When does high school behavior move into bullying?

Yes I think it has.

This other girl seems a coward to me. But then, most bullies are.
It seems like she wasn't able to contain her negative feelings towards your dtr to between the 2 of them. Instead, she's involving others to do her dirty work.

Wow I so get that feeling that she couldn't talk during a presentation, for fear of it being disected.

Would it be possoble for you, your dtr, and the other girl meet at a neutral place like a coffee shop, and you just sit back and moderate?

That way, the kids may not feel like they are getting both sets of parents all involved in their bidness. It also may may them feel a bit more grown up, meeting to discuss something rather than shaming on line. But, at the same time, there's the fall back security of an actual grown up for if things get childish.

Maybe start with "I'm here to listen, but you two need to talk about this as adults, not children, get to the bottom of this, and resolve it.

Then again, what do I know?

Good thoughts Chai - but knowing this girl it would not work, nor I highly doubt she would accept.

I have actually met her and her mother and some of her family members. This is a weird dynamic here. I will try to be as unbiased and stay to facts as I can.

The first I met them - my daughter was invited to her birthday. This girl also invited a few other girls from school. It was going to be at a very nice restaurant about 15 minutes from us. Sort of between where she goes to school and where they actually live - which I found out later where they lived.

Any way at the time my daughter did not drive so I drove her there. I went into the restaurant with her even though this girl came out to see her when we drove up. I introduced myself to her mom. There was a full table there - with a few cousins and other various relatives. It was a little weird her mom did not give me eye contact and just kind of mumbled. This girls aunt was a much more friendly and we made a little small talk. I thanked them for inviting her and went on my way.

Ok so this is the "different" background. After I got my daughter from the party my daughter and I asked her if was good and stuff - she later told me - this girl's cousin said - hey D you are diversifying! Your first white friend!

Weird - so yes, when we got to the restaurant the entire table was black - no big deal - they are family and they are African American so yeah they would be black. Not sure if it was then - but at some point I find out this girl and her family really never associated with anyone white. So now I understand why her mom didn't really look at me - she had no experience with white people. Well at least I learned and understood why she might feel awkward.

Since then whenever there was a school function or gathering that both girls were involved with D would see me and come over and hug me. I always thought how cute. And if her mom were around she always wanted her mom to sit near me and try to get us to talk. I would always make some small talk and her mom seemed nice enough and opened up a little bit - not anything deep.

Then not sure how the fall out started but it seemed race-based. I will try not to be biased and note that obviously most of this stems from what my daughter said so her point of view - I know there was an uproar from this girl because my daughter had her hair braided. This is a cultural black thing from corn rows so my daughter should respect it and not wear braids. My daughter said something along the lines (perhaps with colorful language) but basically screw you - I wear braids if I want to. I do not think that it helped that my daughter was dating an African American boy at the time. She pretty much made it clear that because my daughter was white she should not participate in anything that would be considered anyway in "black" cultural. It seemed pretty difficult in that certain things my daughter would do would be deemed racist like wearing braids or having a black boyfriend or listening to a black artist.

So things like that escalated and my daughter basically decided she was not someone to be friends with. This all started around last spring right prior to all the covid stuff and crap like this has been going back and forth since.

I really think that you should report this Instagram site to officials at the school. It’s purpose is to torture others. Why? Because it’s things like that can escalate Into something else, and can cause hurt feelings , even a crisis such as suicide. This is bullying at its very best.

About your daughter: she can ignore this and respond with a laugh about it. That diffuses the power of a bully. I don’t know if the two things (your daughters nemesis and the Instagram account) are related but it sure shows how very mean children can be and the necessity of a thick skin.

They are related in the sense it was used at this particular time to "bully" her.

To let you all know I did report this. I wanted to see some opinions now granted after the fact, to see if I was over the top.

For my daughter, my husband and I did talk with her. I agree about diffusing the power of the bully, but quite honestly it is easier said than done. Since writing this I read up a bit about bullying and unfortunately my daughter's has traits of someone that would be a target. Her sensitivity and her anxiety make her an easier target for a bully.

Before though I reached out to the school, and before I found out about this account she tried to talk with the counselor/head of student affairs or whatever his title is. He seemed to just say it was her word against this girl (although she has many screen shots of this social media type bullying even before this instagram account).

She also has a very trusted teacher she goes to when she has an anxiety episode. Being a small school they have allowed her to leave class if she needs to and this teacher's room in a sense is her "safe" place. She hasn't had to use it much, but this teacher has been an excellent resource.

