Preschoolers and "mean girl" behavior

[Anonymous]

Baffled by the social dynamics between my DD's preschool friends. Where do you think these girls who are just ages 3 and 4 learn to be so snotty and manipulative? Things like all ignoring one girl, or declaring someone "not their friend anymore" over one little disagreement like who plays with what toy first. How does it occur to them to interact like this, and how do they learn that it's an effective means of establishing social dominance? I know DD hasn't heard us telling people they're "not our friends" over petty little disagreements, but I've heard her say it and we've had to talk repeatedly about how that's not a nice thing to say when we're upset and sometimes even friends get frustrated with each other. Didn't this stuff used to start in high school?

[Anonymous]

No. this is the way it's always been. I actually think it usually starts at 5-6 though, so this is early. Often one girl with an older sibling sister starts it and it spreads. I'm not seeing this with my 4 year old dd at all, though. Is it the school?

[Anonymous]

My kid is newly 4, and I've seen it since he was about 3.5. All the kids have been together since they were late 2s or early 3s. It isn't hugely present, yet, but I've definitely heard stuff like, 'X said she couldn't play with me because we aren't friends' or other variations. My kid's a boy, but most of his friends at school are girls, and it does seem more of a girl thing at this point. No idea where it comes from, but I agree - I'm shocked at how early it started.

[Anonymous]

When DS1 was in preschool the other moms of boys and I were all shocked to witness how 5 or 6 girls in the class were behaving like this. It wasn't clear whether there was a single ring-leader or not, but the behavior was widespread among most of the girls.

Fast forward to a couple of years later when DD2 had the same preschool teacher and it was a completely different environment. There was no mean girl behavior and as far as I could tell the boys and girls played together for the most part. That continued at a different school for DD2 for preK and I'm so grateful to have been spared this.

I remember this stuff happening in elementary school starting around 2nd grade (at least that's when I first started getting ostracized), so I know it's coming but I'm glad it hasn't started yet for DD.

[Anonymous]

Amazed at how prevalent this is among the girls in my 5 year olds group of friends.

[Anonymous]

there's a clique in our daycare class - 3.5 and 4 year olds. We just are trying to teach skills - "How did that make you feel when she said you weren't her friend?" "what did you do?" "well, one thing you could try is to play with someone else if you don't like how X and Y are playing.." and help her understand when she should get a grown up - pushing, shoving or hitting - or when she feels like she can't do something else. I think it varies, but this is not uncommon

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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."

[Anonymous]

It's also the case that kids will say, "You're not my friend," when what they really mean is "I don't want to play with you right now." That can complicate things.

I don't see a ton of this in my daughter's daycare. I don't know if it's because the kids have mostly known each other since they were babies or because the teachers emphasize that everyone is "friends" and don't permit exclusion. At home, we talk about being kind and playing nicely, about how to tell someone if you don't want to play with them in a polite way, etc. And my kid will comment on another kid being kind so it seems like its starting to sink in.

[Anonymous]

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...

[Anonymous]

We had it in our 3.5 yo class at year and it was awful - flash forward to the next year and zero issues but the teacher was super proactive about good behavior and treating friends kindly

[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!

I like you! Keep finding the humor in parenting - you and she will figure it out.

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...

[Anonymous]

I am a center director and some kids are just built this way. In a VERY general sense, boys tend to be more physical at these young ages and girls more verbal in their aggression, but it can go either way depending on the kid.

Please do not blame the school, the kids, the parents (ugh) or even the siblings. Rarely do any of those really impact this type of behavior. Some kids are just born more aggressive and feel a need to try out their power over other kids.

Also, some kids use words that adults interpret as mean when really they just mean that they don't want to play with that kid right now or they are not drawn to them. Some kids are annoying to other kids or aren't a good match socially.

This is why we have preschool teachers - they cannot solve all problems and make the world perfect for everyone but they are trained in MANY MANY strategies to work with all different combinations of kids and personalities to keep the classroom an emotionally safe (but still socially challenging) environment. Preschool is for your kid to increase pro-social behavior by playing with nice kids and also by dealing with not-so-nice kids. Trust me - they do better having practice at that.

Good luck - you're doing a great job in asking. BTW in one of our classes, the teacher outlawed the word "best friend" one year because it caused way more pain than pleasure. Genius.

[Anonymous]

Yup, my DD is 4 and has also experienced it. It's normal behavior for that age.

[Anonymous]

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.