A whole new skill set

Social skills, that is. I am learning conflict resolution along with my daughter. Or I should say I am learning it as I teach my daughter. I'll be the first one to accept that I am not good at confrontations. And I don't mean confrontations that involve shouting and screaming and throwing stuff at each other. I mean the ones where you simply sit down with someone and tell them, maturely and matter-of-factly, how something thay did or said has been bothering you. I have a long ways to go before I implement that but that is what I am trying to teach my daughter. I am trying to teach her how to approach someone and without breaking down into sobs or getting hysterical and telling them whats on her mind and how she would like to proceed. Sounds very mature-ish, doesn't it?! I am SO proud of myself :)

She has been distressed over this situation in her class - a friend of hers, V (who is also Indian incidentally and her mom is a good friend of mine) has been trying to "take away her friends". I mean, on many occasions (almost consistently according to what my daughter tells me) this girl has waltzed right in and taken away a friend while my daughter was playing with her to play "with something else", barges into conversations, hijacks the conversation and then just whisks away the friend for "more conversation" while my daughter stands there wondering what just happened. During lunch time my daughter is inevitably the only one not sitting on the lunch table with this "friend" while she has taken care to invite just enough girls to come sit with her so there is no room for my daughter. On at least one occasion, my daughter invited some other girl to come sit with her during lunch and this girl (A) agreed. The next thing you know, V is patting the seat right next to her and inviting A to sit next to her. To an 8 year old, this can be very distressing.

In the beginning of the school year, I was discussing my "goals" for my daughter for this year with V's mom. I told her I wasn't concerned about her academic performance because I am perfectly fine with whatever grade my daughter gets as long as I am sure she put in her best efforts. And she is doing good academically. The main area of focus for me is developing my daughter's social skills. She is a quiet kid. Not shy - she just needs some time to warm up to new people. Her teachers always tell me that she is good at making friends and gets along well with almost everyone in her class. So, when I mentioned this to V's mom, she said "Oh I don't think you have to worry about it. V mentioned that S has more friends than she does". Today it became clear to me where V's actions root from - she is insecure and looking for friends. In her 8 year old mind she probably thought if she couldn't have more friends then S should definitely have fewer than her.

So, today I decided to help my daughter. But I did not want to step in and set things right for her. I wanted her to learn how to handle situations like this for she is going to face many more such people in her life - I am sure of that. The world seems to be full of such people. I formulated a multi-step plan. It was something like this -

1. Teach S to stand up for herself in situations like this and tell V, right then and there (when she does something like this again) that her actions are not appropriate. The first thing I want S to remember is - even under such circumstances BE NICE! I want her to learn to handle such situations without being mean. So I went through a hypothetical scene with her and coached her on what to say and how to say it without being mean.

2. Contact the class teacher and get her opinion and help on this issue. I left her a message saying I needed to talk to her about some social difficulties my daughter was having in the class and that I would like to discuss ways to resolve it with her.

3. I made it clear to my daughter that I would like her to learn how to deal with this but if it doesn't work out, I will step in to help her - only as a last resort.

The class teacher called me back as soon as she could. She told me that when she and her assistant teacher heard my message, the assistant teacher immediately said she knew what it could be about. So that tells me this is not just a figment of my daughter's imagination. If someone else has noticed it, it did happen. The class teacher and I have decided to help S figure this one out. She is going to have S and V sit together in another room with just the teachers present and S will tell V how her actions are hurting her feelings. In the teacher's words - V needs to understand what she is doing is affecting someone else and hurting their feelings. Second thing she suggested was that S meet the "intervention officer" at their school and they could help her figure out strategies to deal with such behavior in future. (Intervention officers are present in many schools to do just what their job title says - resolve social conflicts among students before they escalate. They are also available to intervene on behalf of students who might find themselves ill-equipped to handle a situation - like S in this case).

I believe this is absolutely the right approach. The girls need to figure out how to resolve their differences in a positive, non-confrontational way without adult involvement. I am sure this will better prepare them for adulthood.

Later, while driving to work, I was reflecting on the things I had taught my daughter on dealing with such conflicts.

1. I told her to be nice at all time and to NOT show how upset she is. DO NOT CRY. (in other words - no matter how ticked off you are, don't show it. Poker face)

2. When you invite anyone to sit with you during lunch, don't let V know before lunch time (don't show your hand)

And I realized I had also taught her the basics for being a good Poker player! She'll thank me for that one day :D