Mean Girls

I'm beginning to wonder if my daughter is a psychopath. Until a couple of weeks ago, she's been nothing but wonderful and sweet and beautiful and perfect.Then, a couple of weeks ago, I found a note she had written a friend. It started out quite nicely — rather maturely, in fact. "Dear XXX," (I've redacted the names to protect the innocent.) "Thank you for understanding what XXX has been treating me like." Wow, what I grown-up note, I thought. Then I kept reading:

My daughter then wrote out different feelings she had about the first friend. She called her horrible, said she didn't like her, called her rotten and said she likes rats. And then the coup de gras: "Emu hater."

I couldn't believe it. My little girl? My little girl!

At first I wanted to go find my daughter and ask her what the hell was she thinking?? But, I held back and thought for a bit. Finally I sat her down and told her what I had found.

I wasn't sure if she would feign ignorance or start crying. She did neither. She just listened as I explained why what she wrote wasn't nice and how she certainly wouldn't like it if someone wrote that about her.

She agreed and said she was sorry. We talked about coping strategies when friends disappoint us or hurt our feelings of make us mad. I reminded her about the proper spelling of horrible and the difference between "here" and "hear." When I was sure she understood and then let her go back to what she had been doing.

As I walked away, I turned back to her and asked the question that had been haunting me since finding the note. "What's wrong with not liking emus?"

She smiled and said, "I couldn't think of anything else."