Daily I am shocked at how mean little girls are to each other. Daily I have to listen to my 4 and 5 year old (girl) students tell each other: "I don't like you, you're not my friend anymore." Then the next second they'll turn around and be BFF's again. Shocking, at 4 they already have this "mean girl" act down.
I love having a girl, I really do. She's the little girl I always dreamed of having. However, since the day she was born I've been dreading the mean girls she'd come across during her lifetime. I figured she'd have at least until she was 7 or 8 before she encountered this for the first time...nope it happened at the ripe old age of 3 1/2.
There is this girl in her class who is the epitome of mean. She yells daily that nobody is her friend and that everyone is a baby...so on and so forth.
The other morning I was helping Dylan get dressed for school in her usual dress. For the last few months she's refused to wear anything BUT a dress. Help me if it was a rainy day trying to get her into pants, thankfully it doesn't rain too often here.
I never really understood where this obsession with wearing dresses suddenly came from, until the other day:
Dylan: "Every body's going to like my dress huh mommy?"
Me: "Yes, you look so beautiful in your dress."
D: "Nobody is going to tell me I'm a boy right mommy?"
M: "What? Where is this coming from? Who told you that you were a boy?"
D: "B told me that I'm a boy. She's not going to call me a boy now, right?"
I was so mad. I can't believe that at 3 years old a little child can be so cruel. I was so upset for Dylan, how heartbroken she must of been that somebody she called a "friend" could say such a hurtful thing to her. I know she's going to hear people say things that are a lot worse about her in the future. Still I can't shake how I'm feeling about this little girl. Hopefully we'll both grow thicker skin by the time she's a teenager.
10 comments:
That sucks. Kids have to deal with so much at such a young age. Its scary and upsetting. I just wish they had it a little easier.
Dylan is so sweet and it breaks my heart to think that someone could be mean to her. Pretty soon Justin will be old enough to protect her:)
Oh man, that sucks! Poor Dylan! My first instinct would be to get angry at that other little girl too, but she's 3 1/2. Mostly I feel bad for her and what kind of home environment she must live in that teaches a toddler that being mean is ok. I know ultimately Dylan will be alright because she's got great parents with great values. Hang in there Dylan!
I thought the same thing this week when Ry kept asking me if I was going to laugh at him. Apparently some kid at the Y was picking him. Made me so sad. Seeing just a tiny fraction of what he'll have to deal with made me wonder how we ever come out with any self-esteem at all. I hope you and Dylan can make it through the coming years relatively unscathed.
It's not just girls, Aiden has come across this kind of behavior from the boys too. They are friends one minute and hate each other the next. He comes home saying things like "E said he doesn't want to be my friend anymore." It breaks my heart. I think I need thicker skin too! I think the kids get over it faster than we do.
I went through it all with my niece already, but I'm still dreading it with Ellie. In kindergarten, there were 3 girls who used to pull my niece's hair because they were jealous of how long it was. It took us weeks to find out why she wanted to cut her hair so badly.
Kids can be mean little creatures when they want to be. Be proud that Dylan didn't retaliate with meanness of her own.
Kids suck. They really do. They find the sweetest, the nicest little girl and treat her like crap. I know, it's mostly the parents fault for raising such an evil little child. But eventually, that little girl is going to grow up and unless someone changes her, she'll be doing it in High School.
I know just how you feel. When Saskia was only 2 or 3 she had a girl at preschool tell her that her favorite dress was ugly and she refused to wear it again. That was the beginning of our mean girl experiences.
Since then the girls have experienced a multitude of nasty comments and even some violent behavior. I'm ashamed to say they've even made the "You're not my friend anymore!" comments themselves. It's a hard world, I don't know the solution to making it any better.
Wow! That's terrible! I have a fear of mean girls too. And I remember being called names in kindergarten that hurt my feelings (and one of them was being called a boy!). Poor Dylan. She's lucky to have a mom like you to turn to so she can rise above it.
i've had the same experience with lily. it starts so early now, and it scares me. i don't want to raise a mean girl,so whenever she does something like the "not your friend" act, i get on her immediately about it. but it hurts so much when it's directed at her. i need to thicken up my skin as well.
Yeah, it's definitely really sad that she seems to be learning that being manipulative and getting negative attention is the only way to make friends. She likes being on control maybe?
That is extremely sad. I hope lil D can get past it soon. She is a beautiful little sweetheart.
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