Dear Michele - your columns are GREAT. There are many
of them I would like to forward by email to my
daughter who is a caring and compassionate mother.
Can you please add the email forward capacity to your
ivillage column? Thank you. Avonne Tice

Michele--Mean girls are alive and well in the heartland, too. My husband and I just withdrew our daughter from her neighborhood school. Once a vibrant, happy student, loving cheerleading and holding class office, she's always been able to shrug off the occassional mean-spirited comment, but this year, two weeks into classes, she came home with horrible stomach aches. Days later, she walked in the house after school and fell to her knees, crying, stating her stomach hurt very bad. We took her to the ER. Tests were normal. Making a long story short, weeks of medical tests later, turns out mean girls in a particular class were making her life hell to the point it made her physically sick. We have since enrolled her in our state's "Virtual High School". When friends heard this was an option, they've gone for it. Trouble is, due to an overwhelming response, enrollment is closed for the year. A school nurse told me she's seeing epidemic numbers of children as young as third graders on anti-depressants.

As an aside, I've taught middle school and the bullying was out of control at that school, as well.

Thank you for bringing light to a topic that deserves MUCH more attention.

Michelle,

The girls that wrote the 2010 "Slut" list
may have done it out of spite!How do we know that they don't get anything from a guy and they
are jealous of that!I'm not good looking but I'm
still pretty popular person,and some women are jealous of me,because of how I am as a person,I'm
very straight forward in what I say,but I can also be nice!To those that wrote the 2010 "Slut"
list,GROW UP,YOU MAY ACTUALLY LEARN SOMETHING GOOD IN HIGH SCHOOL OTHER THEN WHAT'S BETWEEN
YOUR LEGS!lINDA-SANJOSE,CALIFORNIA

I have encountered mean girls (grown woman) right here on I Village. These high school girls are learning this behavior from some where. Parents need to parent their children and themselves.

MEAN GIRLS learn from MEAN MOMS!! Where else do they get it from? I know alot of MEAN MOMS!!!

I was bullied at school, and it started in elementary and continued until 8th grade. Then, I got to high school and the bully didn't go to the same high school. BUT, some of the other girls did and word spread from them to new girls and it started all over again, except I wasn't bullied just ignored, talked about and laughed at.
I didn't care sort of, so I still tried out for cheerleading (the pretty girls didn't like that) and joined some clubs like Future Business Leaders of America & Library (nerds didn't think I was smart enough), but was never really accepted except for the teachers.
I was considered a shy, quiet person in class & during free time a wanderer, cause I didn't belong to A Specific CLIC. I knew girls/boys in all the clics and depending on how I felt that day I would hang with that clic.
However, I was not the only girl left out of things, there were about 4/5 others. So we started hanging out together. However this didn't happen until middle Junior year, so freshman & sophomore years were hard, but not terrible. When they picked on one of us, then we all were there for each other. We finally belonged!
After high school we didn't keep in touch. Lately, our class has rejoined and you can still see the clics online. Everyone acts like they are interested in you when you first join, but if you say something they don't reply or they'll just cut you off. SO NOTHING CHANGES EVEN AFTER WE FINALLY GROW UP!!!

Girls just don't learn this from women. Whether girls learn this from their mothers OR fathers, they become bullies. We all need to learn lessons in treating each other better. When we treat our children badly, as I think we all do at one time or another, we need to be big enough to say "I'm sorry." My mother could be a very mean person and hold a grudge forever. It made learning how to interact with people very difficult. My relationships with my own chldren, who are now grown, are very different. My daughter and I clash, but one lesson we both have learned is that it is okay and important to stand up for ourselves and others.

There have always been mean girls and kids who use peer pressure and intimidation to be popular. It's not always learned at home, although bad situations at home can cause teens to find "peer" families who are more accepting, give a feeling of belonging etc. Unfortunately, these groups are not always made up of moral, caring kids. They are often made up of kids who bully, slander and violate other weaker kids to get a leg up in the social pecking order. Peer pressure is an extremely difficult thing for most kids to resist. The nicest kids who seem perfectly normal may do horrendous things under peer pressure in a group. Middle school and high school can be a devastating experience for a lot of kids who don't feel as if they fit in and feel left out or unpopular. It takes a very strong sense of self and strong convictions to be the few who will literally walk away from group intimidation to participate in something that they know is inherently wrong. With the current divorce rate, parents who can't be home enough because of work obligations and growing acceptance of rude, aggressive behavior in the media, it's no surprise that teens (who are already going through feelings of vulnerability and angst in a world that promotes competition ) will join in activities that they know are wrong to be accepted by their peers. It's easy to blame parents. I remember kids who were absolute monsters and they often had parents who were extremely nice, caring people who had no clue about what their kids were doing.(and not because they didn't care enough to know- these kids were devious) They didn't learn this at home. They learned it from other kids. The solution: communities and schools should form groups and activities dedicated to promoting acts of kindness- volunteering at animal shelters, soup kitchens and projects to help the less fortunate globally. Kids are often very receptive to trying things that make a positive difference in the world. It's often left up to churches etc to do this. Not every family has an affiliation with some organized religion, but every kid could learn the value of kindness and helping others. If the "popular" kids could be enlisted, the rest would be easy.

The "mean girls" idea is a fallacy. Yes, girls can be mean. So can boys. Bullies are bullies, regardless of gender. When I was in grade school, I experienced far more teasing and name-calling from boys than I ever did from girls, and that didn't make it any better or worse. Let's stop the focus on the "mean girls" and focus on the general idea of bullying. Bullies are a huge problem, and part of the issue is deciding when to let kids stand up for themselves, and when to step in to keep things from going out of hand. Something like the Slut List is a clear sign to step in, but bullying can be more subtle too. Teaching kids to be assertive, but respectful (as the article said) is important, but the question is how do abstract ideas like that get taught?

Just because men have been acting like animals for tens of thousands of years does that give women the right to act likewise ? I always had a low opinion of men because I saw them as needlessly, excessively aggressive/violent and too arrogant. Over the last thirty or forty years, women have started to pile up dirty linen in their closets as well. I used to look up and admire women for their gentleness and kindness. (Where did I come from ?) I' m disappointed in the human race. It would be nice for me to look up to a group of people or better yet, a gender.

Many kids go through a phase when they don't seem capable of acting human. Twenty years ago, when I was an adolescent, dozens of kids in my school were so relentlessly vicious that adults had difficulty believing what was going on when I told them about it. The idiotic school counselor believed a girl who told her they were just trying to be friendly. I had to start beating people to a pulp to make them go away, but that was the one solution that put an end to it permanently.
Of course children are mean. Any small child might torture insects out of boredom, curiosity, and not knowing any better. Meanness gets worse as children get bigger unless parents carefully teach empathy. Many parents don't have the skills to do that.
I have no interest in ever going to a school reunion, but I smile whenever I hear that yet one more person from school has become boring and fat. Heh heh.

its best and nice article. Love to read more similar type of article.

My daughter and a group of her friends have been sexually harassed by older students since they were in the 6th grade. Comments about them have been written on walls, texted to them, my-spaced to them, and said directly to them.
It happens so often now, that the girls don't even react to it. They now think that it is no big deal. They laugh at me when I get upset and say that it is a big deal!