As a girl, growing up I had some terrible encounters that I can remember QUITE clearly of girls at school just being downright mean, cruel and nasty to me. I remember many times being in tears explaining to my mom what the girls had done and her always doing her best to calm me down and console me. Well, now unfortunately for me the role has been revearsed and I'm trying to explain to my dear daughter at the age of 5 why girls can be mean. She came home crying today because a neighborhood girl had been mean to her and was making fun of her - Luke was an awesome big brother and came to her defense and brought her home in tears. Boy, my heart just aches for her. WHY ARE GIRLS SO MEAN???
Boys don't do this. Now, of course there are boy bullies out there and "not so nice" boys, but girls I have found (some girls) just do anything they can to cut other girls down, insult them, and just level them- why is this? I know our school counselors office is always full of second and third grade girls due to this fact, always having to squelch one incident after another.
I tried my best to explain to Lauren that this girl will not have many friends because of her actions (this girl has a history of this) and that she doesn't want friends like this anyway. I told her to stand up for herself when girls do this, don't just hide away and cry, say "stop treating me like that!", etc. if she feels that she can, or just ignore them the best that she can- don't give them the justification of seeing you upset. BOY that is a HARD lesson to try and teach to a 5 year old. I told her that Jesus made her a special little girl with a special heart and he will give you wonderful friends that will treat her the way she wants to be treated (she of course instantly came up with an example of a sweet little girl who is her friend).
Don't you just want to put your kids in a bubble and shelter from all of this!?! Why can't all kids just be nice to one another ... .oh yeah, that stupid sin nature in all of us.......... lovely!
I'm so sorry. Yes--girls can be SO mean. It upsets me so much. And the sad thing is, it doesn't get better once they get older. There are times that I still encounter mean girls. :( I'm not looking forward to having to deal with this when I'm a mom... But that's awesome that Lauren was able to immediately think of a nice girl that she's friends with :)
ReplyDeleteOh how sad! I can't believe - she's only 5 and starting this already! So sad! Kisses for Lauren
ReplyDeleteOh Lesley,
ReplyDeleteI know exactly how you feel. You don't know me, but I know you from the DIS boards. (your reports were very helpful when I planned our Disney trip last fall.
I got tears in my eyes thinking about your little girl & the meanie who made her cry. My daughter went through a lot of this when she started at a new school for second grade. One of the girls said right in front of her "I don't like Emily, she's boring, she never gets in trouble" So my sweet girl was made fun of for being quiet and good mannered.
It really makes me wonder what other parents are teaching their kids (or not teaching them!!!) I think what you told Lauren was perfect. We tell our kids about Jesus making everyone different, how the kids who don't treat kids nicely might not be treated nicely themselves, but really how much does an 8 year old understand.
To top it all off we send our kids to a Catholic school, where you'd think everyone was kind and respectful, but my son (12 years old) has been called the following: a b**ch, a girl, and kids have tried to stuff him in his gym locker!!!! It's soooo hard to know what to do.
Hopefully these people our babies come in contact with will be few and far between. God Bless you and your beautiful family.