Mean girls...

How do you know if its bullying or just girls being girls?

Maisie attended an after school dance today. It was odd to both me & Robert that they would have a "dance" for 3rd-5th graders, but we decided we would let her go. He was a little uncomfortable with it, but me being the mother that doesn't want her baby to feel left out on the first week of school convinced him it would be okay.

*note to self-listen to your husband *

The dance was supposed to end at 5:30. Well, at 4:15 I get a phone call from a crying 10 year old begging me to come pick her up. I begin to ask why and this is the response I get, "ALL the other girls are being mean to me, and I'm ready to come home." How do you respond to this?

I can remember being 10. My best friend always wanted to play with my older sister and her friends. I on the other hand wanted to pretend we worked at McDonald's and play drive thru. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why she didn't want to do what I wanted to do. I remember feeling hurt and jealous that my sister seemed to ADORE this girl but hate me. You know how the big sister-little sister thing goes.

So, I'm trying to imagine how Maisie is feeling as I go get her from the dreaded dance. She gets in the car, explodes into a teary story of how "this girl" wanted to play with her, but she's too bossy and Maisie didn't want to play with her, so "this girl" decides to push Maisie (is it true, I don't know because I wasn't there and kids tend to over dramatize the story-especially girls) and so Maisie then decides to tell the teacher then cry and then call me. Did you get all that?

What do I do now? My first instinct is to track down "this girl" and push her too. I'm pretty sure that would end up very badly. So, my next thought is to write a note to the teacher and principal explaining how very disgusted I am with their lack of supervision. But then I remember working in both a school and with the youth at church. It's impossible to see, hear, and witness every single thing that happens. (And I happen to know some letter writers who make me want to vomit in my mouth because they expect one person to be able to supervise 30 kids by themselves and can't even imagine why that is so hard to do! But I'll save that story for another post.)

My best thought was that I would sit down with Maisie and just talk to her about it. Find out how she feels about it. Ask her why she thought the other girls did such a thing. Tell her that she did the right thing in calling me and explaining to her that sometimes other people just make bad choices. She seemed to understand and dried up the tears.

Let's hope we don't have a mean girls situation on our hands.