"they wont let me be on their team"

[ValiantJoy07]

This is gonna be long..I am processing :O
Dd1 is 4 and one of the things I dreaded about Mothering girls has reared its ugly head...clicque-ness. :-/ I had hoped i had a few more years. :sigh

RJ is a beautiful (Imho :O) girl...she has some quriky sensory things..and hasn't been around many schooled older children...or children who are in daycare situations (I hope this comes out right...there is often an "older-ness" and different way of behaving to kids who are in a classroom/scheduled setting from toddlerhood- dykwim?). My girl is her own person...she is friendly and innocent, open, kind, and imaginative. She is my first born so I don't know if she is "normal" ...she is RJ. :shrug3 She has some quirks but besides being completely oblivious to how she appears to others (she was running g around the playground d swinging g her one arm as a propeller today :giggle) she seems normal to me.

Well she is now getting older and our paths are crossing with kids who are in preschool or early elementary ...and we have run across this situations (when I think on it) several times. RJ asks them to play with her and they refuse or tell her to go away. :bheart usually when she has come to me upset by th rejection I redirect her back to the group of kids we are at the park with...or tell her that that is their choice and I tell her okay to feel sad, we'll try to come back with one of her friends soon (if we're there alone).

But there have now been 2 occasions now where we were WITH friends and the friends joined a larger pack of kids and told RJ she couldn't play. From what I can see RJ isn't being mean or doing anything to cause this rejection...except maybe seeming g younger than all of them. :scratch.

my question...today we had this situation and I was literally at a loss as to what to do. if I knew the kids in question I might have gotten involved...and if they had been being out and out mean and hurtful I would have helped RJ advocate for herself /advovated for her...but their only offense was that they kept telling g her no..:shrug their boundary. sad but..what can I do? the friends we were with are new friends (just met up today :)) so it wasn't like the dd in that situation was betraying some ind of bond or being mean by playing w the larger group...she was in...RJ just wasn't. :shrug

but RJ was so sad. she talked about it all the way home. I know this is part of life...but I don't want to be slacking or missing some thing here...how can I help? what should I be doing? at one point t right before we started to get ready to go I pointed out the other kids not in the big group she could play with.

I never put up with clicque ishness as a child. I guess I am an odd ball but i refused to play w people who would exclude. if some one was being mean i would leave...i hated drama and i would have rather played alone. my friends younger siblngs all LOOOOVED me because I made my friends let them join us :shifty if dh didnt want to play w his siblings some times i would tell him to go play w one of our guy friends down the street. I really liked little kids (especially the toddlers that are now my in-laws)...and I was a younger sibling who had a (honestly) kind of cruel older sister. :bag but all that to say I am not a group person..it was one thing to play house with one friend and pretend the lil siblings were our babies...it was another thing to play with a group of my girl friends (rarely happened).All that to say, that was my personality...8t is still how I feel...how can I help dds have a healthy view of things like this?


since sj has been having this happen she has randomly been telling aj "no, you cant play w me...you're not my friend right now" (which breaks ajs heart)


this whole thing stinks...ideas? help? hugs? I hate seeing my baby sad.

[Psyche]

Caen gets excluded in groups too of schooled children but he's oblivious to rejection. I figure he cannot read the cues of other kids well. He does super for the most part in our homeschool group. All that to say subbing

[SweetCaroline]

ok..got the story.

it turns out that they wouldnt any of my ds's on their team..only dd.

there were 2 teams. i think they were trying to put your dd on the 'spy' team with my ds's .she may still have not understood what they were trying to play..i know my dd had no idea..:shrug .i only bring it up so that you wont feel sad about it on your dd's behalf. :hug2

i dont think it negates the point of your post :no because that stuff *does* happen.

i helicopter. :shifty i've heard im not supposed to do that though.

[ValiantJoy07]

ok..got the story.

it turns out that they wouldnt any of my ds's on their team..only dd.

there were 2 teams. i think they were trying to put your dd on the 'spy' team with my ds's .she may still have not understood what they were trying to play..i know my dd had no idea..:shrug .i only bring it up so that you wont feel sad about it on your dd's behalf. :hug2

i dont think it negates the point of your post :no because that stuff *does* happen.

i helicopter. :shifty i've heard im not supposed to do that though.

