"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]
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]
Labels: spoiled kids, willy wonka veruca salt song
posted by Ingrid at
7:22 AM
8 Comments:
Hi Ingrid
You do not have to have a confrontation! It is not what you say it is how you say it! You can be nice get the point across and leave the rest up to you. You like the Mother that makes it that much easier.
Explain to her why her daughter has no friends and that your daughter likes her but she would have a lot of friends if she had a more pleasant demeanor.
You may be asked back and you may not which will take you off the hook so!
Anyway I have an E problem on face book but I was going to ask you if that was you and Hubby but I don't have to because the words you just wrote came from the woman I saw. I have never written on face book so bear with me and I am not getting notification either!
Thanks Jim. Somehow it'll come out and I wanted to make sure my annoyance was siphoned off for the most part so I would not come out too strong if I had to talk to her about it. We'll see how she flies..
As for Facebook it's a funny place. I haven't been on for quite a while and I noticed they made some changes. You can put the setting so that you would get notification. Do you perhaps have an overzealous spam folder where emails get gobbled up in? At any rate, Facebook is time consuming and I do not accept 'plants' etc anymore because I just really do not have time. My blog and reading other's' blogs is a priority but if I receive a notification that needs acknowledgement, I'll mosy over to facebook..anyhow..I am glad I could find this song as my kids love this Willie Wonka version. It's pretty funny, I guess we're Tim Burton 'people' although I do not necessarily like everything he makes..
alrightie, back to my chores, it's monday and as one of my neighbours once said; it's laundry day all over the world!
Ingrid
Ingrid
It's funny but the Wizard of Oz and Wilie Wonka are two I never get sick of. I am glad you don't have time to mess around on Face book because all my time is taken up analyzing the news and translating lies to truth. I have to laugh! I check my spam folder every day because my own stuff usually goes ther for some reason!
Sometimes I think my daughter can appear pretty bratty. She turns five this Friday and still thinks the world revolves around her. On the other hand, the way she breaks open the waterworks, some people might think we never give in to her. i think we play it fair. It all depends on how she ends up ten to fifteen years from now.+
But, daddy, I want a trained squirrel.
I MUST have it.
Hi Ingrid!
Since our daughters are at the same school my first reaction is to ask "Who is the little monster!?"
Just kidding.
This is a tricky one. If the playdate is suggested for your house tell the mom that X child is having a problem conforming to your house rules, explain what you want and expect. (In your house, YOUR rules go. Period.)
Or you can just say X and X don't seem to be getting along very well and it may be best for them to take a little breather for a while from playdates. And hopefully the little breather will turn into a looooooong one!
As to hitting or kicking... I'd have you call both kids over to the mom and state what your child said happened and take it from there.
Yep!
Jannie
p.s. I have the wordpress blog now! With comments, yay!
Jannie, congrats a wordpress blog. I wasn't too good at it so switched to blogger but then, at the time I was pressed for time so I did not spend enough time learning all the 'dos'.
lol..I don't think you know the child but I'm deciding to claim weekends 'family' time and during the week, they just live too far away. I'm doing the avoidance thing as we never socialized much outside of school anyway. Inspite of the moms' best attempts, but then, the last couple of years were stressful for me and there was a lot going on..
You know, you gotta tell me what your girl's name is because 'usually', I know the grown ups by the childs' name (like me, I'm Dirk's mom) and I now only know yours. Let me know next time at school..
hugs
Ingrid
My angel is Kelly!
Still can't believe she is SEVEN.
See you soon!
Jannie
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