Tween Girl Friends

As you said, girls are friends one day and on the outs the next but it's rare that all of her friends would be on the outs at the same time. I don't understand why she is sitting alone.

I've had playground duty for several years now and know that my granddaughter is sitting with a group of girls at lunch and having a good time but yet she'll sometimes say that no one likes her and she has no friends.

Is it possible that your daughter is sensitive and feels like she has no friends even tho she does? I would just keep telling her that girls are this way and that you know "she's a friendly, likeable girl and she will be OK." Be sympathetic but don't feed into the "poor me" routine if that's what she's doing.

It might help, if you haven't done this already, to spend time with her and her friends to see how they inter react. That way you can help your daughter understand where the other girls are coming from. My mother would tell me that sometimes the girls who are the meanest, in my opinion, were actually insecure and needed my empathy. This helped me to treat them nice even tho they treated me mean.

I've found with my granddaughter that she has discovered a couple of girls who don't play that game. You might encourage her to branch out and try making different friends. Have her invite a new girl home for a play date. There are no girls her age in my granddaughter's neighborhood. She frequently has a friend over or goes to a friend's house. For awhile she was in Y after school care and made friends not in her grade level. This helped. The broader her base of friendships the less likely she'll be eating lunch alone.

Encourage her to just pick and table and sit down so that she's not eating alone. Encourage her to chime in with the general conversation at the table. She will make new friends, this way.

Why are she and her friend not allowed to sit together at lunch? Do they have different lunch times? Unless that is the case, I would talk to the school so that your daughter and her friend can have lunch together.

Tell your daughter to go make friends with some other nice girls. There must be other nice girls in her class. I've spent a lot of time in schools, and I've never seen whole classes full of all mean girls.

And I agree with Marda's advice.

She sits alone? O I just hate that for her. Kids can be so mean. Your doing very well by teaching her not to stoop to their level. She sounds like she's got a good head on her shoulders. Good job mom:) just keep building her confidence and I believe you are right. They are sweet one day and awful the next. I don't know what to say about the other girls but I hope it gets better mama! Hugs to y'all!

Just a few thoughts looking back at my life...
I sat alone at lunch for a period of time for every year I went to public school...no, I take it back-in 8th grade, I sat w/ people I did not like just to have someone to sit w/...
Anyhoo...from 9th-12th grade. In 10th and 11th grade for one whole semester each. It was horrible.
Then...I somehow managed to make some friends.

In the 9th and 10th grades I also stooped to those 'mean girls' levels.
I became a mean girl too, until they eventually turned on me. They always do-turn on the weak one.

I realize this is not terribly helpful...but as an adult, I have had a lot of pain from my HS years. But when I look back and think about it, what causes me the most pain is not how lonely I was sitting all alone-and I was so lonely I cannot even express it in words...What causes my heart to break is that I was cruel to other kids in order to have 'friends'.

So, I would tell her, if she were my DD, to hold her head up and not give in to the mean girls. Give her hope. Hope that a good friend is going to come along. One always did for me...of course then they left again, but that's a story for another sleepless night. ;)
Hope that life is bigger and better than catty school girl nonsense.

Hugs.

I doubt you'd be able to get the school to change its policy of assigned tables at lunchtime, if it is indeed a school policy. That's a battle that likely will waste your time and energy. I wouldn't bother (if it truly is a case of a school policy--even though it's a dumb one).

Instead I would ensure your girl has plenty of play dates and activities outside school where she sees old friends and makes new ones who share her interests. Just being neighbors with another kid, or being in a class at school with another kid, or having known a kid for years, none of those things means you and that kid have anything in common or any basis for real friendship.

Get her together outside school with the "one good friend who isn't in her class this year." You will have to make a big effort to do this; it isn't easy when kids have homework, family events, activities etc. (I know; we face a school year where all my daughter's good friends are not in her class so we'll have to make this big effort too.) Get in touch with the other mom ASAP and tell her that you want the girls to keep up their friendship, and since the school won't help by letting them sit together at lunch (or play together at recess??), you and she need to try to get the girls together at weekends and even sometimes during the school week.

Also get her together outside school with other friends who may not be as close to her as the one good friend you mention, but who have been consistently featured in her talk as decent kids who are decent to her. That will help expand her circle too.

Make sure she knows, regarding the girls who run hot and cold and are friends one day and "frenemies" the next: She can be friendly toward them without having to Be Friends. In other words, she can behave politely, play with them on their friendly days and treat them decently every day, but she doesn't have to stress about what they are feeling and what they are thinking all the time. She is still a good person and friend if she reserves her truest affection for the friends who are always friends.

Your daughter also could benefit a lot from a hobby or class that involves other kids who have nothing to do with her school crowd. Is she in anything like dance, sports art, drama, kids' book clubs, or church youth groups outside school? If she is, find ways for her to get more involved if it's something she seems to like. If she isn't, talk with her about what truly interests her and what she'd like to "taste" as a new and fun thing to do just out of pure interest -- not with an eye toward scholarships or stardom but just because she'd like to try something new. That will not only give her new skills and fun, it also may help her meet other kids who share her interest. As she gets older she will find that shared interests are much more important that some kid who is jealous and whispers about her on the bus. Her confidence will grow when she has something to call her own, and friends who understand her interest.

Check with your local community center, parks and recreation department, dance schools, art schools, libraries (many run kids' book clubs now), etc. for ideas. Let her do the choosing. Don't present it to her as, "You need some friends, this is the way to get them" but instead as "What would you really think is fun? What do you want to try just for the heck of it? It's up to YOU." That kind of control is what kids this age crave.

You could help her by arranging a fun event with a classmate,one on one.
Keep arranging events until you see a difference in her social standing. My son had a similar problem. Going out for lunch was a big deal at his school. I contacted the mother, got permission, notes were written for the school. My son gave me the name of the classmate , I made all the arrangements,including the invite. He ended up with a couple of friendships that lasted through highschool.
Lunch out was easy, but I can think of other events...movie, zoo, bowling ,a musem, ice cream parlor. An event would be better than a play date. It requires less interaction and has higher status.