shunning...

[allgirls]

This very disturbing and hard to deal with form of bullying is happening to my 13 year old daughter.

We live in a small town and a group of girls who were her "friends" are now shunning her at school..they all decided as a group not to talk to her...there is only one girl at school who talks to her(she wasn't invited to their party last weekend, the only girl who wasn't and if I had known this my daughter wouldn't have gone either)

My daughter is home from school today...I would just let her stay home if I knew how to teach her from her but the math is outta my realm completely.

I am planning on reporting to the principal but I know she can't force kids to talk to her and my fear is this will escalate...I want to tell her to go to school and weather it out...she goes to high school next year and won't have to deal with these girls.

Of course the Mama in me wants to go over and ring the neck of the ugly little ring leader in all this...

Anyway I am letting my daughter have a party on Friday night with all the friends from her old school(she still keeps in touch and visits all of them regularly in a town 20 mins away)

What would you do...I am writing a letter to the principal just to be on the record. There is only a month left of school so changing schools would just be silly right now.

I want to support my daughter but I also want her to learn...I want her in school...but I also want her to enjoy it.

[Annie7]

Getting on the record is the smartest move. Unfortunately the behavior of the "group" is not uncommon. Sometimes it's directed at one particular girl (I say "girl" because it seems to occur mostly in "girl groups") for a while or it switches from victim to victim. Is your daughter new at this school? How long has this been happening? Does she verbally retaliate? Will the school contact the other parents? Make SURE they know that this IS a form of "bullying". If they "blow you off" be ready to threaten legal action and carry through.

[Slabobbin]

I don't have any advice but I want to say that I am so sorry that your daughter is going through this. The same thing happened to me so I can sympathize.

[copslass]

This happened to my dd at the beginning of the year, completely out of the blue, she's always been very well-liked by everyone, and I was shocked!

After a few days of this, another mom called my house to ask if her dd was here, and I took the opportunity to say no, actually this is what's happening. Thank goodness that mom talked to her dd, who called Mary soon after to apologize. Something was obviously said to the others, whether through mothers or the girls themselves, because that was the end of it. Things were totally back to normal within a day or two.

Although there's always the risk that the mothers will be as immature as the girls, it might be worth a try. Good luck to you. There's nothing worse than worrying about our children.

[allgirls]

I have updated in a post called mean girls...it has the whole story...