Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons (2003, Paperback, Reprint)

Little girls have been told by their mothers to act "nice" even before they were toddlers. By the time they reach grade school, research has found that girls often have developed subtle ways to express their aggression/anger referred to in this book as "alternative aggression".

This alternative aggression is a more subversive and hurtful method of bullying: dirty looks, passing notes, whispering, exclusion from social groups. The quest of being in the "popular" group starts young. In an effort to curry the favor of the most "popular" girl or group, many girl friends will purposely hurt their long time friends to gain even the temporary favor of the prevailing clique. A girl may fall out of favor by no other reason than she doesn't dress "right" or worse yet, that she thinks she's "all that"! Sometimes the girl who is suddenly out of the clique has no idea of why! The reasons can change on a whim.

While boys bullying is more open and noisy, resulting in the teacher taking action, the quiet bullying of aggressive girls often goes unnoticed by the overburdened teacher with an overloaded class. Such bullying has no racial or socioeconomic boundaries.

This covert form of bullying can affect a girl's self-esteem and often affects their success in school, sometime even contributing to thoughts of suicide. Your daughter or granddaughter isn't the only one going through this. There are studies being done on how girls bully as we speak!

This book is easy to read and, unfortunately, we may all recognize somebody that we know/knew in the case studies or the way they act / react to this form of subversive bullying. Hopefully, it will give you an idea of what is going on in your daughter's life that, perhaps, she's not telling you.

The book also contains a section on what parents should/shouldn't do or say. It's a tightrope that parents and teachers walk in a situation like this!

The price was decent but you can tell that the cover of the book has water damage. The pages were bent.