I took my daughter to a bouncy castle place (a big place with five giant bouncy castles). My daughter found a couple of girls her age to play with and was absolutely jumping for joy with excitement (literally). But later I observed one of the little girls, "Emma" (maybe about 6 months older) started pushing my daughter and telling her she was a "baby"). My daughter adamantly hollered back "I'm not a baby!!" Emma then told my daughter to "go sit over there" and my daughter, feeling somewhat overpowered followed her instructions. I had to intervene a few times because Emma started getting a little too physical. Emma's mother was too busy taking care of a newborn and another little girl to notice what was happening.
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I guess my daughter is a little to young to process all of this because she kept running back to play with these little girls (the other little girl "Kayla" seemed to be a little nicer).Wow, I was surprised at my reaction to all of this. I wanted to pull Emma aside and give her a time-out and a lecture on playground etiquette since her mother was unavailable to do so - but of course I just smiled and made sure things stayed amicable. I kept wondering if I was expecting too much of kids this age, but then again, if that were my kid I would have put a stop to that behavior immediately. The longer it's allowed to go on, the longer it will go on. When we finally left to go home, I asked my daughter if she had fun. She said "yes, but those girls didn't like me". I explained to her that sometimes other kids aren't very nice, but I always wanted her to be nice to others.
I'm sure we'll never see these girls again because this bouncy castle place is quite a distance from our home, but I have these visions of Emma growing up to be the primadonna prom queen who leaves destruction in her wake. I guess kids learn to work all this stuff out on their own. I recall being totally unimpressed by those "mean girls" throughout my school years. I hope Emma's mom can find the time to give her daughter some direction. I'm sure Emma will have a happier life (and those in her midst will too) if she can be taught how to play with everyone. All of this just reinforced in my own mind how kids need to be nutured and directed at a very early age to do the right thing.
