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Many years ago, I visited with another girl and was stunned when, at her behest, she and her friends suddenly rejected me. They trooped off, told me I couldn’t come along, and slammed the door shut so that I was unmistakably excluded. One of other girls, following the “hostess,” looked back regretfully at my plight but lacked courage to buck the leader. It was more than a generation before I found the term that fit this type of painful incident: What professionals now call social aggression and what I call social bullying.
So I propped up the paper during a quick lunch at Goodcopy and was appalled to see how much worse things have gotten: In her article, “The Playground Gets Even Tougher” by Pamela Paul, October 8, 2010, about how much younger and more frequent these hostile events are:
SCARLETT made for a good target. The daughter of a Williamsburg artist, she wore funky clothing to her East Village school, had a mild learning disability and was generally timid and insecure. Lila, the resident “mean girl” in Scarlett’s kindergarten class, started in immediately.
Scarlett, she sneered, couldn’t read. Her Payless and Gap shoes weren’t good enough. She wasn’t “allowed” to play with certain girls. Lila was forming a band, and Scarlett couldn’t be a part. One girl threatened to physically hurt her. During recess, Lila would loom over Scarlett, arms crossed, and say, “I’m watching you.”
Kindergarten?!! Not just middle school age children, but early elementary?!! Five year olds?! In school where there’s no escape? As an older, occasional guest, my own situation was isolated and no comparison to this! SCARLETT made for a good target. The daughter of a Williamsburg artist, she wore funky clothing to her East Village school, had a mild learning disability and was generally timid and insecure. Lila, the resident “mean girl” in Scarlett’s kindergarten class, started in immediately.
Scarlett, she sneered, couldn’t read. Her Payless and Gap shoes weren’t good enough. She wasn’t “allowed” to play with certain girls. Lila was forming a band, and Scarlett couldn’t be a part. One girl threatened to physically hurt her. During recess, Lila would loom over Scarlett, arms crossed, and say, “I’m watching you.”
"Girls absolutely exclude one another in kindergarten,” said Michelle Anthony, a psychologist and co-author of the new book “Little Girls Can Be Mean.” When her own daughter was manipulated by a “friend” into racing down a slide booby-trapped with mud, making it appear to a group of boys as though she’d soiled her pants, Dr. Anthony was taken aback. “You don’t expect to run into that level of meanness in a 7-year-old.”
I don’t think it’s too dramatic to consider it emotional torture for the young victims or victims of any age. However physically painful it is to be shoved or pushed (not that I’m suggesting physical abuse), ostracism and humiliation can take a far deeper toll. There are all too familiar examples in the news, some resulting in the suicides of young people.
I’ll be asking some questions: Why is this social aggression occurring at such a young age? What should parents and grandparents and other interested parties be doing about it? On a personal note, I’ll worry that my grandchildren might have to deal with this. Or even worse, are they dealing with it now?
What do you think? Have you had to address this? What happened? Tell me!
Thank you!
Edie -- http://www.goodcopy.com
Thank you!
Edie -- http://www.goodcopy.com
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