encouraged him to spend time with other friends and he has well-established friendships in his outside interests, but he can't seem to accept that he is not being treated well by this group of boys and is better looking elsewhere.

You say she can be scarastic, that might be the problem

My daughter (age 15) is going through this exact thing at the moment. The ‘friends’ that are excluding her are girls she’s grew up with since primary school. It’s soul destroying. Ive considered speaking to the mum’s but not sure if I’d be over stepping the mark as I know she would tell me not to!

I feel for your daughter as she reminds me of a girl in my DD’s group. My DD invited her into the group as she was struggling to make friends in class when the moved up to secondary school. They had been friends at primary but had been put into different classes for secondary. The primary friend in her class quickly made new friends and the girl was left on her own and didn’t make any friends in the class so was often on her own at break times and movement time between lessons.

They are Y9 now and although she is part of the group she is very much on the outside of the group as she is quite different from them all. They are all into fashion/ music and quite academic but this girl isn’t that interested in their interests and hasn’t a clue about the latest song or tik tok dance etc.

She is always invited to the big group events like a birthday sleepover but often a couple of them will decided to do something together and not invite a few as they are closer to each other but still part of the same group - this girl is not particularly close to anyone girl and so is not invited to many things.
I know it upsets her mum. My DD is always kind to her as far as I know but she definitely is on the outside.
I hope your daughter finds her tribe ❤️

This is sadly very common- happened to my daughter and my friends daughters . It is awful and is no reflection on your daughter just on the group of girls. It is something instigated by certain dominant members of friendship groups and the other follow so it doesn’t happen to them. It moves around and over the years and different girls are excluded. It is crap, cowardly behaviour and I hate seeing it. I have had extensive behavioural problems with my daughter in her teen years and a big part of this ‘going off the rails’ has been put down by her therapist and Camhs to an extensive period of ‘friends ‘ behaving like this out of the blue. It shatters self esteem and erodes trust.
I feel for both you and your daughter- some activities with other groups outside of school if possible and just reiterating that this is not on her it’s on them and their shitty behaviour. Unsurprisingly these girls in our case went through their entire school life being bitchy mean girls, making friends and then expelling them and will probably be the same nasty adults
She will get through this but i am sorry she has to.

Hi everyone, I’m the person who wrote the original post which was a few years ago now! My daughter is 17 now and in her 2nd year of college.

Once she left school and started college her life changed so much for the better! She found lots of new friends who are her type and they have a lot more in common. Now she’s out most weekends, going to parties, going on dates, planning on which uni she wants to go to. For anyone with a teenager who’s struggling with friendship groups in school please try not to worry (easier said than done I know!) they will find their people one day! 🙏

That is a great update- I didn’t know it was an old post:) really pleased things are good now

Amazing update 🤩well done to your daughter

@Ontheup1337 great update. Hoping we have the same outcome when we leave school behind. Such a shame all these kids that are struggling, can’t be friends. Best wishes

I’m a single Dad of two teenage girls, one 19, at Uni, one 16, final year of school.
Both are academically great, and achieving highly. But both have and do struggle emotionally, and socially, to the point that I’ve intervened and arranged counselling for both at different times.
Their mum couldn’t see the issue with my eldest, and undermined her engagement with the counsellor, and my daughter’s confidence in my as a result.
my ex has an OCD, due to her own past problems, which she’s has never properly comes to terms with in my opinion. My 16 year old is isolated socially from her peers, and is showing behaviour which is raising red flags as it’s reminiscent of her mum’s thinking and behaviour. But I’m seen as simply critical of her, as the behaviour is so ingrained and normalised in her mum’s living environment.
My daughter has withdrawn emotionally from me, and won’t discuss it, although I fear that it’s all simply a symptom of a greater problem within the dynamic which exists in my ex wife’s house.
Not sure how to proceed without further alienating myself from my daughter.