Tuesday, March 27, 2012

The mean girls.....

I have to admit I'm a *little* protective of my kids. Just a little. I find it hardest to deal with when other little kids are "picking" on my kids.

A few weeks ago at the children's museum Finley was playing with a large puzzle. It was a puzzle of body parts. She had the brain and was attempting to put it in its right spot when a older girl (probably around 4) came over and told her she was too little to play with it and took it from her.

In comes insane 32 year old mother......ME!

I went over after hearing this conversation and attempted to take the brain back from the 4 year old while telling her as sternly as I can without screaming "she is not too young, give it back to her" and she held on tight.

I'm not sure what any normal parental reaction should be at this point. All I know is I am flat out wrestling with a 4 year old over a brain.

I won. Eventually. And gave it back to Finley so she could put it back in its spot. Finley took it, put it back and looked at me like I was a lunatic. I grabbed Finn and went to go play far far away from mean girl and instead of going away she followed us.

By now, I was annoyed. She came up to me and said "Do you know where my Mudgie is?" I said "What" and she yelled at me "I"M LOST!"

Great, now I have a mean lost girl on my hands! I ended up taking her to someone who worked there and they found her grandparents who apparently lost her? Either way, I am left wondering how I should have handled that situation? I'm pretty sure walking away was the mature thing to do but apparently I'm not mature.

Yesterday we took the girls to story time and there was a cute little girl who was probably 5 or 6 playing kitchen with Gillian. They were playing for a while and Gillian was having a great time with her. I was so happy that Gillian was playing nicely with someone.

Then another girl came over who knew the first girl and suddenly the little girl that was playing with Gillian decided to she was a baby and too young to play.

This time I let Gillian keep on playing hoping that they would all work it out but they didn't. They turned into mean girls. They would go to a table and take all the fake food with them, Gillian would follow and they would move to another table.  I finally decided if I sat there and watched anymore of it I was going to either cry for my poor little girl or punch a 5 year old  so I called her over and we went and played with something else.

I'm just not sure what I am supposed to do in these cases. The motherly part of me wants to go over there and say "HEY YOU LITTLE PUNKS don't be mean to little girls" but the other part of me says ignore them Erin, Ignore them.

Its hard to ignore mean girls though, I'm not the kind of person to keep my mouth shut.......you can thank my mother for that one. She was/is always walked all over by everyone. She raised me to be the opposite. Thanks mom. Thanks!

Now the dilemma is do I teach my girls to stick up for themselves when kids are being mean or ignore them? What do you do? I know my kids are too young to understand what is happening now but by next year they will know......and then the mean kids will annoy me even more!

I sure hope my girls are never the mean girls.

3 comments:

StaCey said...

UGH!!! My blood started to boil just READING that post. I'm not above stealing a brain from a four year old and chucking it out the window on her! If u want, I'll go with you and handle these kids so you don't look like a crazy parent? lol

That being said, I say you teach them to stick up for themselves, don't let anyone walk on them or be mean to them, and to never throw the first punch...

But always make sure you throw the last :) <3

Lisa (jaysmom) said...

I'd say you have to look at who your dealing with. Honestly Marcus is almost 4 and he can appear to be "the mean kid" at times. If you wrestled him for the brain then I would have words with you. LOL

What I do is talk to the other kid and explain why grabbing toys from other kids is not ok, and again I say this as a mother who has a child on the other side.

Now if said mean kid is much much much older than my little one, then we have a big issue. If a 9 or 10 yo is mean to my toddler we'd fight. But at 4 they are still little. Maybe no one has taken the time to show that child sharing, or playing with others? KWIM

Meghann said...

I just stumbled onto your blog and read this... agh!!! I hate mean girls.. its like some are programed to be mean at such a young age. I have a 3.5 year old and it seems we run into mean girls at the park, library, and shopping centers. My little one is not a pushover but she is sweet and wants to make friends. Recently we went to a park and my little one wanted to play with this very pretty little girl and she was just plain mean. Her father was there and he did not do anything and if they had not left I would have said something. I often sit back and watch and if it does not get resolved I step in. This last fall we had gone to another park and there were 3 older girls there and they pretended to be nice then started saying things like my little one was bugging them, and following them. My little one could not keep up and I could tell she was getting frustrated and sad. I went over to my daughter and told her not to play with them. They then were laughing and playing... i so wanted to grab them and tell them not to behave that way to little ones. I seriously felt like my blood was boiling... ive never been so mad. I eventually told my daughter... loudly... that just because you may be pretty on the outside it does not make you pretty on the inside. and that she did not need to waste her time with those girls because they were not pretty on the inside which meant they were not pretty.. oh wow.. did i get looks from them.. i think they even ran to their moms.. hahaha... ohwell.. like i said my blood was boiling. Later that day we talked about how she felt about it and that when she gets older to remember how it felt to be left out. We have some friends who have younger sisters and we talk about how we play with them too... that we dont want to be mean or leave them out. That their feelings are important. I also believe that children understand things before we give them credit for. My daughter knows when she is being mean or grabbing and she is not yet 4. Age is not an excuse for bad behavior. it sounds like you are doing a good job. I would say talking about other kids behavior lets your little ones know that you are watching and then talk about how that made them feel and how you expect them to behave. it also lets them know you are paying attention and have there back... as long as they are not being the mean child. Good luck!

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