For the past two years, Sprout (now 6) has regularly voiced that she doesn’t like Kiddo (now 12) because Kiddo is “mean to” her. And frankly, I had a hard time arguing with her! For while Sunny (now 10, and Sprout’s sister) was with us, any time Kiddo visited for a weekend, Sunny and Kiddo would band together and either exclude Sprout or be expressly mean to her.
I could understand why, but that didn’t help Sprout. Kiddo has grown up in a mean girls culture that she perpetuates and we’ve never been able to get her to stop. Starting at age 4 in pre-K, she got into a mean girls trio and those kids were nasty to each other! We talked with Kiddo repeatedly. She got in trouble with the principal at school. We imposed consequences. We certainly modeled kindness and acceptance. We read her books on being nice. But nothing seemed to work. The pattern has continued as she’s gotten older, and now that she lives with her Mom, we have less of a finger on the pulse of her meanness levels.
I think the primary reason nothing worked is the reason bullies exist with such prevalence in our society: it can feel good to belong, and one way to belong is to exclude others. When you’ve got a kid with low self esteem, sometimes excluding someone else is the easy way to feel like s/he belongs. It’s been Kiddo’s go-to since age 4 when we met her.
I’d like to note for the record that she can be extraordinarily kind and thoughtful. It’s just if Kiddo gets anxious in a social situation she can resort to meanness so she has a way to feel like she’s fitting in.
And Sunny? She and Sprout butt heads like nothing on earth. The sisters are both strong personalities, which doesn’t help matters any. And they’re both intolerably jealous of each other. The jealousy would spark absolute rages in Sunny that would make her hit and claw at little Sprout at times. Sunny is also easily led by older or more forceful kids, and Kiddo is both. So she was ripe for turning against Sprout, and joined in Kiddo’s exclusion efforts readily.
You know that saying “two is company, three is a crowd…”? Yeah…
I told Sprout things would get better when her sister went to live with their relative, and boy was I right!
This is the first weekend I’ve been alone with just Kiddo and Sprout for long periods of time. I’ve gone through two weeks’ worth of spoons in three days but it’s been a blast!
First, I took the girls to Strong Museum of Play in Rochester NY. I haven’t been there in a while and it’s got a lot of new exhibits that are fantastic. It also has ropes courses for older and younger kids. There are endless adjoining rooms of games and books and fodder for the imagination. The kids did the ropes courses, then frolicked through the entire downstairs of the huge museum. We ended the day so tired that Sprout was asleep in the car before we pulled out of the parking garage!
Then Sunday I took the girls to see Inside Out 2 in the theater. It is one of the best films I’ve seen in many years. We all absolutely loved it, and Kiddo and I related most to poor chonky blushing embarrassment.
Today I discovered Kiddo had little by way of back-to-school anything. She had only a few pairs of undies, two bras, and just about 0 pants or t-shirts. I don’t have much by way of cash but she needed some stuff, so we decided it was the perfect day for the mall. (It’s pouring down gray uninteresting rain). We shopped for Kiddo, ate lunch at the food court, and now they are running off their energy at Billy Beez.
And how has it gone?
It’s gone so beautifully I could cry.
They’ve laughed together a bunch. Kiddo has been a wonderful older friend, helping Sprout through Billy Beez, taking her down slides she was scared to go on, holding her hand on uneven surfaces that are hard for Sprout with her knee issues. They called each other’s names in excitement about 8,364 times at the Strong Museum: “[Kiddo!] You have to see this!” and “Oh my gosh! [Sprout!] This is so cool!” I’ve gotten a bunch of hammy photos of the two of them together which is nearly impossible most of the time. When Sprout hit her sensory limit at the Museum, Kiddo agreed it was time to leave with absolutely no fuss, even though she wanted to keep going.
They both say they’ve had a wonderful long weekend together. Is it perfect? Probably not, but it’s been so close to perfect I can’t think of a single moment to identify as having been an issue! Will it always be perfect? Of course not. There will be moments of rivalry. But I think the more secure I can make each kid feel in the affections of the adults, the better it will be.
I love these two kids more than anything, and their love can get me through anything. And when they’re loving on each other? It makes my heart so happy it hurts.
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