We homeschool our kids and my daughter only has the girls in our neighborhood to play with. Unfortunately, most of these girls are garbage and go out of their way to be mean to her, tearing her down and one day being nice and her "friend," the next they are ganging up on her and doing their best to destroy her. We live in a mobile home park (middle of the road, not the best not the worst), and it seems like many of these families are trash. I am at a loss as to how to help my daughter deal with these little MONSTERS. Help.
2006-10-11 17:04:11 · 9 answers · asked by SeaChelle 1 in Family & Relationships ➔ Family
teach her to fight
2006-10-11 17:05:51 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
First of all, congrats on homeschooling!!!
Get her away from them - involve her in some "afterschool" activities that take place at around the times these girls are coming home in the afternoon. If she is occupied by a sport, a ceramics class, girl scouts, a choir group, a dance team, music lessons, or local club each day from 3:30-5, then these girls won't have a chance. Think about it - the probably get home around 3:30 and after 5 many of them will be inside eating dinner or doing homework. They'll have missed their window of opportunity. In the meantime, your daughter will be making good friends that share interests with her. Maybe she can invite these friends over, as well, so that these girls can see that she is not the "loner" they are probably making her out to be.
See if she can take part in a summer camp as well - some are only day camps where she just gets picked up in the morning and dropped off in the afternoon, some are weekend camps, and some last for several days or weeks at a time. See which she prefers. It'll mean more time for her to get out and socialize independently with kids who respect and care for her in fun, interesting, often educational environments.
Good luck!
PS - I'm sure you have a great girl! Being 11 is hard enough, and she sounds like she's being very strong about it.
2006-10-12 00:12:35 · answer #2 · answered by fruitnroo 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Unfortunately, I think we're all that way at one point or another.
You mention "mean girl" and I was wondering if you've seen the movie (Lindsay Lohen, Tina Fey... I wouldn't suggest having young kids watch it, but it may help you) or even more importantly, the book it was based on. Tina Fey (from Saturday Night Live) came up with the idea of the movie, but it was when she was inspired by reading a non-fiction book called Queen Bees and Wannabes, designed to help parents and the girls themselves deal with the Mean Girl syndrome.
The cool thing about the movie (that, unfortunately, a lot of the young girls totally miss) is that theory that EVERY girl is a Mean Girl at some point, and EVERY girl is the victim of a mean girl at some point. As a woman, you probably remember having been on both sides of the fence at one point or another. If everybody made fun of you, you probably (at one point or another) retaliated in a way that it may have hurt someone else without your even realizing it.
In the movie, there is a kind of workshop at the end that the girls do and come to realize that they all have talents and good points, but they also all have insecurities (even the top-dog girls). This is the point that I think could help your daughter.
Now, unfortunately, kids can be difficult to put it mildly. The fact that your daughter is a kind of outsider, since she doesn't go to school with the rest of them, can cause some of the other girls to treat her worse than they should. To add to that, she's not really getting to pick her friends. It's more than possible that, if she were in school with the rest of the kids, she would find some people she could be friends with, and they probably wouldn't be the girls next door. However, if that were the case, she would have the fact that she has her friends that would kind of combat the conflicts she has with the other kids. While I do think that whole back-and-forth these girls are putting your daughter through could still very likely go on somewhere else (it's insane how common that is), the fact that this is the only experience she has with other girls her age could be setting her up for some social problems later on.
You don't mention your daughter's age, so I'm assuming somewhere between 8 and 13.
I don't know what kind of town you live in, but I think that she needs to have SOME interaction with the other kids. This is difficult for her, and it's real life, but if she doesn't learn how to deal with it young, she could be facing it at a lot older age than she would have to later on. Some cities have home-school groups who do activities and field trips together, and you may want to get her involved in that, if you haven't already. They also sometimes will have their own little league team or something, to count as an "extra-cirricular activity." Youth groups are good, too. I went to a relatively large church in a relatively small town, but there were at least 6 different school districts represented. The home-schooled kids fit in great, because we were all "church" friends, but didn't see each other all that much in school settings, and to this day, those are the people I remember as my true friends. Anywhere where your daughter could be around kids her own age who may be kindred spirits with her would help her, I'm sure of it.
Please don't take this in a way suggestive of my saying you shouldn't home-school your daughter. I just think that she needs the opportunity to make real friends who would really be her friends, not just who are her age and live in close proxemity. The only way to do that is to get her around some other kids, so she can see who she would really gravitate to (I doubt seriously that, in a natural setting with other options, she would pick girls like the ones she's around right now).
In the meantime, help your daughter deal with her issues involving these girls. Unfortunately, there's not a lot you can do with them unless they actually do something hateful or hurt your daughter. Give her love and understanding, and I want to say that I really hate for you and for her that pulling her out of the situation hasn't spared her the pain of being the target of mean girls.
Good luck!
Lookee there... I just noticed that you did put her age... in big bold letters.... I'm gonna go hide under my rock now. :-)
2006-10-12 00:53:05 · answer #3 · answered by CrazyChick 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I am assuming that part of your reason for homeschooling is because of the way kids act at school. Kids are mean, there is no denying it. I agree with the other people. Don't allow her to play with these girls anymore, UNLESS your going to supervise them. Maybe under supervision with you giving them fun things to do in your home they might have a change of heart. My preacher always said, you don't have to teach kids how to be mean, but you do need to teach them how to be nice. You can also find other homeschool moms and let your little girl hang out with them once a week for play days. Good luck....from another homeschool mom.
2006-10-12 00:16:55 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Find some home school play dates AWAY from the lil darlings!!
2006-10-12 00:07:31 · answer #5 · answered by kitkatish1962 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
it used to happen to me years back ..
Truly understand what am saying ... ur daughtr will be an independent person when she grows up .. let her concentrate on what she is best at - HOBBIES ..whatever .. she likes ... and rest will follow .. and trust me shes going to be a different girl as i am
2006-10-12 02:11:12 · answer #6 · answered by Beautiful Snowwhite 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
ok what you do is dont let her play wit them and if she ignor them it makes thhem look dumb i kno ignoring is hard but it works if they call her names still ignor them its really funny when they get mad cause she doesnt respond. or you could go the dangrouse way chase them wit a bat while they screamlike hell dont let her beat them just chase them and scare them.
2006-10-12 00:10:31 · answer #7 · answered by brown19beautie 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
smack the little shits.then bust thier mothers upside thier heads for raising monsters. =)
2006-10-12 00:11:55 · answer #8 · answered by beckdawgydawg 4 · 1⤊ 1⤋
weightlifting, boxing lessons and steroids. Won't be nobody ******* with her.
2006-10-12 00:06:23 · answer #9 · answered by Colin R 1 · 1⤊ 2⤋