I didn't realize it could start so young. A couple of months ago, the little guy came home looking all sad. When I asked him what was the matter he said, "E said he doesn't want to be my friend."
E is the most popular boy in his class. He's adorable. He's outgoing. He's into superheros. And there is just something about him that makes him the envy of all of Junior Kindergarten. One day when I was volunteering at the school I watched the kids greet E as he entered the playground. They got all giddy and excited. "E's here," they announced and then swarmed around him like teenaged girls at a rock concert. E knows he's a star. So to be told that E doesn't want to be your friend is the ultimate rejection.
"What happened?" I asked.
"I was telling E about how our car broke down and we needed to get a tow truck and he 'You!!! Stop talking!'"
"That wasn't very nice," I said.
"Yeah and he said, 'I don't want to be your friend. I only want to be friends with M' (another boy in their class)."
The little guy didn't know what to say or do so he moped all day long. I tried to reassure him that E probably didn't really mean it.
"If he says something like that again, you could tell him that hurts your feelings," I suggested.
"Sometimes E lets me sit with him on the bus," he said. This just made me so angry. Maybe I'm overreacting. After all, they are only in JK, but can a 4-year old really have that much power over other kids? They need to have permission to sit next to him on the bus?
Then, the other day he tells me that he wants us to help him make a "light saver" for E. E has been admiring his homemade Star Wars light saber and has decided he wants one too. Almost every day he asks us to make one for E to which we reply. When we say no he gets upset.
"But I said I would make him one!"
Last week the little guy "lost" his Spiderman lunch box. This was one of his most treasured possessions. Yet he seems rather nonchalant about the fact that it is missing. Whenever I ask him about it, he's quick to change the subject. Call me suspicious but I wouldn't be at all surprised if I saw E walking into class with a Spiderman lunch box the next time I'm at the school.
So that's E. He's as innocent as can be compared to a bigger girl that the little guy likes to hang out with at the park.
The girl literally stalks him and his friends on the playground trying to provoke them into behaving badly. And the second they retaliate she burst into tears and goes crying to daddy about how the boys have hurt her feelings. The little guy and his buddies are always the bad guys and she is always the innocent victim. Are her parents completely blind?
This same girl pointed at the little guy yesterday and turned to her friend and said, "I'm not friends with him" Luckily he doesn't seem to notice how terrible she is to him. But as a parent I can't help feeling outraged!
Who knew that this sort of thing happened at such a young age?
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