Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Mean Girls

I never understood why little girls can be so mean. And no matter how confident you think your daughter is, she can still be crushed by one of those uncaring creatures.

We spent a good part of our family dinner tonight trying to convince our oldest daughter that the heartache of not being invited to play with a group up girls at after school care was just not worth it. She was so sure she hated day care and didn't want to go there another day.

It is so hard to watch your little ones suffer through life's most challenging moments and wishing you could be there with them throughout the day coaching their responses and reactions to these everyday encounters. (I had to hold back my urge to call the director of the day care and complain that other kids were being mean to my precious baby.)

The only thing we can do as parents is take advantage of those "teaching moments". We told her that if those girls didn't want to play with her then they probably weren't worth playing with anyway. And as soon as she found some other (more inclusive) friends to have fun with, those girls would be probably be jealous. We also reminded her that she always has a best friend in her sister and that her sister is always there for her.

I am not sure how convinced she was, but at least she has some options to ponder.

One of the most important things I think we can teach our kids is kindness. Kindness comes in many different forms, and as long as we have kindness we have love all around us. So, I suppose it is up to all of us moms to make sure our kids are kind to others.

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