I helped my three teenage daughters survive the ‘mean girl years’ – you can too

You would imagine that by the time the youngest of my three daughters hit year nine, I would have been able to save her from the pernicious friendship shenanigans that seem to affect every schoolgirl as soon as they hit 13. Sadly, I could not. My teen endured the same upsetting girlhood dramas I’d witnessed with her older sisters, and I found it just as heartbreaking third time round as I did a decade ago. However, this time I did at least understand the reasons behind these so-called “mean girl” tactics, and I also knew one crucial fact that helped my daughter through it: knowing the difference between being popular and being liked – an important distinction in the senior school years. As we settle into the autumn term, you may find that your daughter has also encountered what I often refer to as the “year nine friendship hellscape”. She might be suddenly frozen out of groups, inexplicably uninvited to parties, talked about cruelly behind her back. Maybe she’ll be made fun of in lessons or the playground, targeted for her looks, what she wears or general personality. She may even be ostracised by mates who’ve been part of her social life for years. Shorts Hearing about all this comes as an uncomfortable surprise for many parents, but having interviewed experts in adolescent mental health for my parenting books and newsletter, I can reassure you it is an unpleasant, but not unexpected, rite of passage – one that will give your teen vital life skills, especially if you handle it well. It’s not just girls who endure this “friendship rubber-banding” – as experts call it – when teens are welcome one minute, then frozen out the next in a variety of unkind ways. Clinical psychologist Dr Lisa Damour, who was the adolescent development consultant on the box office hit Inside Out 2, tells me research shows that teen boys “outpace girls in their frequency of unkindness”. “Girls at this age typically engage in verbal social aggression,” she explains. “They may weaponise relationships in conversations, while boys are more likely to engage in physical aggression. However, we know that boys can be just as verbally cruel, but this is often hidden behind ‘banter’. “Girls discuss it seriously and spread the behaviour over a wider group, so it may feel as if they are doing it more because more people talk about it. Boys don’t talk so much about it, but they do it too.” Why do our teens endure this, or indeed behave in horrible ways themselves – and how can we help them through it? Developmentally, according to Damour, author of the Emotional Lives of Teenagers, our 13-year-olds are loosening their ties with home as they strengthen bonds with their all-important peers at school. But they aren’t quite mature enough to let go of parents yet, and they aren’t neurologically developed enough to cope with complicated friendships. Being in-between childhood and adolescence – or the “big me, little me” dichotomy – puts them in a uniquely emotionally vulnerable space where they make mistakes while testing out new behaviour and trying to establish where they belong. It’s an identity minefield just as their bodies are going through hormonal and physical changes, too. Also their brains begin to be rebuild at 13, a process that goes on until their mid-twenties. As a result, teens think less logically and feel emotion more intensely, so a small slight at school cuts deep, a minor rejection feels huge. Not fitting in is a high-stakes game, completely different from the non-judgmental friendships of years seven and eight. As parents, we may accidentally dismiss their trauma, or step back because we figure they are getting older and can cope with more. We’ve probably all said “just ignore it”, but the reality is some situations will feel like life and death for our teens. They will be drenched in the fear of rejection or isolation – and by telling them to ignore it, we’re also telling them we don’t take them seriously and don’t want to hear about what is the most important thing going on in their lives. Former head teacher and school safeguarding lead Emma Gleadhill, a parent coach, is often called into schools to diffuse the tensions of year nine friendships. Emma always points out that being liked is not the same as being popular, and it helps if your teen understands that. Popular teens are often in that position because they are prepared to cross a line others won’t and be mean. It looks strong to others, and the instinct for teens is to want to stay on the right side of that behaviour to protect themselves. This is why you may find your daughter wants to stay friends with the girls who are causing the grief: it is a survival tactic. “At this age, friendship groups are in a constant state of rupture and repair, and your teens do not yet have the skills to cope, so our job is to show them what those skills could look like and to stay close even though they are separating from us,” explains Gleadhill. “We can offer the idea that this is likely to happen to everyone, not just them, and they will have to endure it – not ‘man up’ – but at least know it may happen.” “We should avoid going on the defensive, slow down and listen, don’t overreact, and be curious,” she adds. “Ask your child to name and describe the behaviours they are encountering: ‘Tell me about it’ rather than ‘This is how we fix it’. Establish what your teen wants the outcome to be before you attempt to contact the school, and avoid contacting the parents of the teen you feel is causing the issue. That never works out well.” Gleadhill points out that teens often won’t tell you what is going on, so you should stay observant to changes in their behaviour, especially if they start to avoid school or gatherings with friends. They may act out their feelings with moodiness or rudeness, so don’t react punitively to that behaviour – be patient and ask them how they are rather than reprimanding them. “Don’t download your wisdom on them,” she adds, “and don’t rush them through their emotions. Sometimes what you will hear will break your heart and it is tempting to layer your furious emotions on top of theirs, which is unhelpful. You may say, ‘I am so glad you told me about this, let’s keep talking,’ and ask what they want to happen next. Accept their choices and do not criticise or judge the child they are at war with; a child they may well want to stay friends with.” She points out that as long as there is no risk to safety, no violence or abuse involved, what you are looking for if you do contact the school is an “alliance of adults” who can agree on a logical way to make the friendship situation less upsetting for your child. All of this is, as Emma Gleadhill and Damour point out, a learning curve for your child. If you handle it with calmness and care, you are role modelling a way forward. How you talk about your friendships and other people in your life also models what a healthy friendship looks like, which shows your teen why the one they may be enduring right now is unhealthy. Damour tells me that the latest research shows that children in their early teens who have just one or two friends are the happiest. “The science is that having fewer connections is less stressful than being part of large groups, another fact we can share with our children,” she adds. I know I cannot take the pain of these upsetting friendship moments away from my teenage son or daughter, but what I hope I have done is show that it isn’t unusual to go through this, that I am always here if they want to talk and that I understand how complex being a 13-year-old is. And my final advice: stay off the parents WhatsApp groups while it is all going on! What exactly is happening in teenage brains? According to the US National Institute of Mental Health, while the brain stops growing in size by the early teenage years, it takes another 15 or so years before it is fully developed. The prefrontal cortex – responsible for skills, planning and making wise decisions – is one of the last regions of the brain to fully mature. Conversely, the amygdala, the part of the brain that controls emotion and gut reaction, matures very quickly, so it often has the leading hand throughout the teenage years, before an equally developed prefrontal cortex arrives to correct its impulses. Hence the moodiness, aggression, deeply felt slights and fight or flight responses. No surprises here, but hormones are behind a lot of extreme behaviour. According to a 2011 Harvard paper called The adolescent brain: Beyond raging hormones: “The adolescent brain pours out adrenal stress hormones, sex hormones, and growth hormone, which in turn influence brain development.” And sleep hormones aren’t immune, either. According to Bupa, sleep deprivation in teens is rife: “During puberty, the circadian cycle of teenagers shifts so they feel tired later in the day. This means that teenagers will naturally fall asleep later… Research has also found that teenagers produce melatonin later at night than adults.” Hence the 1am bedtimes and groggy mornings. Lorraine Candy is the author of the Sunday Times best seller Mum, What’s Wrong With You? You can find her parenting teens and twenty somethings newsletter here.