Let's ponder for a moment the meaning of friendship.....to a 10 year old........little girl. Let's ponder another moment why children, especially girls, are so mean and cruel and jealous and hateful. We try to teach our kids not to be this way but is it just inherent? Human nature? Ingrained in us? I'm not certain I believe that. I have seen my kids go out of their way to play with a child with a disability, or with a child who no one else would play with.....don't get me wrong I am not saying that they are perfect little darlings, oh seriously far from it, but I don't think they are cruel. When I do see behavior that I don't like or is hurtful I try to address it immediately and deal with it putting them in that person's shoes to see how they would feel in that certain situation. Ok so why do I bring this up well my daughter is really having some issues with her "friends" and I am just torn about what to do for her. My instincts tell me to lay into her "friends" and give them a good "what for" and how lucky they are to be friends with her because she is so much better than they are BUT then there is another nagging voice (which sounds alot like my daughter's) telling me she will figure it out for herself and that I need to just be there for her. Its difficult though because we want to keep them from making mistakes but I guess in all honestly this is not the best thing to do because without mistakes they really will never learn.
On to the story......Skating Party tonight and she wants to go. Her friend Lindy wants to go but doesn't have a ride. "Mom can we give her a ride please?" Of course we can...."Mom, Lindy's mom said she could go but she isn't giving her any money to go, can we pay for her to get in?" I feel sorry for the kid and her mom appears to be a real winner so I say yes. We pick her up and head to the skating rink and then the fun begins. I pay for them to get in and rent their skates and her friend immediately says "I need a different ticket for speed skates".....Allie and I look at each other. She says again "I need speed skates I ALWAYS get speed skates and they cost more". I can see Allie is embarassed so we just walk in. They go get their skates and are putting them on and her Lindy's is complaining the whole time about how she needs these other skates. I finally asked her what speed skates were and she said they were like "that girls" and points and says "you go faster". When I saw the skates the only difference to the one's that she had were that the "speed skates" looked like tennis shoes. I told her just to put her skates on. They started playing a game at the rink called Wipe-Out and Allie wanted to skate but Lindy wouldn't skate with her because she said she hated the game. About that time Brenda, a girl in their class who is friend's with Lindy but has a problem with Allie, came over and Lindy immediately started ignoring Allie who was obviously crushed. She went to stand between them and tried to get Lindy to come skate with her but she blew her off. Allie came over by me and I told her to go skate, play the game and I would watch her. It went on like this for the rest of the night with Allie begging me not to say anything to her friends. I respect that because I do think she will figure it out for herself eventually and I will always just be here for her to pick her up or offer a shoulder to cry on.
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