Second grade is when everything exploded.
—Ana, 9
My sister is 9, and in third grade, and already there are signs of cliquey mean behavior from some of her classmates. Glad you’re stressing that it’s not just middle schoolers—it IS starting earlier.
—Lucy, 14
Several years ago a small package arrived in my mail that immediately caught my eye. It was expertly wrapped in a brown paper bag. An Oklahoma return address was written on the top left-hand corner. Wondering how people wrap things so perfectly, I opened it and was surprised to see a copy of Queen Bees & Wannabes along with a note in beautiful looping handwriting that immediately reminded me of Mrs. Clarke, my fifth-grade teacher at John Eaton Elementary School.
Dear Rosalind,
I bought this book because my ten-year-old granddaughter is having problems with her friends. But when I read it I was very upset with you to see the bad words in it. I can’t in good conscience give this to my granddaughter because I do not want to introduce her to this world. Couldn’t you talk to girls about these things without using all those bad words? In the meantime, I am respectfully sending you the book back because I have no further need of it.
Sincerely,
Margaret Garrison
Well, Margaret, you’re right. I did need to write something for younger girls because they are experiencing Queen Bees, cliques, and social cruelty. So this chapter is for you and all the other grandparents, parents, aunts, and teachers who have asked me to write something specifically for younger girls in a way that you could read together.
Adults are often so surprised that younger girls can be so mean. Maybe it’s because they look cute (i.e., harmless), and they still give us hugs and listen to our advice. Maybe it’s because we assume kids can only be so mean without using “bad words” to humiliate someone. Unfortunately, there’s no age minimum for cruelty.
Here are some questions I have received from seven-to eleven-year-old girls:
Why do you think people are so exclusive to people they don’t get to know?
If you were from another country and kids were making fun of you, what would you do?
How do I deal with someone who won’t let me be friends with someone else?
If someone was mean to you earlier in the year and you see them getting made fun of now, what should you do?
If I was a bystander and the bully told me not to tell or else I would get beat up, what should I do?
What if your best friend is the bully and she doesn’t know it?
What do you do when your clique doesn’t accept you for who you are but for what you have?
How do you feel about racism and how do you stop it?
Will I always be a reject loser?
How many bad influences are there in the United States?
These questions reflect the hardest issues a person will ever face. Why do people discriminate against others? How do I stand up against injustice? How do I get help for myself when I am being disrespected or humiliated? How do I help someone I care about when he or she is hurting? When you look at your daughter, remember that even at her age, she’s already dealing with profound and complicated problems.
Things to Keep in Mind with Younger Girls
Although it’s true that she’s telling you things that are going on in her life, don’t assume she’s telling you everything.
Girls aren’t only being mean to each other. They can be just as cruel to boys—just like some boys can be mean to them.
Even if your daughter’s only interaction with technology is Club Penguin and Webkinz, she can still use those things to be mean to someone or vice versa.
By the time girls are in fourth and fifth grades, most of them cite YouTube as the website they go to most often. While on YouTube they can and do watch any music videos they want. Most parents I work with refuse to admit this.
By fourth grade there will be girls in your daughter’s class (or your daughter) who are going through puberty.
Around the same time, there will also be girls who are incredibly boy crazy.
Not withstanding the very serious questions written above, girls can get into very intense conflicts about things like, “she knows purple is my color.” Use whatever issue is bothering them to teach them about ethics and friendships.
Inside jokes, secret languages, and clubs are normal at this age, but they quickly become hurtful effective weapons precisely because they can be excused as harmless games.
I have been asked this question countless times by people who have already made up their mind about the answer. It’s as if parents think there’s something in the water that’s making girls nastier. You may not like my answer. It’s not in the water, it’s in the mirror. Parents are buying into a culture that believes it’s “cute” to buy trendy, sexy clothes or funny that an eight-year-old can lip-sync the latest Britney Spears or Katy Perry song. So funny that the adults then put it on YouTube for everyone to see. It has become a custom for moms and their prepubescent daughters to get manicures and pedicures. When I was growing up, I went to the salon with my mom and it was a bonding experience—as I watched her get her hair done. But having a good time with her didn’t depend on getting to do the same things she did.
