Listen to Your Peers

There was an emotionally charged moment at the end of the day today. This group of kids that had been playing together with a whole bunch of mats had a schism and the older kids in the group broke off because they felt like the younger kids had taken over.

So in a somewhat sneaky and underhanded play, the older kids started taking the mats and things and setting up their own area nearby.  Naturally then they were really defensive when the younger kids approached because they were curious and also confused why the mats were suddenly being taken. To which I would say, if you're going to be confusing, don't be upset at the confused.

Anyway, a girl from the 'out' group wandered over and took a seat in the new mat area. She was then sternly told to stop by a girl in the 'in' group. She took this somewhat harsh rejection really hard. She started crying and came to me.

But, as always, we need to look back at previous goings ons to see why the tension was lingering. Flashback to the cafeteria about an hour later and a group of mostly the same kids were gathered around playing a kind of DnD-lite game with a PowerPoint presentation. Anyway, this same girl, upset girl, had tried to be a part of the group without playing the game.

So when I walked over as I was making my rounds, upset girl said, "Andy, they're telling me to leave because they say I'm being too loud and not listening."

Uh, yeah. You should leave if you're being too loud and not listening. 

But what I said was, "ok, you should listen to what they're telling you to do if you want to be a part of this group."

To be certain, there are some groups of kids who will be mean to a well-intentioned person simply because they want to be mean and exclude someone. That exists. That's basic child cruelty. But this was not that group. If this group of kids is giving feedback, it's because you're being annoying.

Anyway, upset girl tends to deflect these things by saying "well, i'm not really playing" or "I'm just weird" as if these aren't the conditions or she isn't the kind of person to accept feedback from the group. 

So that seed of distrust had been sown. Flashforward again to the mats and the girl in the 'in' group was not about to go through this again and unequivocally told the other girl to keep her distance.

Upset girl comes to me demanding justice and I kinda threw her in the deep end and said, "this is something you're here to figure out how to manage. you need to listen to what they're telling you."

"But this is what adults are for! This is your job."

I could've done a better job explaining myself. She was clearly thrown off that I wasn't rushing to her aid or even sympathizing with her because she felt bad. In the moment it seemed like it was the time for her to go through a tough social experience.

She cried for a bit. I checked in on her at one point and she seemed most upset by the fact that she felt the girl had been mean to her in telling her to get off.

I tried to walk the line of, yes it doesn't feel good when someone says that to you, but much more importantly you really need to see why they felt the need to do that.

Her day ended with asking me to go to the cafeteria to wait for her dad. In that moment, I think I could've been more nurturing. I could've got down on her level and been more sympathetic to how she was feeling and said that I wanted to see her make friends and do well at afterschool because she's a funny and kind person.

But in reality I was some dude standing in the middle of the gym saying the equivalent of "tough break, kid. this the real world."

It wasn't that bad. But I was pretty blunt in saying that she needed to start hearing what people were telling her and that some of this "being weird" stuff we talk about isn't always helpful.

It's pretty rare nowadays in the program for kids to get really escalated like she was and not be able to calm themselves down. So I guess I was pretty rusty on that front.

I'm not worried. Like just about anyone who is a person has gone through this. And I'm confident this girl will grow from this. I think I will check in with her the next time I see her and say some of those things I could've said. She did have the rug pulled out from under her and I can see how that was upsetting. 

By comparison though, at the old school I worked at, this situation happened every single day. This was the baseline. Those guys are annoyed because you're being annoying. So maybe that's also why I was pretty unreactive to the situation.

There was this look of dismay on the girl's face though when she realized I wasn't taking her side. Like if you were being mugged and beaten in the street and a police officer walked by and you called for help and they just shrugged and said "sorry, kid. It's March 19th. You shoulda known better than to walk around on Mugging & Beating Day."