I’m not sure if raising girls is different from raising boys when it comes to social situations. My wife says that three girls can’t be close friends because one will get squeezed out. This and other events have me thinking a lot about friends for my kids lately.
Watching my kids start school in the last few years seems to have brought social pressures to my girls, even at 8 and 5 years old. They come home at times complaining about how they don’t get to play games on the playground because one ‘popular’ kid makes up the rules, which means that everyone else follows. Or, you’ll have one kid convincing other kids to pick on someone. None of this is new. We all went through it or saw this behavior when we were kids. And yes, some of us probably instigated a bit of it.
There are the issues of not being invited to some birthday parties, not being invited over to certain kids’ houses on the weekends to play; on and on. Now, my kids have their share of birthday parties and playtime that they are invited and go to. They have activities like Girl Scout, church and soccer that allows them to socialize outside of school, as well as neighbor kids. The problem in their minds, especially the oldest, is that it may not be with certain kids that she perceives to be more popular.
There is one girl in particular, the playground rule maker from above, that my oldest asks for a play date with. She’s not in her class this year and hasn’t been since K4 or K5. But she asks for it. My wife and I try to direct her to other kids that we know she has a good relationship with and even go as far as asking my oldest why she wants to play with someone that doesn’t seem to be nice to her at times. I don’t have a problem with her being involved with a variety of personalities, that’s how we learn social skills for a variety people in a variety of situations. However, I also don’t want her to be a doormat for another kid either.
My challenge/mission in life is to raise two girls into strong, confident women who are pleasant to be around. This is mainly on us to instill characteristics that we feel will guide them. As we’re starting to see now, battling peer pressure will be key. If we do our jobs, hopefully they will seek peers that have a positive outlook on life and not spend time with manipulation.
The bottom line is that I realize now more than ever that I don’t need a Prom Queen for a daughter. Popularity is fine if she can achieve that while keeping a sense of self and a sense of others around her. What I want most for my girls is for them to have a reliable core group of friends that will positively monitor each other. If one starts to go adrift, then the others will pull them back.
