"What a beastly girl", and other weekend happenings

Finally, we could not get out of a playdate I had postponed for so long. Our youngest, five year old has a girl in her class who wanted her to come over and this Saturday it was finally happening. Well, never again. We've known her and her mother for a few years now through shared activities and school. She's a very spoiled, selfish and rude little thing for which the blame cannot be put on her of course, but the way she is being (not) raised. I know she knows how to behave at school because her teacher doesn't let her get away with anything. You see, in the Montessori system, kids are grouped in a class according developmental stage so the Primary years/class has kids ages 3-6. And grace and courtesy are two of those buzzwords that Montessori kids get drilled into them. Every class is considered a 'community' and each child has a 'job' in their community as they learn from very early on that they need to take care of their 'environment' (the classroom community and the other children).

Well, the mother of this girl is actually very nice and smart to boot but her lack of any re-direction of 'the girls' behaviour is just shocking and appalling! Now every time I see her behave inappropriately (for her age) when her mom's around after pickup, I keep hearing that line from the Willy Wonka movie; "what a beastly girl!"


Veruca Salt song from Willy Wonka


So 'mom' wants to have another playdate but this mom absolutely does not! I had a talk with my daughter as we left their house and of course she was defensive of her little 'friend' (who behaved anything but, the world evolves around her you see and mom and dad just cater to her). However, I do think that she understand the difference between how this girl behaves at school versus at home. I told her I was glad that she made better choices and behaved better but I was sooo pissed off that I also told her that her friends' behaviour was atrocious and UNACCEPTABLE!

I continued to explain to her how one behaves when you receive a guest and what it means to be a 'host'. (you know, hosting 101; asking what the other person would like to do, share toys cause if you don't want to share them, you put them away, giving someone first choices with toys if there are two of them etc- plain courteous behaviour)

She does have an older brother and he was actually in my son's class and he was a jerk at that time. So when our daughter had a birthday party at our community pool in May and I knew that boy was coming too, I told my son to just behave and be a host to him inspite of their past. Well of course, afterwards my son told me he still kicked him in the groin in the water when he tried to beat him at something.. it is very telling. Mom and dad are nice, kids are competitive and not nice. (I can call them all kinds of things but I am trying to write this out of my system and not get re-wound up![g])

I'm not going into the whole story of what this girl did because that just turns into a drama story, trust me, there is no correction or teaching these kids the right way to behave other than saying passively, well, could you not let Rebecca have a turn? (after Rebecca picked out a toy to play with when ms thing was doing something else and then of course she had to have it..good lord)

Dr. Laura, I have a dilemma! I hate confrontations and my avoidance with this family has just worked fine these past years. They live far away and they have their kids in all kinds of activities so hey, schedule never worked. But now the mom wants to push for more playdates because they are really for 'ms thing' who does not have any friends. My daughter apparently is a social butterfly who plays with everyone on the school playground so she really does not 'need' this friendship. Still, I do not want to hurt this mom's feelings but I do need to start saying 'no' to any request for playdates. Or so my husband said. I told him, you cannot just say 'no' to a woman and not expect a question like 'why'? But I'll have to deal with it. I'll just have to figure out a way to break the news to her. Oh dear..sigh.

At any rate, we attended a nice birthday party yesterday and I helped my neighbour selling her home made (lampwork) jewelry friday night so the weekend was not all bad. [s]