You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
My daughter has been going through "tough times" with friends at school. Realistically, its just the usual playground politics of being ignored by her group of friends because they're growing up and into different things. But, there's one of the group who's effectively a bully - the alpha female who the others flock to and if you're not in her crew, you're ostracised by everyone.
Obviously this isn't a unique situation and speaking with other parents, these alpha characters exist in all circles and inadvertently make others' lives a bit miserable just by being who they are. The dilemma as a parent of someone feeling the brunt of their behaviours is how to deal with it. My advice is ignore them, paraphrasing - they're not really your true friends and you will find your tribe elsewhere. In the here-and-now that doesn't help much and ignoring the A-crowd only provokes accusations of being rude - at this point it feels like you can't win with these people. I remember similar brief periods from school, but in hindsight you learn from it and maybe come out stronger. There's a whole discussion on personality types.
One alternative is speaking with the Alpha parents, who I know and are nice people. But what do you say? By the way, mate, your kid's a bully and being pretty unpleasant - not just with my kid but plenty others too. Anyone every tried that approach, or been on the end of it from others? Genuinely interested in how that plays out because it feels like an impossible conversation to have.
my experience with this, is that dialogue with the parents will start cordially, then descend into a bitch fest -even when the school is involved as they wont want any "losers" to affect their rankings. Sorry it's shit, we advised daughter just to get on with life when it happened with her, choose your friends carefully and ignore everyone else as it all swings around anyway.. Girls are ***holes for this kind of stuff.
Well, had similar....and the mother was the same. Ready and willing to talk down anyone, anywhere and in front of anyone. The kid was a mild imitation by comparison, yet fully capable of bullying the group to suit her needs.
Do you really know the parents?
Major a-hole to the point of serious abuse or criminality - then yes I'd want to know.
Minor a-hole stuff that kids get up to then no, let them sort themselves out.
What you are describing sounds like normal school pecking order stuff to me - and like you say kids generally find their place.
I certainly wouldn't approach another child's parents in your scenario.
The friends they start school with can be very different to the friends they leave school with. One of my daughters old primary school friends is now an infamous OnlyFans star.
Yes, I would want to know. We were told once of poor behaviour from one of our children and I tackled it with them, (probably about age ten), I was probably a bit harsh and the behaviour reported had probably been exaggerated as there’s a lot of jealousy at riding schools, but it’s not done any harm and she has grown up into a wonderful caring, hardworking woman!
ps. A paragraph break!
I'd have a real sit down with your daughter, ask her to go through what it's like on a daily/weekly basis and then see if there's anything that your experience might be able to do to help her out with this - "just ignore it" is really hard to do in such close confines and, kids are mean, they will find a way to make it impossible to ignore it it they want to.
I might approach the parents, but I'd be quite direct and succinct about it. "Hey, how're you doing. I don't know if you know, but your child is being very mean to mine - we're going to try and work through it on our end...totally up to you if you want to do something on yours, cheers" and then walk away.
You've made them aware, but not specifically asked anything of them...If I were on the receiving end of this, I'd be horrified, but, well...folks and strokes.
Without wanting to dismiss this, behaviour like this seems to be very common with teenage girls and we’ve just come out of the other side of a rough patch from 12-14 including child being ostracised etc. Does seem to have settled back down now.
Speaking to colleagues with similar-aged daughters it seems very common but does pass.
If it is bullying behaviour (physical or even severe emotional), I would speak to the school in the first instance. If it's just playground 'we're not your friends anymore' type of stuff, I would just speak to my daughter and support her as best I could. And, as I have said to my two 15 yr-old girls, the best defence is to just walk away saying 'I don't care, I don't need your friendship' – once the other child has lost their perceived power then they don't have much left. We have been through it a bit and friendships jump around, who is 'alpha' one week isn't the next.
I am looking forward to September when they start their A levels – they will be in much smaller groups focussed around their interests and, if mine and my wife's experience is anything to go by, kids grow up massively when they get to Year 12 and all that playground stuff is a thing of the past.
We were told once of poor behaviour from one of our children and I tackled it with them
See, in an ideal world this is the right response. Not everyone is so rational not to react differently.
Btw, I don't tell my daughter to ignore "it", just "them". We talk about it and she's wise enough to see what's happening, its just not easy for her on a day-to-day basis.
Unfortunately this fits into the category of life experience for your daughter unless the Alpha's behaviour is extreme and then its a safe guarding issue which you take up with the school, not the parents.
