Mean kids: How to deal with frenemies
Call me clueless, but until my oldest son was nine years old, I?d convinced myself that Mean Girls?like frenemy problems were relegated to the teen set.
Maybe it?s because I was busy trying to juggle the myriad issues surrounding raising three rambunctious boys (specifically, preventing them from concussing themselves, thumping each other and breaking a bone on a daily basis). Or perhaps it?s because I was trying to keep them alive while simultaneously attempting to hold onto my sanity. Or maybe it?s because I unknowingly buried my head in the proverbial sand. Whatever the rationale, I wasn?t prepared when Oliver, my kind, soft-hearted boy, began to describe troubling interactions he was having with a ?friend? he?d known for years. They involved him being bombarded with snide comments about how much better this boy was at every activity that Oliver engaged in, how their friends actually preferred him to my son and how his parents, despite acting as though they liked Oliver, hadn?t liked him from the start of their friendship, according to this boy. Sandy Preston* felt similarly blindsided when, after months of emotional withdrawal, her then-eight-year-old daughter, Isla*, opened up a little about her frenemy situation. ?We knew there were problems with two of her friends, but Isla wouldn?t elaborate and we didn?t want to force her to talk, so we waited until she was ready,? says Preston. When she did start talking about it, Isla?s parents learned that she?d been dealing wit...
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