I am scared of girls. I think girls can be very mean. I have gone to volunteer in my daughter’s 2nd grade class, heard a girl say something nasty, and then I started singing a few verses of Taylor Swift’s ?Why you gotta be so mean?? I have not been asked back to help out in the class.
I am not going to say, ?in my day the girls were nice and gum costs a nickel.? But as a mother of a daughter, I see things differently now.
So is being nice nature or nurture? I think both, but nurture has a lot to do with it. And that?s where we come in.
I am not the mom who says my kids are never mean. Telling me my butt feels like jello is not nice. I think all kids can be mean. I had mean moments. I used to have a recurring nightmare where I was confronted on Oprah by a girl I wasn’t nice to at camp. Some kids are angels with their parents, and then their horns come out around their friends. But what do you do, as their parent, when you see them being mean? Anything? Nothing?
I was at a little girl?s birthday party recently. There was an impromptu singing contest and when one of the girls lost, she freaked on the judge, wouldn?t smile for a picture with the birthday girl, and wouldn?t shut up about how she shouldn?t have lost. If you ask me, no kids should attempt Adele. But even worse than her song choice and behavior was her mother’s ignorance of the situation. She wasn’t mortified. She told her she would win next time. I was about to go all Mob Wives on her, but I didn?t have my spray tan that day.
It is our responsibility to teach our kids to be nice. To teach them that if they see someone else not being nice, to speak up. I always tell my kids that I would rather them come home with an F on a test, then come home and tell me that they made someone cry, or upset. If your kids can?t tell you, honestly, everything they said or did that day, then there?s a problem.
Just talk to them. They won?t bite. Also, check in with your kids and find out if any kids? behavior is affecting them, and discuss it. Talk about different ways to handle it. Try to find reasons together why the kids are acting the way they are. Sometimes a child is mean because of something going on at home. Sometimes they are mean because they feel they are being left out. In other instances, the mom is a real biotch and that?s what her daughter models her behavior after. And unfortunately, sometimes kids are mean for no reason at all.
Listen; there will always be mean girls out there. Yours doesn?t need to be one of them. Even if she can sing!
Jen Ross, Author, “Don’t Wear Sweats Or Your Husband Will Leave You”
