Believe it or not, cliques can begin forming in the preschool years, and bullies can emerge from such cliques. Parents have more input and weight into the creation of these two difficult issues than they may imagine. If you participated in cliques or bullying in your youth, it's not too late to help work to change them now.

How Cliques Form

It starts at playgroup, when a bunch of parents all from the same neighborhood (and therefore the same economic background) get their children together to build friendships. It becomes more cemented when certain girls are placed on the same team or group at the tender age of six or seven and taught they are a “team,” together for better or worse. Slowly, without parents realizing it, cliques begin to form. For parents, this can all happen without you even knowing. What parent does not want his or her child to go into their school years with a solid group of friends? The problem starts when girls of similar backgrounds and with similar activities get the message that those backgrounds and activities are the reason they should be friends.

Schools and teachers work to break up such groups, in some cases trying to place them in different classes and lunches, offering them a chance to mingle with, meet, and hopefully befriend girls from other walks of life. But it's not easy for schools to make happen when parents rally so strongly behind such groups and teams. That's easy to do: you like your daughter being part of a team (or program such as band or theater) particularly a winning team. But here's a novel concept: what if her sports team were not the center of her universe? And what if your friendship circle were not made up entirely of parents of those team/programs? Again, your actions, in this case reaching out to befriend many types of parents from diverse backgrounds, can send your daughter a signal that she can have friends from different backgrounds, and that cliques are not necessary for a good social life.

Bullying by Girls

The classic bully is seen as the big, tough boy who shakes down kids for their lunch money. Girls are more adept at stealth bullying. From middle school on, girl bullying, also called relational aggression, happens every day. Rather than throw a punch or shove a girl, female bullies are more likely to do something emotionally painful to another girl. Sly comments about attire. Blocking someone from sitting a particular — or any — lunch table (a vast amount of female bullying happens at school lunchtime — pay attention to what your daughter says about her lunch hour). Girls can also carry on “whisper campaigns” that bully other girls with innuendo and rumor, and they are quite good at picking on a girl for what she wears, how she talks, and even what color her hair is. This bullying is painful in a way a punch can never be, and can leave scars for a lifetime.

If your daughter is the victim of bullying, she may not share it with you. But you may suddenly see changes. If she refuses to go to school, has vague aches and pains, begins to dress in a drastically different way, changes her eating habits suddenly, or retreats socially, be on the lookout for bullying. If you suspect your daughter is being bullied, you must notify the school, even if your daughter protests. Bullying today is a crisis situation (think Columbine and the Williamsport, Pennsylvania, shootings — both incidents stemmed at least in part from bullying). Even verbal bullying needs follow up.

That's not to say girls never take part in physical bullying. Girl fights are as much a part of teen culture today as boy fights are. Schools report an increase in fights between girls each year. It is more important than ever to talk to your daughter about physical violence and condemn it. Remind her that it is a criminal offense and try to teach her how to walk away and seek help.