1
crushed
Posted by Slowplum
on
1/13/2006 11:06:00 PM
I spent an hour with C tonight holding her while she cried. She is terribly lonely and upset and says she spends more recess time by herself than playing with anyone. Most of the girls in her grade are paired off with someone. Adding insult to injury is the fact that most of the girls in her class are ones she's had little exposure to; the ones she knows better are all in the straight grade 2 class. For whatever messed up reason, the classes seem to segregate even on the outside and while sometimes she does play with her friends from last year, they more or less have their own agendas. The one girl K that she was starting to spend more time with was apparently whisked away by the ("really bossy mom, I mean I know I can be bossy but I've been so good but this girl is MEAN") girl Em and I don't know. ("Mommy, why doesn't anybody like me? Why?") What do I know? How do I repair a seven year old's self esteem?
She kept saying over and over that "All I really want is just one really good friend, mom, I don't need an army, just one. Just one." And she cried oh she cried and I cried too between trying to encourage her to just "ask others to play" ("But I do that mom, and they just ignore me! They just walk away and ignore me!") I don' t know if I'm getting the whole of it but I don't think she'd lie about the fact that she's spending her recess time alone.I have tried to teach her to be more assertive but I know her and if she says she's tried, she has tried so now what?
(And maybe, just maybe, I feel for her because I remember being little and lonely too. And that never goes away does it? It took me years to learn to be strong and to say "to hell with it" when nobody wanted me around, and I learned that my own company often was better than that of anyone else, but I will be damned if I just stand by and let her feel that way, so what do I do? Here is a girl who is cutting my heart out with her words and I don't know how to make it better. Here is a girl trusting me to somehow make it better, and I feel completely and utterly useless.)
She kept saying over and over that "All I really want is just one really good friend, mom, I don't need an army, just one. Just one." And she cried oh she cried and I cried too between trying to encourage her to just "ask others to play" ("But I do that mom, and they just ignore me! They just walk away and ignore me!") I don' t know if I'm getting the whole of it but I don't think she'd lie about the fact that she's spending her recess time alone.I have tried to teach her to be more assertive but I know her and if she says she's tried, she has tried so now what?
(And maybe, just maybe, I feel for her because I remember being little and lonely too. And that never goes away does it? It took me years to learn to be strong and to say "to hell with it" when nobody wanted me around, and I learned that my own company often was better than that of anyone else, but I will be damned if I just stand by and let her feel that way, so what do I do? Here is a girl who is cutting my heart out with her words and I don't know how to make it better. Here is a girl trusting me to somehow make it better, and I feel completely and utterly useless.)