When she found out all the happened this teacher even said they will not do anything - they are afraid of being branded as racists. So she reached out to a former collegue who worked their previously and she said which person to reach out to - he happens to be the soccer coach (he is a teacher too) whereis all this first started up again was at practice. I guess he was fuming. He was going to lay into these girls (there were three involved in that "conversation") all three were conveniently late for practice in which he had to leave early yesterday. So will be interesting to hear about today as they cannot avoid him forever.

Oh and he cannot be targeted as racist as he is himself African American and does not put up with crap.

Take it to the school. Just about every school now has policies about online bullying. The school will bring in the other family including parents.

I did - I sent an email with the screen print attached of the Instagram account.

Issue now is at least one of the boys is now given my daughter a hard time - yelling at her in the hallways and after he was pulled in to discuss this account he comes back to class and says thanks a lot to her.

I got an email back today saying they are investigating. He changed the subject line to "Student Issue" from mine which said "Cyber Bullying". This was after I called him out ("Dean of Students") when I wrote to the head of the school that nothing was done yesterday..

The "helpful" teacher my daughter goes to see thought nothing will be done which seemed like a downer to my daughter especially after having this one guy that was a friend of hers causing more angst with his comments.

I did write back to let him I appreciated his attention to this and let him know we are not looking for any students to get into trouble, we simply want this behavior to stop. I let him that it appears that the students need to be re-educated and understand how hurtful and harmful this behavior can be.

I also let him that my daughter is now being retaliated and that allowing this will simply discourage any other student to report a bullying or harassing situation going forward.

The tone of his response sounds to be like he is more concerned about a lawsuit or anything negative towards the school rather than concern about this incident. He very carefully worded things.

I will let it play out - but I did let my daughter know to take a copy of anything she gets and focus on the other kids are supportive and kind.

But she is showing the signs (if I did not even know about these incidents) of being bullied - not eating, saying she is sick, grades slipping....

Yeah I agree. Much easier said than done.

I do think getting the soccer coach involved is an excellent idea. I like that he doesn't take any crap.

I'm really interested in what happens with that.

This is tough.

That's a tough one, especially in the current climate with BLM - no matter what you do, it will be marked as racist somehow.

My daughter was bullied in middle school from a tough girl living close by our house. That girl was pure evil, she first wanted to befriend my daughter and when that didn't work, she tried everything to aggravate her and she even egged my house. After I had a stern talk with her mother, she had to clean up the mess she created and I told her that I'll call the police the next time. She was afraid of me enough to not do damage to our house again, but the bullying escalated and one day my kid just had enough and punched her.

Both kids got suspended for 3 days and not that I'd promote violence in any way, but the bullying stopped right then and there. Nonetheless, we had a long talk and my kid knew that she was wrong to punch her, she was cornered by that evil girl and 2 others and was just frightened and lashed out.

That doesn't help you, of course, but perhaps you could talk to the mother and invite her for a cup of coffee and talk with her. Maybe they can become friends again after all. If her mother and you work together it should be doable.

She actually is not concerned about the physical part ... meaning she has no fear about this girl hurting her physically as she would hold her own. She doesn’t want to fight at all. She just wants the talking about her and the internet stuff to stop .. that emotionally bullying is what hurts and seems to be so cruel with girls.

The BLM thing is what I think is preventing having a civil conversation unfortunately a movement that is supposed to help a particular group is causing a hold back to have a conversation like this.

I don’t want to get into too much details but this girl is full of anger by her reactions to this... she has sworn and yelled at teachers ... I honestly rather have no interactions with her at this point . We just all want this emotional stuff to stop.

The coach said nothing which is unlike him. I suspect he was told not to say anything.

Hmm..It seems bullying goes well past school age. Except then it's called CYA.

What is funny.. funny strange ... is it seems there is more put in place to protect adults in the workplace as far as harassment and bullying than in schools. Every year I need to take an online class and pass a short quiz on this subject at work.

Ironically I just completed this course a couple of weeks ago. Short and long on the work subject if anyone says or does something that makes someone else uncomfortable it is wrong and considered harassment and any manager that heard or sees this is obligated to report it.

The workplace takes this stuff seriously and we don’t do the same for our kids.

That is in part why I answered the email as I did. I wanted to make it clear I am not out for blood ... I just want the school to step in and put a stop to it. Make it clear as it is noted in the student handbook this behavior is not tolerated.

It seems (to me at least, viewing the world from a childfree perspective) that people have become a victim to their own designs.

