Girls

When I picked up Abi from preschool today, the teacher made us have a moms-and-daughters conference, together with Miranda and Eden and their moms. Apparently there's somegthing complicated going on with the three girls, with presents selectively given, "prizes" promised and withheld, sometimes leading to tears. From now on, this is not allowed (though identical presents for everyone in the class are still fine.) This was occasioned by Abi bringing presents for all the girls today. (I had suggested inluding the other two girls, Maya and Romi, and Abi was very happy to do it.) That's not allowed either.

For my part, all I previously knew of this was that Abi would sometimes say "I promised Eden/Miranda to give her X" (and, indeed, would take X to school and give it); or, more rarely, "Miranda has promised me a prize" (though Abi has never brought home a present or prize as far as I know). So it seems that Abi is always the giver. It is genuine generosity -- she is prepared to give away some of her favorite toys -- but it's been bothering me. Someone was being manipulated, and I'm not sure who: almost certainly Abi (Eden sometimes refuses to talk to her and drags Miranda into it too; perhaps Abi was trying to appease them), but possibly the others too (giving presents is definitely a kind of power trip -- "I gave you a present, so now you have to like me"). I'm glad it's over, but it's hard for me to explain to Abi exactly what was wrong.

Interestingly, something similar happened last year too, at the Russian daycare. There, it was just Abi bringing presents, and the teacher forbade it because she felt Abi was being taken advantage of. There were much fewer presents this year (which I why I hadn't realized anything was wrong), but I guess as the kids get more sophisticated, they can make more of less. We'll have to keep an eye out for this kind of thing in the future.