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Welcome to Round three of the Parenting
Roundabout podcast for the week of May twenty

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ninth. I'm Catherine to Lecco,
and I'm here with Nicole Ritics Hello and

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Terry Morrow. Hello. We're moms
of teens and young adults, and when

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it comes to parenting, we've been
there, done that, bought the T

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shirt. But we're still waiting for
that day when we'll reach the finish line

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and have no further need to lay
down in a dark room with a wet

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rag over our eyes worrying about something
or other. Wednesdays come plained day here

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on Parenting Roundabout, and today we're
complaining about mean girls. So Nicole found

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this advice column, So Slight has
an advice column called care and Feeding that's

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like parenting related stuff. And this
question was awful. It was a parent

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talking about how their adult daughter,
who's like twenty one or something um was

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so mean to basically everyone, I
mean, her siblings, her siblings,

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romantic partners, other people in her
high school. It just sounded like an

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awful person. And this this person, this parent, was like, what

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can I do about this awful child
that I birthed? Yea, So it

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was really sad but raised more more
significantly, Yeah, what did you do?

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What did you do? And the
answer was like, this girl needs

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therapy, And basically was what the
advice was, because I mean the parents

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were trying, you know, they
basically disinvited her from family meals because she

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couldn't, you know, because she
made it so miserable for the other siblings

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and she just was not getting it
so well. But so then we thought,

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you know, we could we could
discuss mean girls we have known or

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our kids have known, or possibly
have we been. I don't I know.

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When I was in like about fourth
grade, I had a run in

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with a group of girls that just
decided that they were no longer I was

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not part of the group anymore,
and you know, like moved my desk

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so that it wasn't by theirs and
all that all that's kind of stuff.

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But I was snot because there were
other girls in the class that I thought

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were you know, beneath me.
So I would rather sit by myself than

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you know, stooped to their level, which was ridiculous, of course.

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So I feel like I've had the
same experience where people were mean and excluding

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to me. But then I was
also mean in excluding to other people.

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So and maybe that's just a natural
phase the girls go through. You know,

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I'm just sorting yourself out, I
guess, right, But sometimes it

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seems so clear that the people who
are being mean to you are bad and

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unfair, but you're just expressing a
preference. You're just you know, you're

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just being yourself. You're you know, if you happen they feel your mean,

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that's just you know, their perception. So it's hard sometimes, especially

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elementary school. I think by the
time you get to middle school, high

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school, I think you know who
the mean ones are, But for a

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while there were all it will mean, yeah, well have you had to

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deal with this as a parent.
Well, my problem as a parent is

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that, you know, with kids
with this abilities, With a daughter with

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disabilities, I could sometimes see that
she was doing things to cause people that

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caused people to be mean to her, and then I can also see that

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sometimes she was being mean to other
people, whether she knew it or not,

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And I could kind of always see
the other kid's point of view,

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which is a confusing and terrible thing
for a Parentid's wants, but it's like,

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well, you know, you're kind
of throwing yourself at that person and

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if they don't, you know,
I want to be your friend, you

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maybe need to not do that.
There's other people that would like to be

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your friend. I don't know.
It was very complicated, especially in high

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school, is very complicated, and
I you know, I don't think we

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ever had any significant bullying situations,
just situations which were is this actually somebody

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being mean or is this a misinterpretation
of social cues? Right? Right?

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Is meaningful? I mean, you
would like to think that everybody will just

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be nice to people who you know
have difficulties, but that's not That's a

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lot to ask of kids. Degree. I don't know, what did you

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guys? Did you guys have your
kids have run in with mean girls?