So it’s not that girls are being pushed to be meaner. It’s that they are being pushed to be older (as opposed to more mature, which would lend itself to increased sense of responsibility, etc.). Being mean is just a by-product. Adults are the ones who create and give young girls access to content that assumes they are already teens, or want to be. Cartoons are based on reality shows that depict girls as superficial and catty; toys and websites teach them to be famous and “celebrities” with all the accompanying clothes, jewelry, clothes, and entitled spoiled attitudes.
So why do parents buy into pushing their daughters to be older? Honestly, a lot of parents simply don’t realize what they’re doing because they’re sucked into the sophisticated marketing just like their daughters. Marketing campaigns aimed at girls and their parents present a false image of girls’ empowerment that girls with high self-esteem and confidence act like miniadults with the latest styles and narcissistic attitude. So we buy the messages without really looking at the content underneath.
Likewise, girls at younger ages are being pushed to present themselves in increasingly sexual ways—and there hasn’t been an effective parenting response to address the problem. Girls at dance class recitals are wearing costumes women wear in music videos. Parents are often so happy to see their daughter reading a book instead of watching TV or texting that they don’t read the books themselves and see what cultural values those books are imparting. And even if you are aware, many parents don’t want to complain because they don’t want to come across as the overbearing uptight helicopter parent. These dynamics combine to encourage mean, materialistic, more typically adolescent behavior in younger girls.
And of course, sometimes you might just be so beyond exhausted that you just don’t have the energy to fight one more battle. I really get that. But this is the battle we have to fight.
You can counteract this problem and give your daughter and other girls in your life the knowledge and strategies to navigate her way through this process as soon as possible. Let’s start with an exercise you can do with your daughter. Sarah Silverstone and Adele Paynter are two teachers at the Sheridan school in Washington, D.C., who came up with this exercise for their students. I liked it so much I wanted to share it with you.
Circle the words that best describe you right now.
Bossy
Outgoing
Go with the flow
Quiet
Shy
Leader
Follower
Helpful
Anxious
Moody
Pushy
Sarcastic
Remember, you can always reinvent yourself. You are in charge of who you become. So looking back at the words above, answer these three questions:
What words would you like to do more of?
What words would you like to minimize?
What words would you like to become?
One of the most confusing aspects of bullying is that it is so easily dismissed as harmless teasing. Here’s how you tell the difference.
Good Teasing
You feel liked by the teaser.
You don’t feel the teaser’s motivation is to put you down.
If you decide you don’t like it, you can say something and it will stop.
Unintentional Bad Teasing
You don’t like it.
The teaser either doesn’t know how you feel or dismisses your feelings because he or she doesn’t understand how strongly you feel.
If you tell them to stop, they won’t tease you more.
Mean Teasing
Teasing is done to make you feel bad, insecure, or embarrassed.
You’re teased about something that other people know you feel insecure about.
If you defend yourself, you’re made fun of or blown off because “you’re too sensitive” or you can’t take a joke.
The teasing never stops.
When someone says something mean and then follows it up with “Just kidding!” what they’re really doing is hurting you and then denying your right to be upset about it. This is a supermanipulative thing to do because it gets them off the hook for taking responsibility for their actions. Even more annoying, it allows the person to dismiss and ridicule you if you complain.
I hate when my friends say “just joking” to me. They pick on me and pick on me and I try to hold it in and then sometimes I just can’t anymore. Then I explode and they say, “Fine, if you’re so sensitive then we don’t have to be friends!” But I want to be friends, so I end up begging to get back with them. I hate it.
—Samantha, 10
Samantha is completely right. It’s bad enough that your friend is making fun of you and refusing to admit it. Worse, your friends can threaten to break up with you. So then it can feel like you have to make the following choice: either I put up with the ridicule or I lose the friend. What lots of people do (no matter what their age) is bury their anger and frustration at having someone close to them be mean and then not admit it. But this is the kind of burying that isn’t good because the requirement for being accepted is the right for the person to treat you badly. You never want these kinds of relationships.
Tattling means all you want is for the person to get in trouble.
Telling means that you believe there is a problem you can’t solve by yourself so you need to tell a trusted adult.
Telling means your goal is to right a wrong.
A person reports a problem because they want the problem resolved.
A person tattles because they want the problem to get bigger or more public so everyone knows.
