Grade School and Girl Friends
In this series, our Resident Sage responds to challenges readers are grappling with in their lives. All stories are anonymized for privacy.
My daughter (13F) is in eighth grade and always seems to bump up against "girl drama." She has a friend group of four girls, and one of them always seems to be upset with another over something. Every one of them has been in tears at some point.
Recently, two things have really upset my daughter. First, everyone in her friend group tried out for the volleyball team at the high school they will all be attending next year, and my daughter was the only one who made the varsity team. Two of the others made the junior varsity team, but the girl who wanted to play volleyball the most didn't make either team. She accused my daughter of "stealing her idea" to email the coach a thank-you note after the tryouts, then wouldn't talk to anyone else for a few days.
Then last weekend, my daughter noticed the three other girls out together on a Saturday night without her. She sat at home the whole time watching their three dots all move together on the location sharing app they use. She didn't text any of them because she had too much pride to invite herself along, nor did she want to confront them about excluding her.
The next day, without my daughter mentioning anything, two of the girls told a lie about running into each other. They said they saw each other while out with their respective families, which for reasons too long to explain, we know to be untrue.
All of this has left my daughter in tears. She said, “I'm tired of trying to make people like me!” I tried to explain that friends come in and out of your life and that's okay, but I didn't know what else to say.
Should I have advised her to talk to her friends, and what would have been the right thing to say to them? What message should I give her about friends and friendships, especially as she heads into the much larger setting of high school? One of her friend's stated goals is to become popular, and it worries me what my daughter might be willing to do to become popular, too.
Popularity in high school is an interesting thing: everyone wants to be popular, but what does that really mean? For teenagers, it’s often about everyone looking at them, being admired as a tastemaker or influencer that drives what’s cool. In a way, it’s a very odd type of leadership based on status and the ability to get people to do what you decide. (True leaders lead a group towards a goal by convincing them, “I know how to accomplish our common goal. I’ll explain to everybody what to do and how to work together. I’ll take the responsibility of doing this if you will support me.”)
While some kids really are interested in the status that popularity confers (like Wood kids), most kids just want to be accepted, to belong to a group and not be ostracized. Belonging to the volleyball team is a way of being accepted, so if only one friend in a group of four doesn’t make a team, it’s easy to see why she feels like the odd one out. However, she completely overlooked the fact that she does belong to a group: her clique of friends! These girls are already a team of sorts because they enjoy spending time together and support each other as friends. It doesn’t sound like the girls were trying to exclude the friend who didn’t make the volleyball team or make her feel bad.
That said, actively excluding one person when everyone else gets together sows division, and this is a violent act: they outwardly and explicitly ostracized one person in their group. It’s not good for the cohesion of the group if they exclude somebody because one influencer decides that everyone has to act a certain way. I suspect the girls were fully aware that what they were doing was wrong since two of them made up an excuse for themselves, though it’s impossible to know exactly what their motivation was. Nevertheless, the result was the same: your daughter’s feelings were hurt because her friends didn’t include her.
As her parent, I would recommend pointing out to your daughter that what her friends did was wrong. Parents should not normalize the bad behavior of kids as something that should be tolerated as a “learning opportunity” or rite of passage. I would advise your daughter to tell her friends directly, “I saw that everyone got together without me and I was very sad that I wasn’t invited. I would have liked to spend time with you all.” No accusations need to be made about why they did this, only focus on how she felt about being excluded. Your daughter can go on to tell them that she really enjoys being a part of the friend group and is looking forward to staying friends. Joining a new team (such as the volleyball team) does not have to diminish the friendships they already share.
While it’s true that friends come in and out of our lives, why friendships end is actually quite important. The whole purpose of having friends is to create a safe space where everyone can feel secure to be themselves; no one should have to conform just to be liked and accepted. This goes back to why kids want to be popular: so that they are included by the other kids, and they belong to a community. But that community should be one where everyone respects each other, not one where there is a queen bee that everyone has to follow. If someone does not feel supported and safe within the group, even after making efforts to restore harmony, that is a good reason to let go.
To all of the parents reading this: I encourage you to be examples of what good friends are like, and to teach your kids about the Care Cycle. Encourage kids to build connections within a community where loyal friends are popular, where you are drawn to people who communicate with you and respect you and do not try to control you. Teach your kids that there are those kids who are popular because they get along with everyone, and there are others who are “popular” because everyone is scared of them. That’s the difference between balanced and imbalanced power and influence.
-E
