Bad influence friends

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Awful day with DD. She is only 12.

Confronted her over discussion we had with two of her teachers yesterday - she has stopped paying attention in classes, is breaking school rules, lying to us and being rude and defiant.

Mostly due to her new bunch of friends who are bad news. All she cares about now is what she looks like and is alienating her old (nice) friends as not cool enough. Says it's "fun" doing bad things and that she doesn't care about detentions or punishments. When she's like this her attitude towards us is horrible

It breaks my heart. She isn't like this all the time - can still be the DD we thought we knew - but we have few strategies left to get through to her re school and behaviour.

How to distance her from these girls and get her own personality back?

How much time can you take to spend just with her alone?

Can you perhaps arrange an hour or so driving to visit something/someone?

Non eye to eye contact often works well with this age group and gives you a chance to talk.And to remind each other what you like, enjoy and consider important as a family.

I often feel that adolesence is a bit like trying on different clothes and trying to decide what suits and as we often now we usually come back to what suits us and feels comfortable.

Being 12 is awkward with all sorts of clashing cultures.Reassure yourself that most of the spadework is done pre-school and your influence is the one that will pre dominate in the long run.

Finally reinforce, reinforce and reinforce that you love her unconditionally and tell her that you trust her to make wise choices even if she is not sure of what to do.Most children still want and need their parents' approval, even when grown up with children of their own!

Sorry to be so waffly.

are the 'new' friends in her class? can the school move her or them to another class? if she's not seeing them all day, every day it might help

Basildon - Yes new friends are in her class, is tempting to move her as a last resort for this school year. The school mixes up the classes each Sept so the group will, we hope, be split up then anyway, if we can hang on that long

Yummy - yes time alone with her might help, we don't get much. But difficult to get across the unconditional love message when she's being rude and insulting. I do go on about trusting her but she has abused our trust so many times that it's not sounding very convincing any more.

She admitted at the weekend that she was making the most of this year to mess about with these mates because in a couple of years she'll have exams to think about. I forced myself to see the good in that...

In the process of moving my 14 year old to a different school due to truly nightmarish consequences of awful mates. I wish I had done it 4 months ago when it all started.

Does your DD want to move, KatieScarlett?

She's quite excited about it, no complaints wants a new start.

Hi, this short expert advice video about getting in with the wrong crowd might help- www.parentchannel.tv/video/wrong-crowd - hope so!

What happened in the end? I know it’s a while back?! Did these girls fizzle out?