SRL
Active Member
Thanks for the reply, SRL. Duckie's current retort is "Oh grow up, A!" This is pretty effective with A because she is one of the youngest kids in the grade while Duckie is one of the older kids. It helps that she and I have been practicing social interaction since Duckie was very young. She does the tone and eye-roll perfectly. .
It's sooooo important short term and long term that they have the ability to counter those comments and knock the wind out of their sails. easy child and I finally settled on her countering along the lines of "This is how God made my skin and I'm happy with it so it doesn't matter to me what you think."
I
am concerned, though, that Duckie is at a social disadvantage (so to speak). She does not have play dates every day... she just can't hold it together that well without a little down time thrown in. A, on the other hand, has play dates every single day.
Strange as it may seem, my easy child is also at a social disadvantage, but because she's far more mature than most of her classmates. In a school where there's only two classes of each grade there really are a limited number of friends to gel with. What's she's really wanted and needed was one girl to be that special BFF and The Girl was always targeting whatever friend easy child made for a tug-of-war. During the years that was going on the other girls were pairing off and while my daughter has girlfriends, she never has settled into another social group. The first one was pretty damaging so on one hand I've been relieved, but she isn't exactly deluged with playdates either. The teachers are telling me that JH is usually good for girls like mine because it's so much bigger with so many more friend possibilities.
Bff calls around (she actually has a list) and sets stuff up so that A and her brother have someone to play with. Personally, I think it's nuts and fuels some of A's difficult behavior. She will have an absolute meltdown if her brother has someone to play with and she doesn't. She had a four hour play date yesterday before the birthday party.
One of my boys has a friend who is an incredibly social creature. It's not unusual for him to have days like play soccer all morning, play at friends all afternoon, and go to a sleepover at another's at night. It would exhaust all of my kids...not to mention ME! I always got the feeling mom kind of liked it because it gave her plenty of freed up time.