My 6-year-old daughter has a sleepover this weekend with a girl my wife and I thought was her friend.
But the other night, she confides in me that she really doesn't like this 'friend' at all. In fact, she says, 'nobody' likes her, because 'she's mean, and bossy'.
I ask my daughter why she doesn't just tell this girl... at those moments she's being 'bossy' that that's not nice. My daughter gives me a scared looked and says 'no, I couldn't do that... she would be mad.' I aske her if she would like to cancel the sleepover. "NO!" she yells, "then she would know I don't like her!"
As the conversation went on... two things occured to me.
1) the social world at 42 inches above ground can sometimes be filled with mines just as it is at 42 years old.
2) How do you explain to a 6-year-old how to 'finesse' a situation like this? She's not really going to get it.
Finally, I decided... I may not be able to help her 'fix' the situation, but that's part of learning the ropes of social interactions in the first place... you really have to go through it yourself and figure it out.
At the end of the day, I'm happy at least that my daughter knows I'm there to listen. Hopefully that'll be true when she's 16 too.
