#pettyfights

She: I didn't mean to--

Him: But you did. Still, you did.

She: But--

Him: Don't you dare talk to me, I'm mAd!

This is a saying from my 8 year old self at primary school with my friends, we would hold pinky fingers and shake and say these words. Unfortunately as with most 8 year olds, we were friends for 1 minute and broken the next, then making friends all over again.

I feel as if I’m back in my 8 year old self as my daughter who is 8 seems to be going through the same kind of destructive/constructive relationships with her friends. I am happy for her to go through this because unfortunately it teaches us valuable lessons in regards to friendships as in how much to value them or not. So even though I am there for her to talk to when she needs to and maybe help organise a chat with her teachers and even call the kids helpline when she doesn’t really trust her Mama’s advice. 

Mainly my job is to help her understand what’s happening and that even though it’s about herself as a person it’s also about all of her friends and their feelings and their mental growth aswell. I am helping her navigate her feelings rather than bowling in there to find out who is not being kind and courteous to my own child. Unfortunately, I feel it’s a better option to address her worries than bitch and moan about how awful her friends are. They may have stuff going on in their own lives that they can’t control and feel as though they are exerting some sort of power by rejecting her.

This is how we deal with stuff, we try to look at ways that will get her through this nastiness so that when it happens again, she will be able to understand that it may feel like it’s against her, but maybe she can take a step back and find some other things to do until these friends are okay with her once more, because unfortunately that’s what it’s like when you’re 8 or 20 or 45. Strategies to deal with people who are unkind are invaluable throughout your life.

Unfortunately for me though, I have a friend who thinks that it’s fine to drag me into all the 8 year old bullshit! I had previously told her that I thought she needed to address the teachers and perhaps teach her child how to deal with the difficulties at school through possibly acting out what she needs to say and the like, strategies. I also pointed out that as 8 year olds they had the capacity to recover from these friendship assaults pretty quickly and relatively unscathed. That maybe if she were to drag me in aswell, that our friendship may not come off quite as well as expected. She heard me but unfortunately obviously didn’t agreee with me as then I was dragged back into another 8 year old spat.

They kind of go like this “Your daughter has ruined one of the toys that my daughter took to school and we would like her to apologise and pay for the damage”. Unfortunately my answer goes, “Of course, if she has done something wrong we will definitely address it”. My daughter is not a vindictive soul and would not break something on purpose so of course it had to be an accident. I did ask my daughter to which the reply was “The first time I saw it was when it was broken”.

This is where I start losing my shit but losing my shit as in, she bloody did it again, dragged me into some more bullshit that I just don’t need to deal with. I have a job, a family, a house, mountains of bills, lots of stuff to do in general. I do not need to know about your child’s shitty little toy that if she valued it so much, should never have taken it to school.

Finally after harassment, well what I feel is harassment, asking me to organise a chat between the children involved, texting me to say that she feels that it hasn’t been addressed yet, finally me blocking her number and then when I return from holidays, she turns up outside my house asking me if I’m planning on addressing the subject. To which my reply is, “We are done on this, do not ever discuss any 8 year old crap with me ever again, this is over, my child has told me she didn’t do anything and I believe her and I do not feel the need to prove it to you, we are done!” To which she replied “Oh okay”.