The really tricky thing, however, is that sometimes it can be confusing to tell the difference between the two, because when you report something you’re bringing attention to it. It’s like the problem was in a dark cave and you’re going in there with a big flashlight and shining a light on it. So, if you report something and people get mad at you, the most important thing to remember is that the people who are now in trouble are not in trouble because you reported them. They’re in trouble because they acted in ways that were against the rules. If you want to say something about it, here’s a suggestion: “They didn’t get in trouble because I told the teacher (parent, coach, etc). They got in trouble because they did (say specifically what they did).”
First let’s put out there some common and understandable responses parents say that don’t help:
They’re just jealous.
They’re just insecure.
You’re better off without them.
Just show them what a good friend is.
Just be nice.
Just be strong.
Just don’t let it bother you.
Just ignore it.
Just to be really clear here: the reason “Just be nice” and “show them what a good friend looks like” don’t work is because when and if your daughter says this to kids who are mean to her, it doesn’t look like she’s being nice in their eyes. In their eyes, she looks weak and easily manipulated.
What you do say:
I’m so sorry.
Thank you for telling me.
I’m going to help you think this through so you feel better about how it’s being handled.
But what if your child says, “Mom, I’m going to tell you but you have to promise not to do anything.”
I really understand any parent wanting to make this promise. It makes common sense. You want your daughter to continue talking to you so if you don’t make this promise, you have an understandable fear that she’ll stop. So in the moment, it makes sense to make that promise. Not so fast. Instead, this is what I want you to say, “I would love to make that promise, but I can’t. The reason I can’t is because you may tell me something that’s too big for us to handle alone. But this is what I can promise. If I think we need to get another person’s opinion, you will know about it and you can help me pick the best person to go to.”
Please notice that I didn’t say that the child gets ultimate decision-making power here. You are the adult, that’s your responsibility. But kids can tolerate your decisions, even if they really disagree, if you include them as part of the process. When they stop talking to you is when they get blindsided and don’t feel respected.
Throughout this book, you’ll see I use a strategy, which you can teach your daughter, for thinking through a situation when I’m angry or upset about something. I call it SEAL and it stands for these four things:
Stop and Strategize: Breathe, listen, and think when and where, now or later?
Explain: What happened that you don’t like and what do you want?
Affirm: Admit (recognize) anything you did that contributed to the conflict but affirm your right to be treated with dignity by the other person and vice versa.
Lock: Lock in the friendship, take a vacation, or lock the friendship out.
It’s totally understandable if you read this and think, “There’s no way my daughter is going to do this. It’s not going to work.” This is probably because girls, like most of us, usually define success in a confrontation by either being best friends afterwards or destroying the other person. You’re asking your daughter to redefine what it means to be in a confrontation with someone. SEAL helps whenever you’re in a situation where you’re really angry at someone and you think about the perfect thing to say but then when you get around the person you’re mad at, you lose your words. SEAL helps get you clear about what you think, so you can be clear about what to say to the person and how to say it. So any part of it that you do is a success. If you get mad at someone and you do the “S” for stop and that’s it, that’s great. Next week, you can try to do the “E.”
So here’s a common situation between two girls where you could use SEAL. This one involves a girl bystanding, seeing something another girl is doing and not liking it but not knowing what to say.
KATIE: Did you see Sara trying to guess what we were talking about? She’s so stupid, she totally copies everything I do!
AMANDA: I know. She’s so annoying!
KATIE: During recess, let’s just pretend she doesn’t exist. Like she’s invisible.
AMANDA: I guess …
KATIE: I mean what else are we supposed to do? It’s like she thinks she can be with us all the time, and when we don’t let her, she’s so mean about it!
The thing about being a Bystander is that often it’s really hard to know what to do exactly at the moment it’s happening. But that doesn’t mean Bystanders can’t go back later and say something.
Stop and Strategize: Amanda puts her bad feelings to words and chooses the time to talk to Katie.
Explain: I don’t want to do the secret language now or pretend Sara is invisible. It looks like a game but it’s not.
Affirm: You don’t have to be friends with Sara, but we can’t be mean to her. Pretending she’s invisible is mean.
Lock: This was really hard but you’re my friend and I wanted to tell you.
We will examine this further in Chapter 6, Mean Girls, but take note that when girls use the word annoying, they need to tell you exactly what they feel, because it can mean the girl stood up to the other girls.
