Friends

What do you do when your child seems to be an outsider? How do you handle it when it becomes evident that your child is being left out of things? How much should Momma get involved?

A few mornings ago, I herded my chaotic crew into the Drama Queen's school into the early morning room. I was teaching the junior high Spanish class that day; so I stayed in the room, trying to maintain some control over the male offspring before handing them off to their babysitter. I watched my daughter walk to the back of the room and sit in a row of chairs all by herself. One of her classmates walked over and asked her, "Hey, why do you always sit by yourself? Come on over here and sit with us!" My daughter shook her head, "No, I don't want to. I wanna sit here." The classmate shrugged her shoulders and walked back to her friends. Soon they were pointing at the Drama Queen, whispering and giggling. I looked at the cluster of girls, arms around each other, undoubtedly saying mean things about my daughter. Then I looked back at my girl. She seemed unaware that any whispering and giggling were going on. Honestly, I wanted to march right over to those girls and demand to know what they were whispering about. Then, my second thought was to go over to the Drama Queen and ask her why on earth she didn't want to sit with friends.

I agonized over what to do. It was tearing me up inside to see my little girl all alone while the other children played and chatted together. Finally, despite what I WANTED to do, I backed off and went to my classroom to set up for Spanish. But the images of what just happened stayed in my head all day. I decided to talk to her about it after school.

I tried to wait for an appropriate time to bring it up.

"Honey, who is your best friend at school?" I questioned her.

She shrugged. "I don't know, Mom."

"Well, what about. . . " and I went on to list the other girls in her class.

"No, I don't think so, Mom," she answered.

"Sweetheart, why didn't you go and sit with the other girls when they asked you this morning?"

"I didn't want to - I wanted to be by myself," she stated firmly.

"But don't you want to have friends and spend time with them?"

"No," she said flatly. "I don't really care, Mom."

You can't force your kid to make friends, can you? I was at a loss, not knowing how this worked. When I was her age, I loved being around my friends and would never have wanted to be by myself. This was foreign territory for me. I decided to let it go and talk to my hubby about it later. Being the introvert in our relationship, he might have some insight into the whole thing.

Ten minutes later, the Drama Queen spoke up. "Oh, I know, " she said. "Mom, my best friend is Tanner. He says he's gonna marry me when we grow up!"

Well, then. Maybe we have a different social problem altogether. . .

:)