It's War!

Helping Your Preteen Survive Friendship Fights

By Kelly Burgess

Wendy Martin of Rockville, Md., remembers the summer her daughter, Sam, was in sixth grade. She came home crying one afternoon toward the beginning of summer vacation. Two other neighborhood girls, girls that she'd hung out with since first grade, decided they wanted to be a duo and that they no longer wanted Sam around. At first, Martin distracted Sam with activities, but when this was still going on two days later, Martin contacted the mother of one of the other girls.

"She told me quite firmly that she made it a point not to get involved in her child's relationships," Martin says. "I explained that I was worried that Sam would be miserable all summer, but she refused to budge."

While the situation didn't last all summer, Sam's friends did exclude her for several weeks. When she was unable to recruit the other mother to help, Martin simply counseled her daughter to be polite to both girls when she did see them around the neighborhood, resist the urge to team with one against another in case it might be a trap and to try to keep busy with other activities. Eventually, one of the girls went on vacation and the other began to seek Sam out. When the third girl returned, they resumed hanging out together as they always had, but it was a brutal few weeks for Sam.

What happened to Sam Martin is such a common scenario in the preteen years that most mothers can probably remember similar situations in their own childhood. According to Margaret Sagarese, author of Cliques: Eight Steps to Help Your Child Survive the Social Jungle

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• Talk about it!