Likewise, when girls use the word mean to describe a girl’s behavior, they can really be describing the girl expressing anger. It is very important for girls’ emotional health to realize expressing anger is not necessarily mean.
Now we’ll look at several common experiences younger girls and parents have and use SEAL in some of them to see how to walk through them.
First of all, sleepovers are a horrible idea. It’s true. Admit it. The girls eat terrible food, stay up way too late, which means you do too, and someone usually ends up crying, furious, or telling you that she has to go home because she doesn’t “feel well,” which is girl code for “the other girls are being really mean to me.”
So we need to have some commonsense rules about sleepovers.
Ideally only one girl sleeps over.
Bedtimes—while not as early as school nights—are reasonably sane, midnight at the latest.
Which movies they see and computer and cell phone use are strictly monitored and/or limited.
Why?
If you have more than one girl over, you’re just paving the way for girl drama. From who sleeps next to whom, to inside jokes that someone doesn’t know—it’s a mess.
If the parents are going to let the children go to bed at 2:00 A.M. so that you pick up a horrible nasty cranky brat masquerading as your child, I think you should turn around and let your daughter stay at their house the next day too.
Sleepovers have always been drama central. But when you add instant messaging, social networking sites, and cell phones into the mix, the drama goes from containable to combustible. One of the most common is when one girl holds her cell phone or sits in front of a computer keyboard while the other girls feed her what to say. In this manner, a text, voice mail, or instant message that starts out with “Heyyyyy whats up?” can transform into an all-out gossip war.
So if your daughter is invited to someone’s house, give the parents a call before taking your daughter there and have the following conversation.
YOU: Hi, Alan, thanks so much for inviting Sydney to sleep over tomorrow night. She’s really excited about it. I just wanted to check in with you about some things.
ALAN: Sure, of course!
YOU: Sydney usually goes to bed around 9 or 9:30. I know they’ll probably go to bed later than that but if she could get to sleep by 10:30 that would be great. Also, can you tell me what you let the kids watch on cable or do on the computer? I know a lot of the kids in the class want to watch X (the latest movie all the kids want to see and the parents are arguing about whether to let their kids do it) but we think it’s too mature/scary/violent/sexual for her.
ALAN: Sure, but don’t we want the kids to have fun too?
YOU: Of course. If you watch out for those things I’d really appreciate it.
On the other side, if you’re inviting a girl to come over to your house, call the parents and check in with them so you’re all on the same page.
Before so many fifth graders had cell phones, if a girl wanted to go home she would have to call from a landline in your house. You would know what was going on and you wouldn’t be surprised when an upset parent knocked on your door because their daughter called them from the bathroom crying. Now chances are that you’ll be blindsided. Or there’s always the possibility you won’t know until a few days later when you find out there’s been a flurry of e-mails between parents in your community about how horrible the girls were at your house.
To guard yourself against this, make it absolutely clear to your daughter what the technology use rules are during a sleepover—which should be exactly the same rules as every other night in your house. Just know as tempting as it is to abuse those rules when she’s by herself, the temptation is much worse during a sleepover.
Your daughter walks down the hallway and two girls start whispering as soon as she passes them. Does she say something to the girls? I think if it happens once, let it pass, because she may be making an incorrect assumption. But if it happens more than once, then she needs to address it, using SEAL as a way to prepare what she wants to say. Remember, put no pressure on her to do SEAL in real life while she does her preparation. Ask her what it feels like when she sees the girls in the hallway. Have her put it into words for herself. The thing you need to get across to her is that while she can’t control whether the girls will stop whispering, she can control what she does. Using SEAL, she can do the following:
Stop and Strategize: She decides she’s going to say something to them the next time it happens.
Explain: Three times today you’ve been whispering when I walk by. I can’t stop you from doing it and I guess your point is to make me feel bad.
Affirm: I have the right to walk down the hall without people making me feel bad by whispering whenever I’m around. If there’s something you need to tell me, then you need to tell me to my face.
Lock: If you want to tell me, that’d be great. I’ll be around all day.
Then she should walk away so she’s not waiting around for the girls to slam her. Now remember that when you SEAL something, chances are high that the bullies are going to respond by denying it and then getting mad at your daughter because she’s being “mean” to them or saying something obnoxious, like “whatever” or roll their eyes, or laugh. If they do this, it doesn’t mean you or SEAL has failed. Think about it this way; you’re taking away power from the bullies and they feel like they have to get a little back. Denying it or making fun of what you say is the easiest way to do it. But in the long term, you are showing that you can hold your own.
