"Why Can't They Just Get Along?"

By Nancy Rue
Author of Girl Politics: Friends, Cliques and Really Mean Chicks and Body Talk



She comes home crying again. The girl-drama has reached global proportions. Her used-to-be-best friend, who has been ignoring her for a week, has now formed an alliance with Popular Girl, the one they both used to make fun of because she thought she was all that. Now Popular Girl and Ex-Best Friend are whispering in corners, pointing and laughing at her, your precious daughter. Her tween world is shattered.

As flashbacks from your own elementary school girlfriend crises flicker through your mind – and heart – you grope for the right response. Do you tell her this is just normal girl stuff that she’ll get over? March to the school and demand instant peer mediation? Call Ex-Best Friend’s mother and become her ex-best friend?

Actually, as satisfying as those options sound, none of them is your best approach to supporting your daughter in her first struggle with relationships. So what do you do?

Start with a clear understanding of what is to be expected in young friendship and what crosses the line into a toxic relationship or full-out bullying.

In the normal girl-thing:

• Most of the together time is spent giggling until they can’t breathe, telling each other things they wouldn’t share with anyone else, and being absolutely themselves.
  
• Occasionally feelings get hurt, jealousies arise and little annoyances crop up, but they’re quickly repaired.
  
• Sometimes friendships end normally, too, as girls develop new interests, wind up in different classes or simply drift apart.
  

In all those circumstances, a sympathetic ear and some microwave popcorn are all that are required of a mom for healing. They’re simply pathways to helping your mini-woman learn how relationships work.

Things get stickier when a friendship becomes unhealthy – when:

• back-biting goes on
  
• lies are told, confidences betrayed
  
• one friend is always in charge, the other always the lackey
  
• feelings can’t be aired honestly for fear of reprisal
  
• there is constant drama
  
• jealousy erodes the fun
  
• conversations disintegrate into criticism and harsh teasing
  
• one friend wants the other all to herself and will use all of the above to make sure that happens
  
• honesty, respect, support, sharing, and trust go down the tubes.
  

What then, Mom? Keep in mind that this is not the normal stuff everybody has to go through growing up. Your daughter won’t just “get over it.” Did you? The potential to shade future friendships in dark hues is there, but so is your chance to help your daughter learn how to turn rocky relationships into smooth ones or walk away with grace.

Some Do’s:

• Listen to her woes all the way through. Use duct tape on your mouth if necessary but don’t interrupt her venting. She needs to get it all out.
  
• Empathize. A quick story about your own experience with infuriating friends can be validating.
  
• Encourage her to be honest with her friends, expressing her feelings without fear. Role play with her so she can experience that first.
  
• Paint a picture of what good friendship should look like. Help her see that if this one falls apart, there will be other friends.
  

The Don’ts are just as important:

• Don’t say “This is no big deal. Just find other friends.” DO say, “This must really hurt. Let’s see what you can do.”
  
• Don’t tell her exactly what to do. Help her figure it out.
  
• Don’t try to solve the problem for her by calling other moms or insisting that the teacher fix it.
  
• Don’t make cutting out of the friendship her first line of defense, but don’t tell her she’s a quitter if after a good try at reconciliation she decides she’s done.

If any of the following behaviors occur, all bets are off. This is bullying:

• when a girl seems to have made a career out of reducing your daughter to tears
  
• when your daughter is threatened verbally, physically, or emotionally
  
• when someone isolates her from her former friends
  
• when her schoolwork, health or sense of well-being are deeply disturbed

Bullying calls for a different tack:

• Get as much information from your daughter as you can, asking her to be honest but thorough
  
• Teach her not to fight back but to take back the power to be herself, going where she wants to go, saying what she wants to say, being who she is. For example, to say, “You can’t hurt me with your bullying, so you might as well stop,” is better than ignoring or coming back with, “You’re mean and stupid and I hate you!”
  
• Be sure she knows not to express her hurt feelings to a bully as she should to her friends. Once she starts to bully, even an ex-best friend has to be treated as the really mean girl she has become
  
• If nothing works, do what you have to do to stop the behavior. Ask for a
  conference with the teacher. Talk to the RMG’s parents. You’re not intervening in a friendship – you’re protecting your daughter from damaging behavior.
  

When in doubt, simply be your daughter’s ally. As she’s learning that even best friends can be unreliable, be the one person she can always count on.

Award-winning author Nancy Rue has written 105 books for teens and preteens and is a frequent contributor to magazines such as Focus on the Family, Brio, Breakaway, Clubhouse, Christian Living for Teens, Youth Teacher and Counselor, Career World and Woman’s World. Versed in the issues facing today’s young women, Rue serves as the primary voice of the Faithgirlz!™ line from Zonderkidz. She has authored four non-fiction titles in the series to help girls “get real” on things like overcoming insecurities of puberty, mean girls and boy troubles, while maintaining a meaningful relationship with God. The newest installments of the series, Girl Politics: Friends, Cliques and Really Mean Chicks and Body Talk. She resides with her husband near Nashville, Tenn. where she serves as a lector and Eucharistic minister at her local Episcopal Church and is an active member of the Nashville Women's Breakfast Club. Visit www.nancyrue.com and www.faithgirlz.com for more information.