Mama don't do drama...

In our family, while we place a high value on being confident enough to speak up for yourself when the need arises, we also place a high value on mercy, kindness and love. We strive to see and love people as we believe that Christ does, and the fact is that some folks require a little more effort in doing this than others.  

I have always held the belief that when it came time for my sweet, impressionable little girl to start creating friendships on her own that I would not "forbid" her to play with this or that child, but rather walk with her in teaching her to navigate difficult people and the situations that often come with befriending difficult people. It's preparation for the rest of her life.  

Doesn't that sound so smart?

I surely thought so, but I wasn't counting on first grade girl drama.

Oh, the drama! The kind of drama that my 6 year old started dealing with in first grade has been the kind of stuff that creates successful soap opera script writers and memorable Jerry Springer guests. Has anybody rocked their child in the quiet of the wee morning hours during those first few months of infancy and dreamed of how their sweet little angel would one day shake her finger as though there's something stuck on it at another human being, wagging their head around while strings of bleeped out obscenities pour out of her heavily painted face on national television? No one? Okay, so now you know why I had a change of heart. 

In kindergarten, Abby befriended a little girl who seemed perfectly fine, and she talked about her everyday. She never complained about arguing with this child, and I was so happy that she was having fun with other kids at school, and navigating the beginning of outside-of-the-home relationships with ease. 

But something happened with this little friend over the summer that changed their relationship the following school year. (We'll call this child "Sue" for the sake of simplicity and protecting this child.) 

Almost as soon as first grade began, the Sue drama started. Abby would come home crying because she couldn't make Sue happy. Abby is a people pleaser, and failing to please is just miserable for her. Sue would also forbid Abby to play with anyone else in the class, which sounded pretty typical of drama-heavy little girls, until Sue started using phrases like "you hate me," and "you just want me to be sad," and my favorites, "I wish I were dead/ never born." Sue would also hold her friendship status with Abby hostage to get her to do whatever she wanted, even when Abby was afraid for her own safety.

Whoa! I was not ready for this in first grade. I mean, seriously not ready.

Now, I need to make it clear that I made Abby's teacher aware of what Abby was telling me about Sue, and her teacher was aware of the situation, and was doing what she could to be fair and helpful, and in the interest of both girls. Obviously, my primary concern was for my own child, but working with children in the mental health field for four years made me sensitive to what may be going on with Sue as well. She is still a child, clearly seeking some kind of attention in all the wrong ways, and someone in her every day life needed to be aware of her outcry.

Once I had done my due diligence for Sue, what was I going to do about my own child? 

Have her change classes? No. They would still see each other on the playground every day.

Tell her not to talk to that child at all? No, but I seriously considered this one. That would hardly be the demonstration of love, mercy and kindness that we want to instill into her heart.

What started out as tears after school was turning into her echoing those same statements in our home to her brother and to me. There was a growing hatefulness and emotional manipulation that I had never seen in her before, and that we DO NOT encourage or condone in our home, and I knew where it was coming from. It was clear that she was too young to deal with this kind of friendship successfully, and that had me on high alert.

There was this internal struggle between the desire to "let" some things happen to her so that she can grow and learn, and the knowledge that she is still a very young child, and not quite developmentally ready to deal with the kind of tension and stress that highly manipulative friendships bring to the table.

So I prayed, I corrected, and took every opportunity to talk about how to be a friend. I told her about the girls that I was friends with all through life, and the way that we treated each other.

I told her about my childhood best friend, Rhonda. Rhonda and I met in first grade, and were glued at the hip for most of our young lives. Rhonda never told me that she wasn't going to be my friend because I did something that she didn't like, and the biggest argument that we ever had as children was about the existence of Santa Claus. (She was a firm believer, and I was not, which became a source of tension every December.)

Rhonda and I all ready to go to the Snowball Dance our senior year in high school.

 I told her about my girlfriends/ roommates in college that stuck with me even when I wasn't always there for them. The young women who loved me, and prayed for and with me, and encouraged me to grow in my relationship with God. I told her about how we believed in each other's dreams, and how they played a part in my becoming the wife and mother that I am now. 

Crystal, Amy & Stephanie in the front, and Amanda, myself & Alisha in the back after a reunion weekend a few years after college graduation. I love and miss these ladies so much!

Alisha, Jill, Joann, Stephanie, Crystal, myself & Amanda following Steph's Senior Recital. She's holding daisies because we corporately decided that they were her favorite flower, although she would have picked lilies. We were awesome friends like that. :)

And then I told her about the women that I am friends with now, and how we interact. I reminded her of how Miss Stephaney is so sweet and generous to our whole family, and will make the hour long trek to see us as often as possible. And also of Miss Kara and Mr. Justin, who love her and her brother to pieces, and who love our company almost as much as we love theirs. We've talked about Miss Michele and how she has always loved our family, and has invested in our dreams anytime the opportunity presents itself. We are blessed to have so many amazing people in our lives, that there have been opportunities to discuss healthy relationships at every turn. 

The point of telling her about these relationships is so that she not only sees those relationships, but also hears us acknowledge why they are good. I do not want her very first friendships to be so full of manipulation, guilt and selfishness that she begins to settle into the idea that that's how all relationships operate. My philosophy is this: If my children can learn how to have and identify healthy relationships in life, everything else will follow. 

They will have the confidence that they need to speak up for themselves in a respectful way because healthy people in their lives have made them feel that they are worth being heard.

They will know who and when to ask for help without fear of rejection or judgment because healthy relationships have taught them that true love and acceptance is unconditional.

The security that comes with healthy relationships will give them the space that they need to take leaps of faith because they are surrounded by those that believe in their dreams.

These are the kinds of things that I dream of for my sweet little fresh-faced girl. 

In the beginning of this post, I had stated that I had a change of heart in regards to forbidding my children to be friends with certain children, but I am happy to report that things have gotten better with Sue. Had they not gotten better, the solution to the problem would have resulted in a compete severing of the relationship in one way or another. I will never allow my kids to try to tread water for long periods of time when they are just learning to swim, and I will not allow them to remain in relationships that they are not ready to handle. There are still some issues with Sue from time to time, but no more tears.

After we started talking about what was going on with Sue on a regular basis, Abby started standing up for herself. When Sue would say, "If you want to be my friend, you will...", Abby would respond with, "If you were really my friend, you wouldn't ask me to do that." She started coming home and telling me about how she would talk with Sue about what it means to really be a friend, and that she would let Sue know that if she had never been born, Abby would be really sad. As much as I love seeing a great report card come walking through the door, this is the kind of thing that really makes this mama proud!