Sunday, August 31, 2008

Not My Proudest Moment

At the pool today, 2 little girls (older than Aubrey) were playing with Mermaid Dolls. They were using our buckets and our ponies. Aubrey went over and introduce herself and sat down. And the girls were not nice to her.

I watched the whole thing and tried to stay out of it. But when I heard the little girl call Aubrey a stupid face, I went over there. I asked if everything was OK. Aubrey told me that the girls wouldn't let her play.

I asked the oldest girl what was wrong, she said, "my mommy doesn't let me talk to strangers so I can't play with her".

To which I replied, "Well, where is your mom, let's get introduced so you can play nicely". The little girl wouldn't go for it so I said...

"Fine, Aubrey if they don't want to share with you, let's grab our buckets and ponies and go play over here". And I dumped their dolls, took our buckets and ponies and walked away.

And I talked to Aubrey about sharing. And I felt like an idiot. Another mother did come up and say I handled that well... but it didn't feel like it.

And on the way out, I made sure that the little girl saw me talking to her mother - who I ended up casually knowing.



What would you have done?

8 comments:

Mommy said...

GOOD JOB. Kids can be mean - and sometimes you have to show your kids that even if they do everything RIGHT - some people just don't play nice!!!
I am proud of you!

And I hope that other mom was hanging her head in shame!

InTheFastLane said...

I think I might have done the same thing. Girls get mean so early...

Jessica said...

I think you did the right (and appropriate) thing...and where were these girls mothers when all this was going on??

Kayris said...

In June, we had this incident.

I basically did nothing, because my son didn't realize that he'd been dissed. But I wanted to get all Mama Bear and start kicking butts.

I think that I was more hurt than he was...and it sounds like you were more upset than Aubrey. (((HUGS)))

rebekca said...

I would have asked the girl if her mother also didn't approve of her playing with toys belonging to strangers.

I also would have mentioned that as a mother I respected her decision to not talk to strangers, but that talking and being cordial are not one in the same.

And I also would have rode off on my high horse (ponies) and not felt one bit bad about showing your precious Aubrey that you cared enough to:

1. See what the problem was and try and address it

2. Leave respectfully in the eyes of the "strangers", but most importantly- your daughter.

good job, mama. GOOD JOB.

Anonymous said...

I would have handled it the same way with less tact. If the parent isn't there to watch kids, they should get an earful anyway.

Knot

Cindy B said...

Having not yet had to handle a situation like that(I am sure I will in the future) I think you handled it great. The sad thing is girl drama will only get worse, girls are mean.

Unknown said...

I think that you did a fine job - I was actually thinking along the same lines as Rebekah along the lines of "Good for you for not talking to strangers, however being unnecessarily mean isn't good either". You did fine. AG is fine and it is a lesson to her (I know it is early and I know that it sucks for her to find this out) that some people/kids are just not nice. It doesn't mean that we (AG) does the same thing though. :)