Yesterday, as my girls and I were making our way to the car after jazzercise, Rae announced, loudly and purposefully within earshot of my friends’ children, that we were going to McDonald’s.
Since we made no such plans, I reacted.
“No, we aren’t!”
“Mommy! Don’t say that!” She barked at me.
And then her face crumbled.
For 30 minutes after the incident, I tried to demystify my five-year-old’s actions (by talking her ear off). Her decision to suddenly make something up for no reason, had shocked me to my very core. Why did she lie? Was it to make her little friends jealous? Isn’t that kind of…bad? Cruel? Evil?!
Is my five-year-old evil?!
When we picked Lokes up from the office, I ‘reported’ the incident to him. He was as shocked as I was – and a little scared as well.
“Did you talk to her?” he whispered worriedly in Cantonese (the girls were napping in the car but we didn’t want to take chances).
“Of course. I asked her why she did what she did,” I whispered back.
“What did she say?”
“She didn’t know what to say so I asked her if she was saying we were going to McDonald’s to make her friends jealous. She didn’t know what jealous was, so I gave her an example, that if I said I was going to McDonald’s, and I told her that she couldn’t go, I asked her how she would feel.”
“What did she say?”
“Sadlor.”
“And then? Did you tell her not to do it again?”
“Of course I did. I told her if she doesn’t want to be made to feel like that, that she cannot do it to her friends. I even asked her how she would feel, if someone did it to you and me. People she cared about. But don’t expect it to be fixed overnight.”
Lokes sighed. We sat in silence for a while.
“Do you think all kids are like that?” I asked. Hopefully.
“I don’t know…”
“Seems so…cruel. Like she’s evil.”
“Maybe they are.”
“Yea, kids can be cruel, right?”
“Right.”
Imperfect parenting rule #22: When there are no answers, assume the worst.
yes, kids can be very cruel esp GIRLS. I saw on Oprah abt this topic and girls’ social circles are very complex. It doesn’t get any easier when we grow older too. hehehe.
Boys duke it out and they become friends again. When girls fight, it’s a mind game and it’s even uglier and more dangerous. Sighh!!
It’s also possible that she was just hopeful. “Let’s go,” and “We’re going” aren’t that far apart.
So maybe a calm “We’ll see” and pleasant smile in front of the friends, so she doesn’t lose face, and then, when you’re in the car, “You know, we’re just going straight home” would be better? Then she gets a chance to tell you what she was thinking, and her motives, if she feels like talking about them.
Anne, that’s a good idea altho when my mom friends heard her, I could see it in their faces, like “Oh, thanks very much, now we have to deal with our kids whining for McDs” and I was just so embarassed myself for having ‘complicated’ things for them.
Thing is Rae had asked earlier and I’d said no, that we were going home for lunch with her dad. So it was like she had said it out loud, hoping that her friends would persuade their moms to go, so I could not back out. And this was just unacceptable to me.
Maybe it’s my upbringing or our culture but I feel that this kind of behaviour just cannot be allowed to continue. Sigh. I wish I had the calm demeanour to let things slide sometimes, that I had the wisdom to see that this is just my daughter being creative or smart, u know, a positive side to it.
But gosh, this is the kind of smart that’s associated with being a smart ass, u know?
And it’s not as tho we never go to McD’s. We go there almost weekly!
You actually don’t have to worry. This is a growing up “thing”. Sometimes things are said to get a reaction – regardless if the reaction is negative or positive. My six-year-old recently told his three-year-old sister that he had Cheezels for a snack at school. This was something I packed for him and not his sister because I only had one snack packet.
Of course, she was then whining for Cheezels because she “lurves junk food”.
I got angry asked him why he had to brag to her and make her feel bad. And he insisted, to the point of tears, that he didn’t mean to do it; that it wasn’t to make her sad. But it was something he had to tell her. I couldn’t understand that part.
Of course, older siblings do behave mean to the younger ones sometimes, so I’m quite sure that he did it to see what would happen — not quite knowing that it would result in a time out for him.
I think that at this age, children are learning that spoken words can bring visible effects or reactions. Ever have a time when a younger child would thump or pull the hair of an older one … just to hear them scream? That’s just a very physical cause-and-effect exercise.
But yeah, kids can be evil… my children recently told me that I’m “not fat, mummy. Just a little soft here and here and here…”
I’m now back at my gym. (Hopefully with good effect! Ha ha)
I love your “Imperfect parenting rule”. It just goes to support the theory that kids know EXACTLY what to say to embarass and confuse their parents in any situation!
Yvonne: I should feel better reading that but I don’t! I am such a worry wart.
AB: Yes they do. THey are evil! I see ure going to Blogher. We must meet!