Through the Trenches of Friendship

There have always been mean girls. I remember them, my mother remembers them and if my grandmothers were still alive I'm sure they would remember them too. Mean girls usually aren't your friends. As much as it hurts to be one of their targets you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that they have never been your close friends and real friends would never be mean.
All of that changed for our daughter Tali on the day her best friends became the mean girls out of nowhere. They had a great time Wednesday afternoon swimming together and then on Thursday one, Andrea, said to the other, Emma,  "Let's play only with each other at recess, not Tali." And so began my daughter's nightmare. When I picked her up from school she hugged me and cried. I wanted to cry too. I approached the girls with their mothers and Emma's mom was quite upset that her daughter was being exclusive. Andrea's  mom said that you can't be forced to play with someone. That was her response as my daughter stood there crying hysterically. Yes, Andrea can't be forced to play with anyone, but is it right to encourage another girl to not play with someone as well?

Tali was not ready to give up. The next day she approached the girls asking if she could play with them. Andrea looked at Emma and said, "Ask Emma." Emma, who is the follower of the two said, "Well we really want to play alone." Tali, still not ready to give up said, "Playing alone is for outside play dates, it's not nice at school to leave someone out." And so the three "played" together until the bell rang. Tali was happy to not be excluded, but she knew she wasn't wanted. There were more tears at pick-up. This time we didn't approach the other girls, we headed home where I held Tali while she cried.

How I wish I could take away this pain. If I could magically turn myself into a 9 year old girl and be her new best friend  I would. We would play together and I would stick up for her as she has stuck up for others even though it was never returned. We would laugh and use our imaginations and she would forget all about Andrea and Emma. We would make other friends together and include everyone in our games.

I told Tali I wished I could wave my magic wand and make her feel better but I can't. All I can do is listen to her, advise her and guide her through the trenches of playground drama. When she finally calmed down late Friday afternoon she was comforted by the thought that at least she had the weekend to lick her wounds.

Saturday morning she was still feeling quite low. We were invited to a Bat-Mitzvah and even though Tali tried to whine her way out of it, we insisted that she go with us. We were about half way through the service and I'd had about all I could take of her sulking. Right at that moment something awesome happened.  She looked across the aisle and whispered to me, "Mommy, I think that's my friend Shira from Camp Ramah!" Sure enough it was, and when Shira looked over at Tali her whole face lit up. The girls ran towards each other and embraced.

In the previous days as my heart broke for Tali I prayed, "please, let there be some sign that everything is going to be ok. Please let something happen to give Tali her confidence back in making new friends." There, in the middle of a Bat-Mitzvah was the sign I'd been waiting for my daughter to read, and it wasn't in the prayer book.

Shira was not even a member of the synagogue we were attending that day. Her mom was friends with the Bat Mitzvah girl's mother, and she lived in LA. What were the chances that the girls would see each other before next summer? Slim to none.

Richard and I didn't hear from Tali until it was time to go home. The girls reluctantly parted, promising to write. Tali grinned and talked about Shira the entire ride home. It was the highlight of our week.

On Sunday Tali started to get anxious again about school and "no one" wanting to play with her. I decided we should try some role playing.  I played the role of the girls who didn't want to play with her and also the girls who wanted to play with her but who had rejected her the week before. Here's what happened:

On Monday Emma came up to Tali and said, "Hi Tali, want to play with Andrea and me?"
"Well," Tali said, "I want to play with you but you weren't very nice to me last week so thank you anyway, but I'm going to play with someone else." Then she walked away.

When I picked her up she said she'd made friends with Sandi, the new girl, who was playing with Cyndi, whom Tali has known since kindergarten but with whom she hasn't played before. She was in a happy, carefree mood. Since that time she's expanded her circle and still plays with Andrea and Emma once in a while. She no longer believes that everyone hates her and she's able to focus in school without worrying about what happened at lunchtime.

This isn't over, but it seems to be over for now and I'm grateful. We still have middle school ahead of us and I hope Tali will be as open with me then as she is now. That may not be reality however. In the meantime, we'll keep working on her communication skills and pray for more signs that everything will work out.