Q:

How to teach an 8-year-old to navigate two groups of friends who forbid friendship with members of the other group?

My 2nd grader is coming home talking about how there are two 'teams' (her term) of girls who talk about each other, are mean to each other, and try not to allow 'their friends' to be friends with the girls from the other social team.
My daughter doesn't understand this, and while she doesn't like everyone (naturally) she is very upset and is having trouble navigating the social scene.
I have talked to her about being friends with everyone, that that is okay and the right thing to do, that talking about other children is not right and against our religion.  She agrees and wants to do this.
How do I teach her how to do this, as it is not easy for adults, therefore more difficult for an 8-year-old.  
We talked this morning about playing with one 'team' at morning recess and one at afternoon recess as she does not have the power to solve the problem, although her desire to do this is great.  
Suggestions on how to navigate this type of social scene (which I see as bullying from her perspective) would be most appreciated.

A:

I think this type of bullying or social castigation is especially common in female circles.  It's interesting that you posted this because one of our local morning radio programs spent a large portion of the show a couple of weeks ago discussing bullying, the new movie Bully that's just come out, and they had some bullying experts on the show who pointed out some very important points about bullying.
First and foremost, they stressed the difference between bullying and conflict.  Both situations obviously make you uncomfortable, but bullying only occurs when there is an obvious  imbalance of power or strength and one child has difficulty defending him or herself.  Conflict, however, involves antagonism between two or more people, and it sort of sounds like what you have here is more conflict than bullying.  However, from my experience, in female groups bullying and conflict sort of go hand-in-hand (in other words, both groups are involved in spreading rumors and calling names which is bullying).
Now, there can be a slippery slope from conflict into bullying, especially if your daughter is concerned that if she spends time with both groups of girls that she will ultimately be ostracized by both groups--and social isolation is a common form of bullying.  Is she receiving negative feedback from either group because she's trying to hang out with both groups?  If not, then I think you're doing the right thing by encouraging her to be friends with girls of different groups and helping her manage her anxiety about that.  
However, if her friends are starting to turn on her because she's trying to be friends with girls from other groups, then that is something that needs to be addressed differently.  I don't have a great answer, but I can recommend what the local radio show told its listeners (and I know this will work for you since you're here in the United States).  They recommended that you contact your area Anti-Defamation League who has gotten really involved with its anti-bullying campaign and has a lot of stuff on its website about bullying.  If you can't find the answers on their website, you can contact them directly and speak to someone about your situation and they might be able to tell you how to handle the situation better.