Best case is parents don't know, are horrified and try to do something about it although as we all know as parents changing your child's behaviour is not easy, a good telling off and grounding them rarely yields long term results. What happens next time your daughter encounters this behaviour, and she will. You need to support her so she can deal with these situations. As they get older there's less and less you can do for them, parenting becomes more and more about giving them the skills and confidence to cope.
I'm assuming your daughter is secondary school here and not lower primary.
If it is bullying behaviour, I would speak to the school in the first instance.
I'd agree with this.
If you do speak the other parents, I'd start from a point of "X and Y seem to have fallen out" rather than pointing the finger immediately.
You haven't said how old these kids are BTW, might be useful for context.
Also, Mean Girls is currently on Prime I think, and might provide some inspiration (but don't let her try to make fetch happen).
If it is bullying behaviour, I would speak to the school in the first instance.
Its really borderline. Its mean on one level, but really just pecking order stuff so this is really my approach...
once the other child has lost their perceived power then they don't have much left
Difficult
because you also need to be preparing your child for life, when this sort of thing happens from all angles, so the child must also be able to manage it themselves.
My friends daughter is experiencing similar, the schools answer is for when she feels like this to go and sit on the bench and wait for some other kid to choose to come and engage. This sounds like a terrible idea to me, the other kids will just see an outsider or different kid of sorts and potentially maker things worse. we all know how kids are.
Anyway, re talking to the other parent. If you genuinely know them to some degree, id just mention that your 2 kids don't seem to be getting on very well right now, which is a shame. If asked what's been happening don't point any fingers, leave it to the other parent to hopefully follow up
Also, Mean Girls is currently on Prime I think, and might provide some inspiration (but don't let her try to make fetch happen).
Just wait for the right bus to come along.
Seems to have been worse with girl groups than it was with our lad. Daughter kept her head down when her two best friends had a colossal falling out, stayed friends with both of them but has carried on finding her own tribe.
I'd want to know if my kids were bullying. One of his mates parents came round and accused him of ostracising their lad from a group, and we were horrified. Turns out it was another mate who was the idiot, and the "victim" had not helped himself, but was still glad we'd been approached.
It's tough but you're certainly not alone. I've got boys so a little different, but the youngest has had a hard time from year 4 to 9. It's started getting a bit better now. Similar story, alpha types manipulating the others and causing all sorts of problems, friend groups changing constantly. My lad is unfortunately drawn to the cool kids who, in my opinion, are arseholes. I know their parents, we are a small-ish village, and they're nice people but I don't think they'd see any problem so I've not bothered bringing it up to them. All of the other parents we know are in the same position.
We've been working hard to try to bolster his confidence and see them for what they are. Might have had a break through recently after they all got into some not-that-serious-but-serious-enough trouble.
He started boxing a couple of years ago which has helped massively, he's no longer worried about being physically bullied, but the mental stuff is worse IMO. He'll get there, as I'm sure will your daughter.
Seems to have been worse with girl groups than it was with our lad.
I know a group of grown adult women who behave like this. I got told off for referring to them as The Coven. They're not happy unless one of the witches is ostracised for some ephemeral reason. Then the rest all sit round bitching about her for a week or two, then suddenly she's welcomed back into the fold and another one is kicked out and they spend the next fortnight telling the first one everything the second had said about her. Rinse and repeat.
It's truly bizarre behaviour.
If you do decide to talk to the parents, talk about the specifics of the behaviour and how it affected people. What actually happened.
It's doable, but careful wording.
If you go round and label her as a bully, You're inviting a kickback - self appointed judges aren't going to get as much support.
Oh aye, I've been told by all generations of women that "girls are bitches, be prepared"... And sure enough its happening.
Daughter's 9 , so Primary.
Genuine LOL.
Yeah you have to be careful taking sides and approaching parents. There is a subset of parents who must recognise their wee darlings are behaving like arseholes to other kids and deal with it by pretending it isn't taking place even it happens right Infront of their noses. Tackling the parents about this will mean a permanent rift. Help your wean to deal with it themselves and remember cool bullies often grow up to be really bland and boring adults with few friends.
I am a teacher in a secondary school and dealing with this kind of thing is my role. I don't give two hoots about the reputation of the school, what matters is acting in the best interests of the child(ren). It isn't good to be bullied and it isn't good to be a bully either.
Having said that, some parents just can't hear it. Sometimes I need to be very explicit with regard to the message that I need the parent to reinforce with the child. Even then, some struggle, either to deliver it, or to deliver it consistently. Then there are also the occasional multi-generational blood-feuds that get dragged in to school...