Conference moira::parenting

    From the other side of the fence is my view.  In the beginning of the
    school year my we requested that AJ, in the first grade, walk home with
    PJ a third grader. His school is grade 1 - 3 only.  It was during the
    Holly Peranian thing and I was a little more than paranoid to say the
    least.
    
    As the year progressed, we found (I actually observed) PJ would come
    out of school and just take off, leaving AJ to basically walk alone. 
    Now my son is one who won't take NO easily, and kept insisting tha PJ
    was supposed to walk with him.  Usually PJ would decide to take another
    street home (there are two possible routes to PJ's home and only one to
    our sitter's home) leaving AJ jpretty much to walk alone.  When AJ
    would insist that he was supposed to be walking with him, which wasn't
    a problem initially, PJ would be outright mean.  He pushed him into
    snowbanks, and puddles, into and over fences, call him mean names,
    including "baby first grader".  So we simply enforced with AJ to walk
    home carefully, not talk to strangers and to walk as close to the side
    of the fences as possible. (our town doesn't have sidewalks generally). 
    I guess I see it from the other side.  No it isn't right but kids are
    cruel sometimes. 
    
    Perhaps your child could be friends with the second grader either while
    in school or she could visit with your daugter after school.  Our
    school will allow a child to go with another child if a note has been
    sent spelling out the arrangements in advance.  Allowing phone calls
    after school would also be a possibility, they could talk without
    anyone else knowing.
    
    Hope this helps.
    Lyn

    I realized I had left out something key here.  We had asked PJ before
    making arrangements, to walk with AJ to the babysitter's home.  The
    sitter knows PJ both from the neighborhood and her CCD class.  PJ
    agreed to help, but things soon changed, as I described.
    

    
    No answers but some feeling of support.....
    
    I'm interested in both sides of this...
    
    	How do you help your child understand why it's not good
    	to perpetrate this behavior? How do you give them/teach them
    	strength and support?
    
    	How do you help (or not help) when they're the object of this
    	behavior?
    
    Jamd

    Please alse see note 441 about coping with other kids' cruel behavior.
    
    Laura

    Could it be that the older kids are trying to "test" your daughter to
    see how much power they have over her?  As a kid I was left out a lot,
    and a lot of times because someone else would harass someone who wanted
    to talk to me, so they ended up not talking/playing.  I tend to be a
    loner anyway, so it wasn't so much a big deal, but it Did hurt.
    
    If my friends tried to give me a hard time about wanting to be friends
    with someone else because they were "different" somehow, I would walk
    away from the original friends.  It seemed to me that if they were
    making fun of the "other" girl for some reason, then what was to stop
    them from making fun of ME for some equally meaningless reason, to
    other kids.  A lot of times it cost "friendships" - but those people
    really weren't my friends anyway.  A lot of other friendships were made
    as a result of it, and I ended up being friendly with more people who
    readily accepted other people's differences.  And THESE are the
    friendships that matter most.
    
    Even now, 13 years after high school, I am friends with one of the
    first girls who just let me choose my friends in school, and didn't
    laugh because those other girls weren't pretty/popular.  And those
    not-very-pretty/popular girls are the ones who meant the most to me all
    through school, and they're the ones I think and wonder about now.  Not
    the popular girls (heck, I can't even remember their names!).
    
    Perhaps you can impress on your daughter that the value of friendship
    (and relationships) comes with ACCEPTING things/people the way they
    are.  Her older friends should accept that she's friendly with other
    people - they don't have to like her younger friend, but if they're her
    friend, they should respect her right to have other friends.  Did that
    make sense??  
    
    And if all else fails, maybe you can arrange "secret" times for the
    girls to get together that the older girls won't know, and won't harass
    her for it.  Kids are so cruel!
    
    
    
    

    A thought I had as I was reading some of the replies.
    
    You child needs to make up her own mind about what she is to do, but
    along the same lines, you as a parent need to give her the information
    she needs to make that decision.
    
    My suggestion would be to have a discussion with her about why the
    other kids are pushing her to do what they want, does she want to be
    their puppet, how does the 2nd grader feel, etc.  She needs to know
    that whatever decision she makes, she made it will as much
    understanding as she could.
    
    It may not be pretty, but she has to own this one.
    
    -sandy
    

    A thought, maybe, if this might help:
    What about talking about the difference of 'having' friends, as
    compared to 'being' a friend? 

As adults we ignore minor differences in age, but as kids I remember things
being rigidly defined by age. Kids spend most of their time segregated by
age, and a year of difference seems to them an impossible gulf. When it
represents 10-20% of your entire life, including your physical and emotional
development, maybe it is. Plus, kids are always encouraged to show how
well they are growing up. Associating with younger kids might seem to be
regressive to them (though we see that it is grown-up to show signs of
responsibility to take care of the younger ones).  

    Thanks for the helpful advice.  I had my daughter read .5 and she
    thought it made a lot of sense.  I also told her that the 3 kids who
    were pressuring her would ultimately respect her more if she did not
    give in to them.
    
    My daughter stuck by her younger friend but paid a dear short-term
    price for doing so.  The situation was resolved by the 3 kids mothers
    stepping in and correcting their kids behavior.
    
    
    re. 9 -  Minor differences in ages are probably more important in
    school than in the neighborhood, where age differences often get
    overlooked because of a lack of kids ones own age.
    
    Harold

    Harold,
    
    Glad to hear things have worked out for her!  I hope this helps the
    friendship between the girls become stronger.
    
    Patty