This is Ask Lisa, a podcast to help people understand the psychology of parenting.

Psychologist Dr. Lisa DeMore, author of two New York Times best-selling parenting books, takes your questions.

And I'm co-host, Rina Ninan, a journalist and mom of two.

Some of what we talk about comes from raising children ourselves.

Most of the time, I'll be getting answers to your parenting questions.

So send your questions to Ask Lisa at Dr.Lisademore.com.

Episode 59, My daughter is the mean girl. What do I do?

So how's school going?

You know, it's good.

It's good.

Both of my daughters have settled into their rhythms, which I realize takes a really long time into the school year.

How about on your end? You always say that, that it takes a moment.

Like we assume within a week or two we're set, but you always say this, that it takes some time.

Why is that?

Yeah, I think that especially right after such a disrupted period, finding their friends, finding who they want to be with, figuring

out how to divide up that time. I think they have to sort it out. And I think they're getting there.

I think they've sort of gotten there. But it's been a tough comeback, Raina, I think, for everybody.

Tell me about it. It's still ongoing, it feels.

You know, something you said really stood out to me a couple weeks ago when you were saying,

like, developmentally, a lot of kids have been out of school.

So you're learning social skills and things from possibly 18 to two years ago, like 18 months to two years ago.

And one of those is we talk about sort of the mean girls in class

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