If your daughter has been bullied and you are going to have a meeting with a teacher or a school administrator about it, before you go, sit down with your daughter the night before and have her tell you what the kids have said and done to her. As much as she can, she should tell you exactly the words the bullies said. While she speaks you should write it down. Then, when you get to the meeting, she should try her best to say what she told you the night before. But she needs you as a backup because sometimes it’s too hard to say what happened or the bad words that were said. That’s why kids sometimes say, “I don’t remember” when people ask them what happened.
It is 4:30 P.M. and I have just dropped off a girl who came to play with my daughter for the first time. This is the conversation I overheard while reading in the living room and they were doing art in the dining room.
PLAYDATE: The reason I didn’t want the teacher to tell anybody I was going to play at your house is because my other friends might dump me. I can’t be your friend, but I can still have playdates with you.
MY DAUGHTER: Just don’t tell your friends and they won’t be mad at you.
PLAYDATE: They won’t be mad, they will make fun of me.
DAUGHTER: Why will they make fun of you?
PLAYDATE: Because they think you are weird. Another classmate told me she felt sorry for me for having a playdate with you.
This woman’s daughter shouldn’t turn herself inside out trying to be nice to this girl. It will only come across as trying too hard and chasing her. At best, the old friend will treat her well when they are one-on-one, but she’ll turn her back on her when she’s around her new friends.
This is how she’d SEAL it:
Stop and Strategize: How does she feel about what the girl said? Where does she think is the best place to talk to her?
Explain: When you were over at my house, you told me that people are making fun of you for being friends with me. I want to hang out with you, but I don’t want to worry about when you will be my friend and when you won’t.
Affirm: I want a friend who treats me nicely no matter who’s around.
Lock: I would really like to keep being friends.
If the girl agrees and then goes back to treating your daughter hot and cold, then I would ask your daughter to consider the “take a vacation” or “lock out” option.
What if the girl says, “It’s not my fault. You always want to hang out so I never feel like I can see my other friends”?
As much as this may hurt your daughter’s feelings, she needs to respect what the other girl is saying. So if the other girl says that she wants to play with someone else at a certain time, then your daughter needs to respect her friend’s boundaries. Instead, take the long view; that this is an opportunity to help your daughter build social skills. As the parent, don’t focus on how mean the other child is or how weak your daughter is for accepting her second-rate status.
I remember this one girl in fifth grade and no one would sit next to her. She’d go into her shell and sit in the back looking out the window.
—Cherise, 14
For field trips in third grade, my school basically let the kids organize the car pools because we didn’t have buses. So the parents would sign up to drive and then we’d tell our parents who we wanted to take.
—Sara, 13
I always thought it was funny that there were parents who wouldn’t let their kids go to McDonald’s on the way back from games, but then there were the parents who would let us and they wouldn’t tell the other parents.
—Molly, 14
I get a lot of questions from parents about car pools. And truth be told, I personally didn’t have a lot of experience with them because I grew up in a city. But I did have one, and the memories of the annoying boys I was surrounded by and the mom who never smiled are vivid.
Kids tell me that there are two basic car pool conflicts. The first is when someone in the car pool is really mad at someone else in the car pool. As the driver, you would notice that no one is talking. At best there is a decided chill in the air. The other is when someone in the car pool has been assessed as a social liability by the other kids. In this case, as the driver, you would notice that all the kids are talking but that kid—unless that child has social skills deficits and she would try to interact but be ignored.
What do you do if the kids are in a fight? You would use SEAL to frame your strategy.
Stop and Strategize: Identify which situation you have and which children have social power (this is usually the ones who are most verbal/persuasive) and what children if any push your buttons. Remind yourself to do your absolute best to perceive your child in their role in the group first rather than your daughter.
Explain: Girls, for the last few days I’ve noticed that you aren’t talking to each other (or whatever is going on is that you’re seeing). Do you want to talk about it and see if we can resolve it or should we just keep pretending that everything’s fine?
GIRL ONE: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
GIRL TWO: Whatever (rolling her eyes).