Ah, that makes so much sense. I just asked her about it (she just brought me a picture she made of the whole thing :hunh she wants to give it to the biggest girl "so she inderstands") she said she didnt belong on the boys team "because I am a GIRL" ...sh and aj are very into gender differences right now...I don't even know where they got it but the keep making generalizations all the time : "Ooh I do this because am a girl":scratch hopefully just an age thing because that is not how we roll. :shifty

She doesn't really "play" games w rules et except hide and seek and tag...she obviously wasn't understanding the point of the game.

---------- Post added at 04:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:53 PM ----------

Caen gets excluded in groups too of schooled children but he's oblivious to rejection. I figure he cannot read the cues of other kids well. He does super for the most part in our homeschool group. All that to say subbing

Not glad your ds is dealing w it too...but glad it's not just a girl thing ...:phew

[Auroras mom]

Exclusion is a form of power that they pretty much all begin experimenting with around age 4. In some, without parental and teacher coaching and intervention, it continues and becomes worse, to the point of "mean girl" (or mean boy/bully) behavior at older ages.
One approach we take in our play dates and co-op is to tell the children that they may not exclude and must find a way to be kind and incorporate others.

However, at some point, do we want to force them to "hang out" with people with whom they do not click?

This social stuff givesme so much anxiety.

[ValiantJoy07]

What Exclusion is a form of power that they pretty much all begin experimenting with around age 4. In some, without parental and teacher coaching and intervention, it continues and becomes worse, to the point of "mean girl" (or mean boy/bully) behavior at older ages.
One approach we take in our play dates and co-op is to tell the children that they may not exclude and must find a way to be kind and incorporate others.

However, at some point, do we want to force them to "hang out" with people with whom they do not click?

This social stuff givesme so much anxiety.
Me too. :yes
What about random kids @ the playground? :think its just awkward. :sigh

[Auroras mom]

What
Me too. :yes
What about random kids @ the playground? :think its just awkward. :sigh


I know, we had some school kids be mean to dd when she was around age 4 one time. We were at the park alone, and they came, and while they were older than she, she wanted to play with them. They were a different skin tone than we are and we tend to be in pretty homogeneous circles in homeschooling life here, so I was curious to see how it went. Unfortunately, they were quite rude to her and called her a baby.

When they shunned her, I worried not only about her feeling bad, but was worried she would make an unfortunate race association in her mind. Fortunately, she did not. But yeah - what can you do? Just talk to your kiddo and support them in their feelings. My hope is to raise a child with empathy, who won't suffer for others to be treated poorly.

[SweetCaroline]

so..would i be totally wrong to go over to the group of girls and tell them that the way they treated my child was unkind and hurtful?...because thats what i would do. :shifty

[ValiantJoy07]

so..would i be totally wrong to go over to the group of girls and tell them that the way they treated my child was unkind and hurtful?...because thats what i would do. :shifty

I think you have to follow your gut. :yes if some one is being verbally Kean or speaking to ky little with a tone of voice that is disrespectful (and it happened once) I said to dd1 "those kids are being very rude to you. It is jot okay for them to talk to you like that ...Lets go play some where else." Their parents could hear too. :shifty and shake on them...dd1 was a lil 3 year old and the boys were 6 and 7... she was telling them not to mess up a hole she dug in the sand pit....loudly and several times. :shrug3

[Auroras mom]

so..would i be totally wrong to go over to the group of girls and tell them that the way they treated my child was unkind and hurtful?...because thats what i would do. :shifty

I am usually afraid to go there, but it might not be a bad idea.

[SweetCaroline]

I am usually afraid to go there, but it might not be a bad idea.
once my mamma bear gets riled..im not thinking anymore.

[Dulci]

I too struggle with what side to err on -- there's supporting my kid with her disappointment vs. forcing others to include her... which then entails supporting my kid when SHE wants to set such a boundary. It IS confusing, especially when there's also the other parents around who may have different ideas about how to handle things.