CONNECTIONS

Talk about “textbook”…..when my daughter was in the seventh grade, about a minute after she proudly said how happy she was that she was in the “popular group”, her best friends began to shun, exclude, harass and humiliate her for exactly two months. Perhaps she was getting too big for her britches. Perhaps the Queen Bee was feeling threatened. Then as suddenly as it began, it ended – kind of.

There was an inherent cool about this middle child from the time she was little. A little bit hip, a little bit bohemian, and a lot funny.  She was a great camper, and probably felt most carefree during her many summers at camp, with girls from all over the country.  As she approached pre-adolescence, though, she shared with me that she was pleased that she was in the “popular” group at school (fact is, she always had been, but was never conscious of it).  After a period of time, though, I wondered if she was truly comfortable and happy with her status.  It’s pretty common knowledge that the girls in any given “C” group (“A” being the most popular group) tend to be more relaxed and happy than the girls in the “A” and “B” groups. There’s nothing they feel they need to strive for or maintain. They’re generally just having a good time with girls they feel comfortable with. Her big sister was basically a “B” girl, who just naturally evolved into an “A” girl in high school, without being self-conscious or intentional about any of it. And by then, no one was striving for any status, it was more about individuality. In any case, she was who she was, and her social status and connections evolved organically for her.

Back to my daughter’s tale of woe: During two months of surprisingly bold and nasty calls to our house (I was not immune from the wrath of these girls), humiliation, embarrassment and weepiness, she didn’t want to go to school some days, and dreaded the thought of attending social events when she felt she had no one to talk to. I cried too. My husband just shook his head. Since I wasn’t friendly with any of the parents of these girls, I knew that it was pretty much pointless to appeal to them for mercy. When I did speak to one of them, a neighbor of ours, she predictably became defensive and accused my daughter of saying mean things to hers…and that was probably not untrue. Regardless, the conversation went nowhere.

When the debacle was over, like a rainbow after a horrible storm, just in time for the celebration of her bat mitzvah, there was a sense of relief for all of us, along with a lingering wonderment about what on earth makes girls so cruel and heartless.  Though she remained somewhat friendly with many of the girls who turned their backs on her (there was one who did not betray her, and she never forgot that), her friendships which continue to this day, were forged with girls in middle and high school and beyond, who were more independent, less clique-y, more… like she was, at her core. And this is some of what our CAPS volunteers talk to girls about, and this is what I did not know how to talk to my daughter about at the time, at least not in a non-threatening way, and not early enough.

Sometimes “by example” just isn’t enough. And in retrospect, I think 5^th grade would have been the perfect time to have a discussion with her about who she was, what kind of friend she was, and what kinds of friends she wanted to spend her time with. If only the CAPS Friendship Matters program had existed. If only What’s Up? Girl Talk had existed when she was in middle school.   If only the CAPS Bully Prevention Center had been available to me during our crisis, the way it is now for parents who are stymied by the cruelty being inflicted on their daughters and sons, I would have taken notes and followed the advice of an expert, because I just needed someone to tell me what my options were. If I only knew then what I know now. That statement rings true for so much of our past, when the view is so clear from the present.  Debbie Brandwein, Supervisor of Education and Training.