Affirm: You don’t have to be friends with each other, but we do have to ride in the car pool together, so I expect at the least that you treat each other civilly. For example, that means to me no snide comments about anyone else.
Physically the worst seats, which means the kids who are the youngest or least socially powerful will sit there because they are the hardest seat to get to and have loud “batman” windows, you can’t control heat, and you have very little legroom.
Everyone else in the car pool has their back to them.
One positive is if three people are close friends, they might capitalize on the isolation of these seats and exclude everyone else from their conversation or do things without the parent seeing (i.e., show inappropriate pictures, share embarrassing text messages, write mean notes back and forth). Note: This might also take place if the captains turn their backs.
The Captains.
Location, location, location! The best seats in the car: the most space, you don’t have to share, closest to DVD player, control back temperature.
Conversation is easy; can turn around and lean forward or backward to talk to whomever you want.
Easy to do things the parent can’t see.
Last in the car and first to get out.
ShotGun/Child of Driver.
Isolated from rest of friends; has to talk to parent.
Conflicted because they have to be on their best behavior in front of their parent but their friends do not in the back.
Stuck helping Mom or Dad with directions.
Has to take orders from the back (i.e., changing the radio, raising the volume).
Can’t see DVD player (if applicable).
The Driver/Parent.
Must focus on the road, even though they are talking on their cell phone or trying to figure out directions: generally not paying any attention to the backseat.
Can’t hear the conversation due to the blaring music.
Can’t see all the way to the back because of the Captain seats and the DVD player.
Lock: I know I can’t make you all get along but I hope you do because (say something positive about each girl). Thanks for hearing me out.
What if you have the situation in which everyone is ignoring a child? This is what I’d say to all of them (minus of course the child you are talking about):
Stop and Strategize: Where you can get all the other kids together.
Explain: I’ve noticed that most of the time everybody is ignoring Constance. (Wait for denials to end.) I’m not saying you have to be friends with her, but I am asking that you include her in your conversations as best you can. How can we do that?
Affirm: Everyone can have moments or be in situations where you don’t feel comfortable. And I think it’s important to do your best to reach out to people.
Lock: Thanks for hearing me out.
I’m suggesting you do this not because I think all the kids will change their behavior. What you are doing by speaking out is showing the kids you aren’t clueless and that you are an adult who demands civil behavior.
Anne, Grace, and Jenny are students in my third-grade class. Last weekend, Anne and Grace used Jenny’s password to access her Webkinz account and destroy all of her hard work. Anne did this because Jenny had built up a land of clothing, accessories, and rooms in bubble-gum pink … and Anne felt SHE owned that color. Jenny went to her account to find her world obliterated.
—John
Last year, a hacker got into my Webkinz account and stole all my rare things. I went into my house and all my things were gone. I was outraged.
—Emma, 11
It was easier when we were younger, like when we were in first grade, because we didn’t have screen names and cell phones.
–Claire, 10
Last year I got a text message that said, “You’re so ugly you should go back to another country. I hate you.”
—Marisol, 10
As soon as your child starts using technology, you have to teach her how to use it ethically. This means that if your six-year-old is on Club Penguin, it’s time to sit her down and talk about how you expect her to conduct herself and her Penguin Avatars.
Two girls in my fifth-grade class just paid a boy $5 in our grade to go ask another girl to go out with him and then break up with her the next day. The girl isn’t very attractive and doesn’t get the social dynamics swirling around her at all. She never saw it coming. She thought he was serious.
—Ana
When the teacher who was working with me told me that story my heart broke for the girl. Why was it so important that those girls would go out of their way to humiliate another girl in their class—one who’s already struggling socially? This is one of those times as a parent or someone who works with girls that you need to remember two things: (1) we are on a long road to making decent human beings; and (2) we have to take ownership of our children’s behavior when it’s messy and embarrassing, not just when our kids make us look good.
So if your daughter is one of the Mean Girls, here’s how SEAL could help you talk to her. Now, it is a little different because you’re also using SEAL to role-model what you want and as a way to hold her accountable for her actions. To make it more realistic, I have also included common girl responses when confronted in situations like these.