So many are litigation happy, entitled, and terrorified of of saying anything to a child who is, bottom line, simply misbehaving.
I mean, they might become traumatized for the rest of their life. Especially for hearing "stop that"

Of course now I'm obligated to say "not all children are like that", and I'll probably still get called on it,

Oh sure, you see the kids in the hallways, at their school clubs and activities, trying to get into college.
But there is a Lord of the Flies undercurrent that is palpable.

It's true that one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch.
Your girl unfortunately hooked up with one.

So they other day - they had an "assembly" - I would take it - this was virtual with each class - it involved the high school kids.

My daughter did not want to talk about it as she said it was uncomfortable for her because her words "everyone knew it was about me." So I am not sure specifically what was said - as she just does not want to talk about it any more.

But late that night we got an email - it went out to all parents of the high schoolers.

In the email it stated that they discussed this recent harmful online and social media behavior in school today. That this was brought to their attention and that several of the students participated in harmful and hurtful online activity causing emotional damage to other students. They discussed how this can cause harm to others - and cause division and how it was recently happening at the school - they spelled out the account name and asked parents to check their child's phones for following or participating in any harmful social media. and how this is against school mission policy and vision.

They stated in the end that any liking, commenting, posting on this page or similar or personal posts that are demeaning to others will be met with consequences.

I did not personally hear back - not sure if they are going to investigate further - but I hope this makes my daughter feel better that at least the school administration seemed have her back. And I would not doubt other students were targeted on this account at some other times so maybe it will help some others knowing this is wrong.

I told my daughter those kids are generally good kids that got caught up in this and did not think - will think now. They really down right mean ones won't change - they will just hide it better. But I think she will feel better at least if some of those nicer kids are not commenting - it seemed that hurt her more.

Its funny because every year I need to take a class on bullying/harassment at work. And I just happened to have taken it a couple of weeks ago. They do all these skits where one guy is a complete a$$ and will come into a room with co-workers saying racist, sexist or just stupid insulting and inappropriate things. Pretty much the take is - if someone gets offended by what you say, do or even just a picture hanging up - it is wrong. So I watch and complete the online class and learn how this sort of behavior is not acceptable in the office and in some cases illegal. Stuff like that and then take a test at the end to make sure I was paying attention.

So yeah even in the office we need to have these classes as adults because some adults are stupid. As a manager I can get in big trouble if I see, hear or whatever anything - even not within my team and do not report it.

Ug. Your talking about this need for classes/inservices on this stuff gives me PTSD.

Not the fact that some people might really not be aware what they are saying is seen as inappropriate, for legit reasons.
It's the way it's presented. As if all aggression, bullying, sexist things are going to be so obvious.
That's not how it works.

Yeah, so everyone's butt is covered because you had the class. Yay.

Any changes on the home front with your girl and this ex-friend?

Yes I am watching it and the clips are almost always a white guy saying something racist or sexist or homophobic. And then a black woman will come in and speak up for the victim. I am not belittling the fact that crap like that happens just the skits are way to stereotypical. I wonder if they even realize it - kind of ironic.

So along these lines - I am interviewing for an open position. We have not had one for quite a while - especially as most positions have moved overseas. They decided to keep it here so I find out I find I need to interview at least a certain number of "diverse" candidates. In other words as my boss put - a non-white male. I am like how the h*ll am I supposed to know this - of course all my interviews are over the phone. So I need to guess if they are from a non-white group without seeing them? So I need to make sure even if the candidate is not the best fit to interview a certain number from a diverse group. It did not spell that out in the training video.

But any way do you realize October is anti-bullying month? Did not even know that was a thing. It popped up on my facebook today.

Don't think my daughter really has spoken to the offender. But she seems fine. She has a game this afternoon so I will find out if the offender says or does anything.

Oh man. That is so jacked up.

I mean, your boss would get in trouble for even saying this, and you could for as you said, potentially "guessing" what someone is. You might not even the the chosen gender correct.

Also, even if you were doing face to face, are you supposed to be keeping some kind of informal check off list?

Oh yeah. You bet That was not covered in any training video. Maybe you should get ahold of the black woman who speaks up the victims, and ask her what to do.

I hate the thought of even doing a facetime with someone for the purpose of seeing the person. It gives me a sick feeling.


Hopefully your kids bully is, or will get tired of this, and move on to someone else.
It's a shame to think of it as "well, it'll be somebody elses problem then" but, sometimes it's the best you can hope for.