Letting Go of a Bit of Control

Those of you who know me might not be surprised when I admit this......I am a control freak....please don't judge me! I am very used to being in control and when it is taken away from me I sometimes don't handle it all that well. As a stay at home parent you control all that you see, you are in charge of meals, naps, books, TV, pretty much everything. Of course you give your children choices, but you chose what those choices are. I am the queen of all I see, I'm very used to my level of control and enjoy it very much!

Now, as always, there will come a time when even a queen has to give up a little of her power. One of the most blatant areas where I have lost control is what J learns or experiences at school. I'm not talking about what she is learning in the classroom, I'm talking about what she is learning at recess or on the bus, what the other children are teaching her that I might not agree with. The other day J came home from school with something weighing heavily on her. Apparently one of her friends, another five year old girl, we'll call her T, told J if she didn't say T was more beautiful and smarter then her J couldn't be in their group. J was very upset at this, she told T what she wanted to hear but knew it wasn't right.

I had no idea what to do with this story. I couldn't believe I was being faced with icky girl junk at such an early age! I was not prepared at all and felt so out of control. Quite frankly I wanted to tell J she is much more beautiful and smarter then T (a fact I most difinitively believe to be true) then go find T and lay into her for manipulating my precious daughter and making her feel less then the wonderful little thing that she is! Now of course this reaction, while it might have made me feel better, was not the best solution to the issue. My problem was I didn't know what the best solution was. I explained to J that T was not being very nice and I would be disappointed if J ever treated her friends in the same way. Beyond that I tried to get across that if J doesn't feel comfortable doing or saying something then she doesn't have to and shouldn't do it. The whole time I was trying to make J feel better, I was thinking, "Who the heck does T think she is and where did she learn to manipulate people and situations like that!"

I never thought I would have to deal with icky, friendship manipulation at the age of five. I know girls can be icky and catty but I didn't expect it until ages hit double digits or at least they were out of kindergarten! I don't want my daughter to think manipulating people is OK. It frustrates me to no end that her experience is completely out of my control.

My grandma, a much wiser woman then I will ever hope to be, once told me the early years of child rearing are the years in which parents instill in their children all the morals and values they will carry with them, after the beginning years all a parent can do is pray. I have to have faith that as parents R and I will instill enough positive values and confidence that our children can go out into the world and face down bullies like T. With that in mind, as much as it pains me to give up control of the situation, I'm trying to "Let go and let God".

I know I haven't lost all my control, I'm still the queen of all I see. I just hope giving up a little control to my princess will just help her become a better ruler when her reign starts.