This is pretty much what it’s been like at my house since school ended for the summer. Just so you know, if the issue is ever raised, I’m all for a year round school year.
Still, the bickering is preferable to the girl-drama that has been going on around here. There are three little girls in our building, in addition to my own DD – ages 8 & 9. Ideally, the two oldest and the two youngest would pair up and they’d all be happy and entertained. But you know that reality rarely works that way.
Instead what tends to happen is that one little girl defects and goes and plays either on her own or with a little boy. And two others compete for the affection and attention of the third (and oldest). Which always leads to trouble.
Lately, it’s been my DD who has been on the outs with them. It’s been a few weeks since she’s spent much time with any of them and I’m okay with that. Before, she would come home ranting about how she hated this one or that one – or crying because someone had said something nasty to her and excluded her from their play.
I try very hard not to get involved in these dramas, however angry it makes me to see DD hurt. They need to figure out how to deal with things themselves without parental interference. Also, what usually happens is they’ve long gotten over whatever the problem was and I’m still ticked off. If I were to involve myself the only thing that would happen is that I’d be on the outs with all their mothers.
It’s been harder to ignore recently though – particularly when the “in” girls add petty vandalism to their bag of tricks. Nothing they have done – so far – has been such a big deal. But what they don’t realize is that the items they are damaging are things that *I* bought and paid for so I have an interest in putting a stop to it.
So I did what I had to do. I told their mommies on them.
Girls can be such a pain in the butt with all their head games and cliquishness. (I know, I was a little girl once). This is one area where I think a man’s approach is better. Just slug ‘em and get over it…
Heh-heh. I remember when my sons were really small. I was always wailing on the older one to be nice to the younger one. Then one day I heard the hollering and sneaked down the hall to see what was going on…
The YOUNGER one was sitting on top of the older one slugging him and screaming at the top of his lungs. So I went in there and told them both they were on their own. Mom wasn’t going to be refereeing anymore. Heh!
Yep, I’m with you. You have to intervene when they start in with stuff like the vandalism.
by anny cook July 10th, 2008 at 12:03 amAnny – neither of my kids is blameless. Older and younger will twit the other without hesitation. Just for the entertainment of hearing the other scream. Or maybe it’s me they like to hear scream…
by Jenyfer July 10th, 2008 at 3:03 am