I have learned a lot about life and myself in these past two days. I agonized over the E fiasco last night and awoke at 4:00 AM still furious and frustrated. I decided to email both E's teacher and the mom of the birthday girl whose party I would have thought E would have been invited to.
First off, E's teacher is the step dad of Mean Queen #1 (whom we will get to in a minute). The mom I emailed was E's 3rd grade teacher. (I kid you not about either of those facts). Even though it was 4:00 AM, I still managed to contain my fury and sent two brief emails. The email to the teacher stated that 3 of the girls in E's class had made sure to tell E the guest list of the TWO parties that she had not been invited to. I told him that as a parent, the fairness of this conversation aside, the fact that E was excluded from 2 parties sends up huge red flags for me as a parent that E is having difficulties in her social circle. Anything he could tell me about the situation in the classroom would help me help my daughter. I did not accuse his stepdaughter of anything, I did not throw blame around, I merely wanted to know my daughter's part in these difficulties.
My email to the mom explained that E was very hurt to find out she had not been invited to the party but she was more hurt that these 3 girls proceeded to tell her the guest list as a means of making her feel excluded. I had thought that Birthday Girl was E's friend and this all took me by surprise. I asked her to honestly tell me what had conspired and why these two were no longer friends. If E's personality is the problem I need to know so that we can learn from this. Again, no accusation, no anger slinging, just trying to figure out what my child's part in creating this situation was.
The mom replied that her daughter thought E didn't like her and has been coming home for the past month very sad at the loss of friendship. (Her daughter was one of the 3 girls going over the guest list for E.) She had "agonized" over whether or not to invite E but in the end hadn't because E had not invited her to her own birthday party. E's b-day party consisted of 3 girls, that's all.
Suddenly the light flipped on and after thinking it through and talking to E, I have a better understanding of my child and what she faces everyday. There are a group of 8 girls who have been traveling through school together since their 3 year old preschool class. 6 of these girls are from old CountryTime families, 2 are not. This group of girls is controlled by Mean Queen 1 and Mean Queen 2. They decide who is part of the group and who is not. It changes daily. They singlehandedly prevented E from having any friends save 1 girl from India her third grade year.
MQ1 and MQ2 are part of my theater program. Therefore they cannot completely ostracize E knowing I hold their future roles in my hands. But they are so manipulative and mean that they refuse to talk to E when the whole gang is together, making her feel like she doesn't fit in. When it is just the three of them, they get along fine. When a girl gets shunned from the group, the shunned girl always turns to E and becomes her BFF for a few days until they are allowed back into the inner circle and then drops E like a hot potato. E finally said enough.
So E started seeking out people NOT in the group and adopting the strays. She decided she no longer wanted to even associate with the MQ's. The 2 non-CountryTime girls of the inner circle (one being the b-day girl) who actually are friends with E felt left behind because E said she knew if she asked them to make a choice between her or the MQ's, she would lose. And this is the kicker, when E was talking to me about all of this, she took a big breath and said, "MOMMY....I want to be friends with these people but I am tired of being USED!! When they get mad at me and make everyone stop talking to me, I would rather spend the day alone then try to be like them." WOW...I have a smart kid.
So in the end, E decided to just let the 2 friends who are part of the inner circle know that she is their friend but she does not feel like she is part of the group. She knows they do want to be part of the group so that is fine but they are welcome to play with her when they want, but she is not going to seek them out when they are with the girls.
And I think that is the best thing for all involved.
And I think I have one kid who is going to grow up to be a great human being.
5 comments:
I think your kid is already a great human being.
I don't understand why it whould matter that your daughter's party "only had 3 girls" to the child who was her friend and was left out. Her understanding was that her friend had a party and she wasn't invited. And now she is returning the lack of invitation and the mean girls are directing the cruelty towards your daughter for their own pleasure. It isn't an excuse for the bad behavior but it is the probable explanation. I think most kids (and adults) aren't mean by nature but are weak in character---they may not initiate cruel actions but will follow the mean kids in a effort to be part of a larger group.
The difference between only inviting 3 girls is that she didn't invite the entire class of girls except for one. And she only invited one friend from her class. To me that's a huge difference.
And she didn't talk about it at school.
To you, it's a huge difference. To a child, probably not---she just thinks, "I've been left out." And later, "Since she didn't invite me, I won't invite her."
As everyone else in the class was invited, the mother made a bad call not inviting your daughter. And your child shouldn't have been teased and bullied. But they also weren't privy to the reason that friend wasn't invited to your party or the number of guests---therefore, how many children were at your party is irrelevant.
E is showing a great deal of class and an understanding of human nature well beyond her years. There's a lot of good parenting in that.
You acted with much more self control than I ever would, which is perhaps why you received honest responses from the adults. Well done. I just wish for E that the entire situation didn't exist, but as long as their are females in this world, there will be beyotches and mean behanviour.
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