Turns out, after a few emails and phone calls from the school nurse who was concerned that she seemed to be suffering from stomach aches and was frequenting the clinic most lunchtimes and before school, that Annalise has been having a hard time of things socially at school with a few very mean girl episodes that have come to a head.... absolutely heartbreaking.
Andrew and I have known about the potential cliquey problems in her class and we have talked to her quite frequently about ways of dealing with the 'one day she's in, one day she's out' syndrome with this particular group of girls in her class, but when I actually kept her home one day as she was desperately upset and distraught at the thought of having to go in and face these mean girls who on one particular occasion called her 'fat and that she had fatter legs than any other girl in the class' makes the mother lion in me want to charge in and bop the living daylights out of the girl!
So I kept her home with her 'tummy ache' that I knew meant there was something up and after I came home from school ,I took her for a frappacino at starbucks for a Mum and daughter chat, did some retail therapy with her and we have now put action plans into place to try to deal with the mean girls with 'kind words, gentle hands and if all else fails, tell Mummy straight away and I'll call the parents!'.
Things are better, but Annalise so reminds me of myself - albeit, I was a little older than her. Kathleen and Kim - two girlfriends that at one moment were my best friend, the next, they were whispering behind my back and being so nasty.
My way of dealing with it was to try to get them to like me even more which made things worse. I remember being told by teachers and Mummy and Daddy to just stay well away, but hey! They were the cool girls and I wanted in! Isn't it always the way?!!
I'm still not so good with people who take instant dislikes to me, and there are many of those, I can tell you. I still, to this day, cannot understand why people seem to dislike me from first meeting, without even ever getting to know me. It makes me want to try sooooo hard to prove that I am a nice person, but it always seems to make things worse. I can see this is what Annalise is doing.....Andrew just tells me to 'tell them to go get F%##@@d, and even though I know I should just ignore it, it is hard. Try telling that to a 6 year old.
Anyway. The teacher is on board now, after witnessing some of ther 'bullying' events and we are all trying to support her in what is a difficult situation.
I also know that Annalise is no angel. She can give as good as she gets - sometimes....but in this case, she has been distraught and for a clever little thing not to want to go to school, which she adores, tells us things have got to the point where we have needed to step in.
Oh that parents were able to protect their little ones from ever being hurt.
Kids can be so mean.
Annalise has some lovely, lovely friends, and friends that are not in her class that we see every weekend or meet up with during the week, so life is not all bad, but school has GOT to be a happy safe place for her, and obviosuly it hasn't been these past few weeks - hopefully, things will settle down now. Soon.
My heart will not be able to take it otherwise.....!
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