Queen Bees & Wannabes

What an excellent book!!! I can advise anyone with a teenage or pre-teenage girl to read this. Thank you so much Rosalind Wiseman, you are indeed a wise woman!

You probably know by now that I have been going through a fair bit of ups and downs with my 14 year old. I was down more than her :-) I always thought that she must be on the right track, but doubted myself every now and again. Now I can stop worrying about her always being on the fringes of some or other group. It is actually good to be like that - hooray :-).

Rosalind sums it up like this: "Group cohesion is based on unquestioned loyalty to the leaders and an us-versus-the world mentality". You see, that is the one simple reason why my girl is never part of the clique - she doesn't have unquestioned loyalty to the leaders and will not defend them against the world when they are in the wrong.

Rosalind's description of the different roles of girls in a clique is so spot-on , it is amasing. This is how she describes the different roles and I will quote the ones applicable to my daughter's group:

1. Queen Bee - The girl whose popularity is based on fear and control. She reigns supreme over the other girls and weakens their friendships with others, thereby strenghtening her own power and influence. She carries on describing traits of such a girl with dot points and every single dot point is applicable to the Queen Bee in my daughter's group.
2. Sidekick - The girls who is closest to the Queen Bee and follows her in everything. The difference between the two is that if you seperate the two, the Sidekick can alter her behaviour for the better, while the Queen Bee would find another Sidekick and begin again. The Sidekick in my daughter's group is the sweetest girl. She has even been with us on a family outing, but me daughter was asked to keep this quiet, because she doesn't want the Queen Bee to hear about it - she will be in trouble for doing something without the Queen Bee.
3. Torn Bystander - She's constantly conflicted between doing the right thing and her allegiance to the clique. She's honest enough with herself to know that she doesn't like what the Queen Bee does, but feels powerless to stop it. This is absolutely the description of my daughter closest friend in the group. This girl has another problem which contributes to her being the Torn Bystander. Their family is very close friends with the Queen Bee's family.
4. Pleaser/Wannabe/Messenger - When there is a fight between two girls or two groups of girls, she often serves as go-between. Her status immediately rises when she's in active duty as a Messenger. This girl in my daughter's group went through a whole list (made up by Queen Bee) of things my daughter are doing wrong. The items on the list were all things to do with my daughter not having "unquestioned loyalty to the leaders ". Hilarious in hindsight.
5. Floater - She has friends in different groups. She usually has protective characteristics that shield her from other girls' cruelty - for example, she's beautiful but not too beautiful, nice, not terribly sophisticated and avoids conflict. She's more likely to have higher self-esteem because she doesn't base her self-worth on how well she's accepted by one group. She'll be less likely to sacrifice herself to gain and keep social status. A perfect description of my daughter.

The knowledge I have gained through this book will give me the power to handle all these situations a little bit better, I hope. I know now that I was overly worried because I thought that she was the only girl in the world who doesn't seem to always belong. I have always told her that the Queen Bee was the one with the problem, but I have also always wrongly encouraged her to make a little more effort to stay with the group. She always seems to be happy to drift between groups and I thought that it was abnormal, but it's not! That is just who she is! I didn't like her attitude of "I can't be bothered to get involved in their fights - it's not worth it". Now I know she's right :-)

I am also using the book to show her why her friends are doing what they are doing. For example why her closest friend (the Torn Bystander) is not defending her in front of the others. She can now understand why some girls in the group trust only her with things like the codes to the combination locks on their lockers - when one is sick she will be the one asked to get books out and bring them home to the sick one - but yet again don't defend her when she is 'in trouble' with the Queen Bee.

I also realise now that I have to encourage her to do whatever feels right to her - her judgement is obviously better than mine in this scenario. Hallelujah!