Preschoolers and "mean girl" behavior

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How/why are kids learning to act like this though? You can't stop a problem until you can identify and deal with the cause. I'm at a bit of a loss. With DD4, who I unfortunately see has a tendency to act like this, I try to emphasize what it means to be a good friend as well as what kindness means and why it's important. Not sure it's working, but also not sure what else would help.

Well, its powerful. Kids commonly like to figure out the extent of their own power. I think it starts when kids say things like "Mommy, I don't like you, which they do to test the reaction. Also, as noted upthread, sometimes these kids have older siblings. Finally, I don't like hearing it described all the time as "mean girl" behavior. Boys can be, and are often, just as prone to excluding and only wanting to play with one friend or ganging up. It so misogynistic to constantly refer to being mean as "girl behavior."

Oh FFS. Of course this is more prevalent among girls. If you are denying that little girls, older girls, and women are more likely to engage in verbal aggression, ganging up, excluding others, gossiping, etc., then you are burying your head in the sand. Boys (and men) tend to be more physically aggressive and have other undesirable behaviors, and people seem to be able to freely admit it and don't claim that it's sexist against men to acknowledge that it's so. Using the word "misogynistic" about this is over the top and inaccurate. Anyone who has ever been in a classroom knows that the behavior OP described is much, much more prevalent among the girls.

Absolutely true. It is almost unheard of for boys in the 4-7 age range to intentionally exclude others and to say the kind of things that the OP describes. Anyone who has spent any time with children in this age range knows this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, just don't do what I did, because I somehow taught my 4 year old to be mean like this.

I saw that she was getting possessive and upset over the whole "best friend" idea, so I told her that "friends are people who are nice to each other and have fun playing together. People can have lots of friends, and everyone in your class can all be each other's friends." Sounded right to me, but it backfired.

At a playdate DD and her friend "Larla" were playing some sort of pretend game, and both wanted the same princess dress (note, we have a ton of random dress up clothes so there were many to choose from). My DD says "Larla, you're not my friend if you don't let me have my favorite dress". I intervened in the moment and talked about the importance of sharing politely, neither kid ended up wearing that dress.

After Larla went home I talked to DD about how what she said was unkind to Larla and it wasn't very nice to only be friends when we're getting what we want. When we're frustrated with our friends, we should talk about how we're feeling and try to solve the problem fairly so both people are happy. Etc. Then, we had this snippet of conversation (slightly paraphrased, to correct grammar):

DD: Mommy, friends are people it's fun to play with, right?
Clueless me: Right.
DD: Well, I don't have fun if I can't be the prettiest princess. So Larla wasn't my friend anymore if she took the dress!
Me: . I eventually pointed out that it seemed like she had plenty of fun without that dress and she sort of agreed, but still

Great... I have created a manipulative and spoiled child. This will be fun to fix...

Your kid is a little brat, and I bet you laughed and acted like you thought it was oh so cute that she's "smart and clever". Stop coddling the little snowflake and let her learn that nobody will like her if she's bossy and spoiled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, just don't do what I did, because I somehow taught my 4 year old to be mean like this.

I saw that she was getting possessive and upset over the whole "best friend" idea, so I told her that "friends are people who are nice to each other and have fun playing together. People can have lots of friends, and everyone in your class can all be each other's friends." Sounded right to me, but it backfired.

At a playdate DD and her friend "Larla" were playing some sort of pretend game, and both wanted the same princess dress (note, we have a ton of random dress up clothes so there were many to choose from). My DD says "Larla, you're not my friend if you don't let me have my favorite dress". I intervened in the moment and talked about the importance of sharing politely, neither kid ended up wearing that dress.

After Larla went home I talked to DD about how what she said was unkind to Larla and it wasn't very nice to only be friends when we're getting what we want. When we're frustrated with our friends, we should talk about how we're feeling and try to solve the problem fairly so both people are happy. Etc. Then, we had this snippet of conversation (slightly paraphrased, to correct grammar):

DD: Mommy, friends are people it's fun to play with, right?
Clueless me: Right.
DD: Well, I don't have fun if I can't be the prettiest princess. So Larla wasn't my friend anymore if she took the dress!
Me: . I eventually pointed out that it seemed like she had plenty of fun without that dress and she sort of agreed, but still

Great... I have created a manipulative and spoiled child. This will be fun to fix...

Your kid is a little brat, and I bet you laughed and acted like you thought it was oh so cute that she's "smart and clever". Stop coddling the little snowflake and let her learn that nobody will like her if she's bossy and spoiled.

NP. Where on earth are you getting this? This poster has stated quite clearly that her plan backfired and has to fix it.

[Anonymous]

My DD is now facing this from some girls in her preschool. I have no idea what provokes it but DD makes it worse by giving the mean girl a reaction. She desperately wants this girl to like her. I have talked to the teacher about it and am encouraging my DD to ignore this mean behavior and find other nice kids to play with. I know the other girls mother and she is very nice so I don;t think its something learned at home. I talked to the teacher and asked her to help encourage my daughter to work on playing with other kids. I t think the sooner the other girls relizes she has no power the better off the all the other girls will feel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How/why are kids learning to act like this though? You can't stop a problem until you can identify and deal with the cause. I'm at a bit of a loss. With DD4, who I unfortunately see has a tendency to act like this, I try to emphasize what it means to be a good friend as well as what kindness means and why it's important. Not sure it's working, but also not sure what else would help.

Well, its powerful. Kids commonly like to figure out the extent of their own power. I think it starts when kids say things like "Mommy, I don't like you, which they do to test the reaction. Also, as noted upthread, sometimes these kids have older siblings. Finally, I don't like hearing it described all the time as "mean girl" behavior. Boys can be, and are often, just as prone to excluding and only wanting to play with one friend or ganging up. It so misogynistic to constantly refer to being mean as "girl behavior."

Oh FFS. Of course this is more prevalent among girls. If you are denying that little girls, older girls, and women are more likely to engage in verbal aggression, ganging up, excluding others, gossiping, etc., then you are burying your head in the sand. Boys (and men) tend to be more physically aggressive and have other undesirable behaviors, and people seem to be able to freely admit it and don't claim that it's sexist against men to acknowledge that it's so. Using the word "misogynistic" about this is over the top and inaccurate. Anyone who has ever been in a classroom knows that the behavior OP described is much, much more prevalent among the girls.

Absolutely true. It is almost unheard of for boys in the 4-7 age range to intentionally exclude others and to say the kind of things that the OP describes. Anyone who has spent any time with children in this age range knows this.

Mi have both a boy and a girl in this age range. My son is sensitive and his feelings have been hurt in many occasions. Girls do not have the monopoly on mean behavior. Anyone who has spent time in the world knows this. You're not the authorities source in the matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: It is almost unheard of for boys in the 4-7 age range to intentionally exclude others and to say the kind of things that the OP describes. Anyone who has spent any time with children in this age range knows this.

I found this thread through a search because my DS (age 4) and his (mostly male) friends at school have been going through this recently. He reports kids at school saying "you're not my friend" and often reports that "X is my friend" or "Y is not my friend" (and who is/isn't his friend changes often but they are all boys). According to him, the boys are all participating in this kind of talk. I am going to talk to the teacher about it when they go back to school in January. This is PK3; this behavior can and should be nipped in the bud, right?

[Anonymous]

We had a horrible run of this around 3.5 at preschool - this year at 4.5 there has been almost none of it - so hope it's a phase - the school and teacher should be helping too