At just 6 years old and in 1st grade, my daughter, Annie, shared with me her first (to my knowledge, anyway) “girl bullying” incident. At lunchtime, her group of (girl) friends would not let her sit with them. I asked her (almost in disbelief), “What did they do? What did they say to you?” She told me, “They just said, ‘you can’t sit here.’” I wondered with her, were they mad for some reason? Did she say something that may have offended them unintentionally? Maybe there was no room at the table? These young girls just simply decided that they were going to control who sat at that table that day and who didn’t. “What did you do then,” I asked her. In an upbeat response she said, “I sat with the boys, Mom; it was fun! Then we played soccer at recess!” I was proud of her resilience and willingness to adapt to the situation.
Fast-forward now to four years later (and it does happen that fast, so hang on)…
One evening last year when my daughter was 10 years old and in 5th grade, she approached me – somewhat upset - as soon as I got home from work and said, “Mom, Lily (not her real name) told friends at school that she is not going to invite me to her birthday party because of the way I dress.” “Really? She’s not inviting you for that reason? You’ve known each other all through elementary school and have always been friends. Did something happen?” Annie responded, “No, Mom. We always get along. Other friends told me that’s why she’s not inviting me.” Wow, I thought to myself – I sure hope I handle this right.
When our children hurt, it is almost instinct to do or say something to protect them, to make them feel better, to take their pain away. It is tempting to make an excuse for the bad behavior, something like, “Oh, Honey, I’m sure she didn’t really mean that.” “Your friends must be mistaken.” Or worse, saying something like, “Well, Lily must be a loser for saying something so mean about you! Who needs a friend like that?!” You know, fighting fire with fire. The problem is this approach never works for solving problems. It never has and it never will.
Annie is very bright and incredibly sweet; she’ll share anything with anyone, help anyone with anything, she’ll save her own work for home while helping others in the classroom and she’ll make you laugh all day long. She’s an excellent athlete and loves every sport. She plays every sport, too, except football – because her dad and I won’t let her play organized football at school – but she plays with her friends during lunch break. She wears athletic shorts – you know, the basketball shorts variety – to school every day with a carefully chosen sports t-shirt and tennis shoes. When it’s cold out, she’ll wear sports pants over her sports shorts, only because if she doesn’t, she is not allowed to go outside to play. Her hair “styles” consist of straight down or, if she wants to fancy it up a bit, she’ll wear it in a ponytail. Of course, I think she’s adorable and I would not change anything about her. She’s a gem, a mother’s dream child: Caring, loving, considerate, responsible, hard-working and funny.
Getting back to the birthday party problem, however, Annie and I talked about what it means to be superficial. I explained that it means being fake, phony, not genuine and insincere. We talked about what we value in our friendships and family relationships and that if we have one or two really good friends in our lives, well, that‘s a lot and we should be thankful to have those truly good friends. Annie has always had good friendships, so coming up with names of caring friends was not a problem. Her real friends do not care that she wears sports clothes every day, in fact, they rather embrace her for it.
After the talk about superficiality, I challenged Annie with this, “You know, Sweet Pea, you have really cute ‘girl’ clothes in your dresser drawers: cute jeans, pretty tops and girlie shoes. You have bracelets and earrings, too. If you want to, you can choose to dress differently tomorrow when you go to school and maybe you’ll be invited to that birthday party. Or…you can continue to dress the way that you like to dress, knowing you are not going to be invited to that party.” I told her, “You don’t even have to decide right now, just think about it tonight and see how you feel about it in the morning.” Annie finished her homework, we had dinner, watched a bit of TV and then went to bed to read before lights out.
The next morning my first thought was wondering what Annie would have on when she came out of her room ready for school. Would she be Girlie Girl or my usual Sports Girl? She walked down the hallway in her usual basketball shorts, MSU t-shirt, tennies on her feet and a big smile on her pretty face. All I said to her as she left for school that day was, “Honey, you look really good today.” She shot me a kiss and said as carefree as ever, “Bye, Mom. Have a good day!”
“You, too, Sweetheart!”
Linda Tallman
Jack’s and Annie’s mom, Parent Education Coordinator at Family Service & Children’s Aid, Jackson, MI and GS Collaborative member