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Um? I mean not significantly.
Like Kristen's high school is very very big,

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so there's a lot of people that
choose from you know. So she

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had a core group, but she
there is a couple that were kind of

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the bane of her existence and she
was actually forced into in their senior year,

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one of the girls in her group
befriended the ultimate mean girl that was

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mean to Kristen and brought her into
the circle of friends. Yeah, so

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Kristen had to really like adjust to
that and play nice, and then as

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soon as high school was over,
it was like see yah, yeah,

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but yeah that was hard because this
other girl had not been very kind over

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the years. And I grew up
in a very small town and there weren't

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a lot of people to choose from. And I think that's one of my

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biggest complaints about small towns, is
that it's not all warm and fuzzy because

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there are no other options of your
peer group is so small, right,

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and so you're with those people from
candad Art and all the way through high

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school and things get nasty. So
yeah, anybody's singing a move into a

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small town with young kids. Don't
save yourselves, save your kids the trauma.

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Yeah, because people just get you
know, they get tired of each

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other, and then they form different
groups and oh it's like the whole drama,

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endless drama. Yeah. My daughter
had she had this pretty big friend

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group and at some point, I
think it was basically during her senior year,

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it like spractured, you know,
like a big chunk of the group

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just cut off another chunk. And
so so my daughter was, you know,

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she was in this group that wasn't
on the outs, but there were

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like four or five of them,
you know, so they weren't they weren't

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alone. So they named their renamed
their group text that was for their new

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smaller group called the Resurrection. So
good for them, Yeah, good for

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them. Yep. And they're still
all, you know, good friends.

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And the other ones some of them
have just like I'll be like, whatever

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happened is someone? So she's like, I have no idea. She won't

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talk to anybody like wow, me, or she won't talk to me,

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so I don't know what's going on. Wow, Yeah I know. Um,

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the boys is just a whole other
story. Seems like they I don't

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know. My sons had the same
friends since middle school, so there's never

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really been any major drama with them. But yeah, sometimes they are or

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they just deal with I don't know, maybe just deal with it and talk

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about it. But yeah, but
I think really just having people to choose

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from it's really really helpful. I
do have a friend whose daughter has strung

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both a lot, and even even
though it is a big school, um

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it's just been it's just been bad. And um, you know, both

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she and I, but for different
reasons, have been like cannot wait till

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this is so over. And you
know, we talked about how like we

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felt bad, like kind of wishing
away that that year, that senior year.

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But we both were like, can
we please just get to the Finnish

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fund right right and to the to
the point where her daughter was afraid or

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started having anxiety about going to the
graduation ceremony because she was afraid people would

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boo. I know, Oh that's
so sad. I know, oh yeah,

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I know that's that becomes that sho
and that stuff doesn't go away.

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It doesn't matter how m therapy you
get, just that kind of stuff just

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never goes away. But I think
the only redemption or the only kind of

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closure you get is if your mean
girl turns out to be kind of you

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know, just maybe a little less
successful than you in life. Yeah,

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yep, it's called karma. Yes, that's right. It's hard to be

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a mom through all of this too, because you maybe get triggered by some

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memories of yeah, yes, and
then you want to like fight this battle

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for your daughter, which you really
can't do. There's no place for you

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to fix this, right, And
also you know you're automatically on your child's

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side, and you really don't necessarily
know the whole entire story exactly, so

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that is very hard. Hard.
This is why, you know, if

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we could put a little camera in
the kid's backpack so everything goes on,

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that's all we need, you know, because it's like, you know,

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my daughter would say somebody was bothering
her, but I didn't know if that

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person was really intentionally bothering her or
just as a misunderstanding. If I could

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have known, then I could have
either explained to her what's going on,

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or gone and punched the girl,
and the nose wondered the other I'm going

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had a clear path. Yes,
once again making the case for the camera

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and the best surveillance is all I'm
asking, just seven surveillance purely for beneficial

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purposes. Yes, right, of
course, it's not out of curient interest

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at all, for the good of
the child. All those mean girls from

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our past have podcasts. I bet
they don't. Well, we better get

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ourselves out of here. Yes,
yes, where we see something means he

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writes a mean comment. That's right
exactly. We'll tune in tomorrow when we'll

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obsess about mementos we can't get rid
of and then on Friday to see what

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we've come up with for our Roundabout
round up picks this week. Find all

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our episodes at Parenting roundabout dot com
and talk back in the comments there,

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on our Facebook page or on Twitter, where you will find us at roundabout Chat