Stop and Strategize: As soon as you hear this, go somewhere quiet and breathe. Remember, your child is not the worst child in the world and you aren’t the worst parent. She has made a big mistake, and it’s up to you to make this an opportunity for her to see your values in action. Do not think about how much more or less guilty the boy or your daughter’s friend is. Your daughter was involved—that’s all you need to know. Now think, where can you talk to her where you have the best chance of her listening to you? If at all possible, both parents are there but no one else.
YOU (Explain): It has come to my attention that you paid a boy five dollars to ask a girl to go out with him and then dump her. Is that accurate?
YOUR DAUGHTER: OMG, it wasn’t like that at all! We were just joking around with Will. How was I supposed to know he was actually going to do it?
YOU: Did you give him money or not?
YOUR DAUGHTER: No! McKenna did. It’s not my fault!
YOU: I need you to answer this question with a yes or no. When Will asked Kara to be his girlfriend, were you completely surprised, like it was the first time you ever heard of the possibility of him doing this?
YOUR DAUGHTER: What? I don’t know. If you say it like that, fine, no. I wasn’t COMPLETELY surprised.
YOU: OK, now that we have that clear, here’s the deal. You will sit and write a letter of apology to Kara. While you are doing that I’m calling Kara’s parents and asking if we can come over so you can apologize to her in person, in front of her parents. After I do that, I’m calling McKenna’s parents and telling them what you are doing to take responsibility for your actions. After you are done with the letter and if Kara’s parents agree to allow you into their house, we will immediately go over there so you can apologize. If you apologize with a fake or mean tone in your voice or the content of your words comes across as giving a fake apology, then I will apologize on your behalf. And since you did it at school, you are also going to apologize to your teacher and principal for going against the school’s rules of treating people with dignity.
YOUR DAUGHTER: There is no way you can make me do those things!
YOU: Why don’t you want to do it? Is it embarrassing?
YOUR DAUGHTER: What do you think?
YOU (Affirm): I’m not saying you have to be friends with Kara but you are never allowed to do something to deliberately make her feel miserable. I hope you’ll remember that the next time you’re tempted to do something so mean to someone. And if you do something like this again, you will force me to increase the consequences to you. I love you with all my heart, but this is something I have to take a stand on.
YOUR DAUGHTER: Do you have any idea how much I hate you?
YOU (Lock): I have a pretty good idea, but I’m willing to accept that. But for what it’s worth, if you do take responsibility for what you did, that will mean a great deal to me. So can I make you a cup of tea while you write your letter?
There’s a lot more material that is relevant to younger girls in the other chapters (like the apologies section in Chapter 6), but I hope this gives those of you with younger girls a good foundation to help them as they bump into their first experiences with Queen Bees and Mean Girls. In the meantime, the following pages I wrote specifically for girls.
Sometimes it’s easy to tell when someone is being mean to you. Usually that’s when someone physically hurts you or threatens your safety. But people can be mean in other ways, like when they make fun of you, ignore you, or get other people to gang up on you. So if that happens to you, when should you tell an adult?
You may be worried that if you tell, the situation will get worse. The bully may have even told you that as a way to keep you quiet. So let’s break it down. If you don’t tell, do you think the person will stop being mean to you or hurting you? In my experience, bullies don’t stop because you cooperate. They know that they have power over you. And there’s no way adults can help if they don’t know the problem. That said, you have to be smart about whom you tell because some adults are better than other adults at knowing how to handle problems.
Sometimes girls have feelings or experiences that they don’t want to tell their mom or dad. If you’re having that feeling, that is completely normal. The problem is that sometimes it’s really helpful and important to tell an adult what’s going on. So I’m going to give you an assignment to find an ally. An ally is someone you can rely on to talk about what’s going on in your life, who’s really smart and thinks clearly (meaning they don’t freak out). To find an ally, I want you to sit down at a table with an adult in your family. Each of you should have a piece of paper and something to write with. I want you to think of all the adults you are close to in your family, at school, or in your neighborhood and come up with a list of people you think are cool and smart enough that you would want to talk to them about important things going on in your life. While you do that, I want the person sitting across from you to write down their list of adults you know that they trust to give you good advice. When you’re finished, compare your lists. Ideally there would be someone who is on both of your lists, and that’s the person you would ask to be your ally—someone whom you can talk to on a regular basis for big and little stuff, who can help you think through maybe difficult problems. And the agreement is that these conversations between you are private unless your physical safety or mental health is in danger.