We had the Princess’s birthday party on Sunday. It was brutal. Unlike everything else in my experience, children’s birthday parties are always worse than one fears. A week beforehand we sat down with the Princess and asked her who from her class she wanted to invite. She named 8 children, two of whom we had never heard of. Mr. Waffle designed invitations and sent them out into the world (via the classroom assistant) with an RSVP note. We got 4 replies, 3 yes and 1 no. Four children didn’t reply at all which I think is appalling. It also makes me sad because, clearly, the Princess’s party wasn’t first on their priority lists.
So, all the kiddies arrived between 3.30 and 4.00. My attempt to play pass the parcel was stymied partly by the trickle of new arrivals which necessitated greeting and present opening and partly by the Princess’s best friend from school, L. Mr. Waffle does not like L. How L treats the Princess on any given day determines whether our evening will be pleasant or unpleasant. I like L’s mother and she lives round the corner from us. I often take L for an afternoon or the Princess goes to her house. L does blow hot and cold but I haven’t really seen much harm in her. On Sunday, I fundamentally revised my view. She did not like the Princess getting attention from the other children from school. She insisted that they sit out pass the parcel with her. Since L’s mother had not yet left, my opportunities for discipline were limited. When a little boy from the Princess’s class (who seems like a lovely child) tried to talk to the Princess or play with her, L intervened and took him away. She gathered the two other children from school round her and excluded my daughter. I could see that the Princess was upset but I think she doesn’t have the emotional sophistication to understand why or to see what’s happening with any clarity. It was abundantly clear to me that L was only nice to her when she (L) was cross with the other children. All of the other children at the party were basically nice, pleasant little people and, it is unfortunate, that my daughter had to be “friends†with the annoying one.
We had hired a children’s entertainer to, well, entertain. I deeply disapprove of this. We always had wonderful parties when I was little with treasure hunts and all manner of excitements organised by my mother. On the other hand, we had a big garden; the Waffle etablissement is a second floor appartment. Like all the things of which one disapproves, it’s never so bad when you’re doing it yourself. She was due to arrive at 4.15. There was a brief moment when I thought that she might not come and I think that this may be the closest I have ever come to a panic attack. Don’t mock the afflicted.
She came, she was dressed as a witch. She was worth every penny of her exorbitant fee. L announced that she was not a real witch. When the witch asked whether the children liked colouring, L said she did not and encouraged her coterie to do likewise. When the witch left, L craned her head out the window to see the witch getting into a car and changing and announced this to all the children there and pointed out that the Princess did not have a real witch at her party. I wanted to smack her but I just ignored her. Later my daughter told me that the witch really liked her because she (the witch) had asked the Princess to help with the spells. It did not even cross her mind that the witch might be nice to her because it was her birthday, let alone because her parents had forked out a considerable sum. I can’t help feeling that the poor Princess has the emotional IQ of a gnat and, of all people, she is least likely to appreciate the implications of being friends with a little manipulator.
Despite my concerns, I think she did, on balance, enjoy her party and, I suppose, that is something.
Evil L. Me no likey.
And it’s depressing really to see such poor behaviour at such a young age. Nature vs nurture?
Oh dear, poor princess. L sounds like just the sort of cow who blighted my childhood time and again. Can you have her drowned?
It’s definitely time to gently disencourage the friendship with L. My 6-year-old had an L-type friend, who without fail, made her cry whenever they played together. We had some gentle conversations about how friends are kind to each other, how a friend is someone who loves you and who you can trust, how a true friend wouldn’t want to make you cry. She has happily moved on from her L and has many other, far nicer, and parentally-approved friends. It was deeply complicated because we are friends with this child’s parents, but it became apparent to me that my child was suffering and I couldn’t insist that she remained friends with this child for the sake of our friendship with the parents.
Poor Princess, to fall for the domineering little bully, but isn’t that always the way? I don’t suppose there’s any way to gently let L’s parents know what their darling has been up to? Cos I’d be afraid she’ll develop a bullying habit that she’ll never break. Or maybe there’s some trauma in her life that makes her jealous of other children getting attention. On the other hand, my mother was overly protective of me as a child and discouraged me from friendships with children she didn’t “approve” of and it took me years to get over my awkwardness round my peers so maybe the Princess will learn some valuable life-coping skills from dealing with her buddy.
Sounde like Princess enjoyed her party which is the main thing. I have to say L sounds very much like C, Belle’s erstwhile best friend – we were the other way round, geepeedad couldn’t see the harm in her whereas I found her manipulative and exactly like L. Again her parents are pleasant and very keen to promote the friendship. We had long chats about friendship but Belle was more scared about losing C than about being happy – and would always say “but C says she won’t play with me” or whatever. I actually spoke to her teacher in the end – I felt a bit like CAD (that I wanted Belle to be able to handle this herself and learn from it) but when C started saying that she would tell the teacher that Belle was being unkind if Belle didn’t obey C’s every whim, I decided to intervene – and the teacher was extremely sweet. She just made sure for a couple of weeks that within the classroom they were not in the same group for things and Belle found the confidence to stick to the friends she actually wanted to play with but had been too anxious about playing with for fear of C’s reprisals. C’s behaviour at Belle’s birthday party convinced me that I did right in actively cooling off the friendship…
Down with L. Up with P. I woudn’t worry about the non-repliers – kids can be flaky and I often didn’t want to go to parties regardless of how I felt about the birthday person, if I remember rightly.
I was thinking more about this later. One evening I was chatting to my friend about Belle’s “friend” C and she confessed that she felt her daughter (my god-daughter!) was probably more of a C than a Belle. She said she would rather be told so that she could try and deal with the situation before it caused more problems…. Have to say I didn’t take her advice though.
You could look at this the other way around. Maybe Princess is more emotionally mature and can rise above L’s behavior. Princess might be a good influence on L.