Teenage friends ーthe big clique

[HappyCatHouse]

DD 13, struggles to make friends at school. Always has - outside of school it’s fine and she’s very involved with a sport where she has friends, although sadly none of them are local. I think in school it’s a confidence thing and she’ll never put herself forward to join choir/drama or other groups.
She is desperate to be part of the big friendship group at her (relatively small) school, the one that’s got the drama queens and queen bees but still seems to dominate the social life of the year. She’s on the periphery but there’s a NYE party and she’s not invited and is inevitably upset. . I’m not even sure why she wants to be part of this group as quite a few of the girls seem very hard work and not particularly nice.
When I suggest she should try making friends with others, not in the group, there is always some reason - oh I can’t be friends with A because they’re friends with X; I can’t be friends with B because I don’t do any lessons with them and so on. Suggesting making friends with C who is known to be lonely is met with, well if I’m friends with C none of the big group will ever speak to me. She seems to be sabotaging any opportunities to be making any friends because of her desire to be part of the dominant clique,
Can anyone advise me on how I can change her mindset? It’s heartbreaking as she won’t give others a chance and is just desperate to be part of this group who clearly can’t be bothered with her,

This is quite common, I’ve heard of many girls go through this. She may just have to learn the hard way.

The attitude of not wanting to be friends with the lonely girl since she’s not in the ‘in crowd’ would really bother me OP. Incredibly unkind and I’d be explaining to DD in no uncertain terms that acting + thinking in such an unpleasant, immature way will be the cause of her friendship issues. Ask her how she would feel if she was in that poor girl’s position!

I think you’re being harsh - she is immature - she’s 13, they all are. She’s not unkind to the lonely girl, she just doesn’t want to pair up with them at school. She has reached out to her and asked her to the cinema but she fears being coupled up with them permanently at school.
and the point is, my DD is also a lonely girl.

Bumping for traffic

Agree that not wanting to be coupled with the lonely girl is just how it is at that age - I wouldn’t have pushed any of my DCs to be kind in that way as sadly it can mean isolation.
(of course I would encourage them to be nice/ respectful, just not to feel they have to rescue (.
I think it is a case of your DD will learn the hard way, then will adapt and find her own tribe.
its really hard at this age OP.

I don't think you can stop her being desperate to be part of this group op, or change her mindset, you've made lots of friendship suggestions and her reasons for not pursuing them may well be very valid for her age and within her social groups. Sometimes I have to put my teen head on and see things from dd 14's point of view. Remember how I felt at that age, the social groups, norms, rules and remember how things panned out in the end. It's always a learning curve.

Sometimes I can guide her, sometimes I can only support her through things. We want to protect them from feeling or getting hurt, but sometimes we just have to let them experience hard feelings like being left out or not invited to something. I'm not sure there's an awful lot you can do beyond what you've said already if she's so invested in being part of this group. There will always be cliques, and exclusion, even when she's an adult unfortunately, especially female friendships, so many posts on MN about this as adults.

I'd say keep making suggestions and encouraging other friendships. It can be helpful when they mix classes up at the start of the school year if your school does this, if not then by year 10 this should happen based on GCSE choices anyway. It's really positive she has hobbles and friendships outside of school, keep encouraging those and any others that you think might be a good fit. If she's still desperate to be part of this popular clique I think you can only really ride ot out and support her through any upsets, she's still very young and they change and mature so much over the early to mid teen years. Interests change, dynamics change, friendships change or end. It's a tough age

You could try and get her to watch a few John Hughes type films and hope that she gets a sense of being the cool, quirky outsider?
Also try giving her a sense of perspective and do tell her that the rest of life is not normally as horrible socially as the in girls group at school. It’s just brutal though and hard to see your way through when you’re 13.

Thanks for the comments. I’m hoping that things will sort themselves out by Year 10….im already dreading prom and the thought she might not have a group to go with. I just want her to be someone’s first choice to do something with.