Losing all her friends

[Teandsympathy]

My dd13 has always been volatile with friendships. She has a short fuse, holds grudges and can be very resentful and Jealous of people.
It’s been much worse since she got a phone last year. She is so reactive and sends nasty scathing comments to people and is slowly losing friends. She doesn’t seem to see it as a problem on her part, it’s always someone else’s fault.
Yesterday there was a TikTok trend of calling out your toxic friends and cutting them off to start the new year and as expected she came up a few times.
I can see that over the past year she has become less sure of herself. She is moody and has very low self esteem despite being very accomplished in her sports and hobbies. She struggles so much with friendships and with each one she loses she withdraws further.
I know she needs to learn some hard lessons but I worry that she is just not learning from them. I’ve tried talking about her behaviour but she shuts me down straight away and says she is the way she is because I make her feel bad about herself.
I try to keep things positive, I ignore mutterings and eyerolling and have supported her relentlessly over the years with anything she has taken an interest in to help her gain confidence.
I don’t particularly like her as a person these days. She is quite mean to her sister, she never helps out around the house, she won’t open up to anyone about anything not even her friends. She just gets more and more angry but it’s a quiet rigid anger which she throws at people the minute things are not going her way.
I am grateful that she has a hobby which keeps her out of the house and off social media a lot. She mostly hangs out with boys now as they are also into the same thing as her but I know she is not happy inside.
I don’t know how to help her. If she would just be kinder her life would be so much happier.

I’m not sure what to advise here, it’s very sad for her.

What sort of thing is she envious of? What is she holding grudges over? What sort of comments is she making to people

It seems she doesn’t understand the repercussions of her behaviour and doesn’t understand how to manage her feelings or address rhem. Nor does she understand how to treat people as she would wish to be treated. Basically she’s just very immature and impulsive.

Understanding more of what specific things makes her behave like this, what she’s reacting to, would make help people advise.

It is awful being 13. I can’t imagine how I would have felt being 13 in a world with social media etc.
My dd is 13 and doesn’t have any social media, she worries about the nastiness of it.
Jealousy and resentment, rejecting friends , all this comes from her feeling very insecure by the sound of it. Her hormones are probably playing a big part in this. I imagine she finds boys easier as there are fewer dramas with boys that age, they are more straightforward.
She needs one good friend who she trusts but it may take time to find that person. Teachers say that years 8 and 9 are the worst for girl’s friendship problems and that social media makes it all much worse. It does start to improve in year 10 and year 11 is easier still as they are all focused on their exams.
I think that love bombing might help. I also think she should not have tik tok. Anything that builds her confidence will help. Really this is just a crappy time of life and so time will make the most difference, but if she feels better about herself then she will be less jealous. It sounds as though she is sensitive and has been hurt by friends, and is wounded and angry.

Thanks for your thoughtful replies.
She definitely lacks social awareness. She doesn’t really show much interest in other people’s lives unless it relates to her directly. I think she gets envious of people who find it so easy to get along with others and who are liked. She is extremely immature in many ways and can’t quite keep up with the conversations, banter and trends that connect teens these days.
For example at lunch day last term she sat flicking blueberries into her classmates bags rather than join in any conversations and found it funny that it pissed them off. When she told me and I explained how that would be annoying she shut me off and said I was always negative.

She is a beautiful athletic girl and likes to look groomed but not too girly and in the past I think being pretty has made it easier for her to get away with her behaviour but as everyone matures they are distancing themselves.
She had a brilliant friend last year but she started dating a boy who was one of dds best friends and this made her feel excluded and jealous. She has been having digs at her friend for the past few months who laughed them off longer than I would have myself until she finally blocked her last night. I knew it would happen and I had been trying to drop small hints about looking after your friends and being kind and that being kind will make her feel good herself but the resentment would not leave her.

I am really quite sad about this friendship as she had been a really positive influence on dd and stuck by her through a hard patch. Although, why unfriending someone has to be such a public ceremony these days through social media is beyond me. It’s humiliating and then to see so much support from other children for doing it. Losing friends is a lesson in itself but the public shaming is another level.

Some children can hold their hands up and apologise but dd only ever sees it as an attack.
I remember struggling myself at this age. It’s so sad to see how secondary school really is sink or swim. I am wishing the next few years away and really trying to support her and keep positive.

The comments she makes are mostly laughing emojies at people photos or a favourite is to just write ‘Errmm ’. It’s completely unprovoked sometimes so not always down to resentment.

Banning Tiktok was the best move I made for my 14yr old when she was having friendship issues and was becoming very withdrawn. Some of the things she was saying/doing on this platform was making any issues with friends worse

Reading back through all this I thinking coming off social media would probably be the best thing for her right now. She doesn’t post anything or comment on tiktok, she uses mostly Instagram and WhatsApp. It’s always been a bit up and down but since letting her have these apps it’s been a nightmare.
I’m going to have a chat with her later about it, wish me luck!

It reads like she thinks she’s being clever, cool, edgey, and instead she’s just being immature and annoying. It’s a shame it’s now growing because it could lead to bullying if enough kids dislike her and resent how she’s treated them.

She needs to think about what she posts to people and how she treats people, but in how would she feel if she was on the receiving end of that treatment, also how she’d feel if someone else falls out with her.

Good luck in th conversation, maybe you can try to get her to run her messages past you first, so you can both think about the impacts, and repurcussions and discuss it, phrase it as a way to support her. That you also had to learn etc.

Good luck with the convo.

My dd does have WhatsApp actually, but only has four friends on it, and doesn’t use it all that much, she has it mainly so that she can send photos to her Godmother and to her Uncle and Aunt . My older dd, who has just turned 16, doesn’t have Whatsapp, but does have instagram -set to private, no other social media at all.
Social media really makes all this worse. I remember all sorts of dramas at my all girls school at that age, and I am so glad we didn’t have it, there were always fallings out, and quarrels.
When is she 14 ?

I wonder if some therapy specifically aimed at young people might help? There’s an org round here called Base52 but there must be similar things all over.

Has she got any neurodiversities?

not been rude but cumin from someone younger she will end up just getting battered by someone, she will do it to the wrong person if she’s not going to listen to you that will b what ends up happening