Amber came home from school crying on Friday. Junior High is such a hard time for kids. Everybody is trying to fit in, figure out who they are, and who their friends are. Some handle this well and others do not.
Amber is take a class similar to what Home-EC used to be and they have been on the cooking lessons.
Anyway, they were divided up into groups of five and each student is given a role which comes with an assignment. On Friday Amber was given the assignment of Guest which meant she only had to set the table because she had already had all of the other roles.
Well a mean girl, told her she had to switch with her because she didn't want to do the job she was assigned. Amber tried to protest but the girl was persistent and Amber finally caved and ended up doing most of the work with one other girl while the other three sat back and gabbed.
What made it even worse was they told her at the end of the day that the "mean girl" had licked her spoon before setting it. Amber got mad at them and they tried to play it off as just playing around and having fun. They also told her they washed it off but Amber was at the sink doing the dishes and they hadn't ever come over to wash anything.
Anyway, as a mom I hugged her and told her how sorry I was. I told her that I am very good at comforting her but there is nobody that can make her laugh like her dad so we called Dan at work and he helped cheer her up.
My first instinct was to call the parent of the other girl to let them know what their daughter did but then I am not sure if that will make it worse for Amber at school. Dan and I decided we would talk with the teacher and see how she handles the situation. Ugh! It is so frustrating to me that kids are mean.
I wish she would have come to me sooner because I could have helped her better but Friday was their last cooking class. She said the girls didn't do much of anything the entire cooking series. I told her that if something like that happens again to 1. tell the teacher 2. tell the girl firmly NO and then do your role and sit down. If the other chores don't get done they don't get done and we would back her up when talking to the teacher. Any other suggestions?
I didn't stick up for myself when I was younger and I am trying to teach my kids to without teaching them to be bullies. It is tricky. Since they were little I've tried to teach them to find the kid that needs a friend and invite them into the group. They haven't been perfect at this but they have done this.
At Savannah's parent-teacher conference the teacher told me that a group of girls were eating lunch in the classroom and there was another child sitting all alone. Savannah (1st grade) left the group and went and got the other child and brought them into her group. That makes me so proud and the teacher said it melted her heart.
