Mean Girls

Any mother of a girl knows how terrible one can be to another. The sad thing is, how young this junk begins!

When my girl was in second grade I bought her a cute little purse that she could wear over her shoulder. She was delighted with her surprise and wore it to school the next day. After a few weeks, I noticed that her beloved purse remained slung over the back of her chair in her bedroom, untouched.

When a few more weeks passed and her purse gathered dust, I asked her about it. She tried to shrug it off by "not knowing why", but I pressed. As it turns out, some mean girls at school came up to my girl (who was also new at that school) and teased her about her purse. Her response was to love it because she did really like it and it was from her mother, but keep it at home.

I asked her if she truly liked that purse. Yes, she assured me, she really did. Then I asked her why what she liked could change based on who asked her questions. That's when she paused. We talked about how it is okay for us to like things even when friends or others do not. We had a great chat about how it is okay not to match others and like what we like, not to mention shrug off being mocked.

A year later, we had moved states and she was once again a new kid. Two socially important snots strolled up to her at recess and began to tell her they didn't think the way she dressed was cool. My beloved third grade daughter looked these controllers in the eyes and said, "Well, that's fine, because I didn't dress for you, I dressed for me." Yep, she walked away, and yep again these terrors even tried to befriend my girl. This time, she had more preparation. She even came home and told me word-for-word what took place. Oh, did I ever affirm her!

Boys are a different "mean", and I will write more about that later, but for this blog it will suffice to say that when we moved with our second grade son across country, the mean boys in the new neighborhood hung his bike in a tree for starters.

I have told both of my kids that I would rather have someone be mean to them, rather than them be mean and harm anyone else -- ever. My son gasped and asked, "You WANT people to be MEAN to ME??" Nooooo, I replied...never.

Each of my kids has been taught that we do not want to EVER leave a mark on another person, especially emotionally. If someone even tries to hurt my kids, we have the faith and the framework to pray through the attempt. And that we have. We do not want to be the cause of someone else's short term or life long pain - ever.

As a fierce Mommie, I even called a parent of an older after-school daycare kid who told my girl she "sucked". She was just in 2nd grade. I shared this with the mother - that their child had introduced ours to a word we had carefully blocked. Now this was etched on her soul forever. She promptly hung up on me. I changed my work schedule so there was no more exposure to that afternoon well-known daycare. For anyone who knows me, the fact that I woke up at 5:00 a.m. speaks volumes.

I post these illustrations to encourage parents to double-check in with their kids. We all want to fall asleep at night believing our kids are wonderful. Let's be sure we know the whole scoop.

Find out if someone is hurting them emotionally, verbally or physically. Ask those careful and leading questions to learn the story.

Find out if your child is the mean one. Ask those careful and leading questions and do not be afraid to find out that you might have the mean kid. The sooner this is addressed, the shorter the pain for any other child including your own. And, if you find out to your disappointment that you have the mean kid take the time to find out why they are acting out and appear to enjoy hurting others. There is something else going on that needs attention.