The Bee has a nemesis. They’ve been in the same class since kindergarten–the blessing and curse of a small school being that you can never get away from your enemy.
Landisdad and I had a long talk this evening during dinner with the Bee about the fact that her nemesis has stolen stuff from her recently. Not big stuff–things like a pen, a highlighter, her calculator. The Bee, to her credit, has not freaked out about it, though she is upset.
She saw the girl using her highlighter yesterday, and confronted her about it. The girl denied that it belonged to the Bee, but the assistant teacher was in the room, and backed her up. I think she’s given up hope of getting the pen back, but she really wants the calculator, although she didn’t have any proof that the girl had taken that.
Until today, when she saw it in the girl’s desk.
We asked her if she wanted to tell the teacher about it, and she said no. She doesn’t want to rat out her classmate, so we talked about some strategies for confronting the girl directly, and not getting upset if she lied again. We told her that she should ask her for the calculator back in front of other kids, since it would be good to have witnesses, if the situation got heated. And landisdad role-played with her what she should do if the other girl started yelling at her.
I’m more and more irritated by this girl every year, and can’t wait until she and the Bee are in middle school, and can keep their distance from each other more easily. I’m sure that there will be other girls, in other futures, with other problems, but this one can get gone, as far as I’m concerned.
6 comments
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October 29, 2009 at 2:48 am
thordora
ugh. GIRLS! Evil little creatures. I’m really hoping neither of mine turn into THAT kid.
October 29, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Jennifer (ponderosa)
What a great way of handling this. My son’s been telling me about a “mean kid” on his bus and I haven’t known what to do about it. The more I ask my son about it, the more he clams up. He hasn’t even told me the kid’s name… I’m wondering if I told him explicitly that we were going to do role play, and in order to do role play I need to know EXACTLY what the other kid is doing — I wonder if that would help him to speak about it.
October 30, 2009 at 6:21 am
elise
I hate to burst your bubble but one of the few pieces of advice my older kids gave to my youngest about middle school was “hold tight onto your stuff because kids steal you pencils, pens, etc…” Erin even had a boy she referred to as “pencil boy” who stole quite a few….sigh.
October 30, 2009 at 6:22 am
elise
PS
and don’t leave your lunch box on the table when yo go to the bathroom or everything will be gone….
November 3, 2009 at 10:31 pm
Jennifer
I had to tell you — I tried role playing with my son and it TOTALLY worked! I played his part, he played the other kid’s part, and he gave me stage directions and told me exactly what to say, so there was that; also, I was able to give him a couple alternative ways to handle the same situation.
How about that.
November 4, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Jody
Grrrr….I hate hearing about this things.
How did it turn out?