When girls bully

Has your child experienced being bullied by"friends?" Signe Whitson writes at Huffington Post about the subject.

By the early school years, most youngsters have experienced unspoken -- but not unsubtle -- acts of social aggression that shake the carefully laid foundations of their self-image and beliefs about friendship (Whitson, 2011). Kids benefit from having a supportive network of trustworthy adults who are informed about the nature of relational bullying and open to meaningful dialogue about real friendship. Though lingering social norms may still discourage kids -- especially girls -- from acknowledging conflict directly, adults can help kids rise above these damaging constraints by teaching them practical skills for expressing anger in constructive ways and giving them new insights to readily recognize incidents of cruelty disguised as friendship. No child should have to find their way through friendship challenges alone.

There is no one single reason to explain why young people bully each other, nor is there a definitive profile of what kind of kid will become a bully, but experts agree that social status is often a prime motivator of this behavior among girls. Girls who are overly concerned with popularity often engage in behaviors in which they try to increase their own social status by publicly putting others down.



Bestselling author and girl advocate Rachel Simmons (2010) explains that in the culture of young girls, social norms dictate that conflict cannot be waged directly. While on the surface, this "no sticks or stones" policy can create a desirable level of civility, it is critical for adults to understand that just beneath the seemingly placid surface often lies an unbelievably cruel layer of planned exclusion, whispered gossip, cyber-sent rumors, and hidden hostility that pierce a young girl's developing psyche.

Read more here, including a vivid example of how two "popular" girls bully another girl in the guise of being her friend.