Middle School Friendships

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My daughter has a strong need for friends and very intense feelings about people she considers friends. She always had playdates and sleepovers in elementary school, and needed to have some help navigating the social scene, but things seem to have escalated in middle school. She doesn't seem able to identify the level of friendship people have with her, and she makes strong statements about how much she loves them, how they are her best friends, how beautiful and awesome they are, etc. They usually don't reciprocate and after a while they'll ignore her, tell her to stop talking to them, or get very insulting. When that happens, she tells them they're mean or stupid, then starts another friendship by telling the second friend how mean the first one is. They're usually older than she is, teenagers who are acquaintances of her older siblings. I'm wondering how to help her understand what's going on in these relationships without making her feel even more rejected. BTW, texting / posting / chatting seem to be a special interest of hers, and I'm cautious about limiting her exchanges. J.

This age is a doozy, even with NT's. I think I'd start by telling her just that. Get her to understand that a certain amount of fickleness and difficulty is going to happen among all kids this age. If she feels it is less unique to her, she might be more willing to come to you for help in learning tools to deal with it. One thing all middle school kids seem to be desperate to feel is that they are not alone, and that extended to my AS boy.

The other thing they do is develop their own secret code that parents are excluded from, or that is what the kids tell me.

Unfortunately, however, I can't offer much help beyond that. I've found the social antics of young girls to be very difficult to understand, and I struggle getting my daughter through it. She just started 6th so I haven't had much chance to see the dynamic for girls that age yet; my experience is with a boy, and boys are different. Up until now I've felt pretty strongly that most of the girl dynamic has been a desperate jockeying for relative position, everyone trying to cement friendships with their preferred people even if that means pushing someone else out.

Thanks, DW.
You're right... Since she has just been dx, I think I've been playing the "Because you have AS (bla bla bla)" card a bit too much.
She did talk to me a bit about some drama, but then said that she doesn't like to talk to me and would rather talk to her sister. Oh, well, I shouldn't take it personally, I guess. I've decided to focus on some neutral classroom strategies for now in our conversations, seeing if we can come up with anything she thinks would help her.