Sometimes our kids will start hanging out with a certain child who makes us cringe a little bit.
Not that the other child is bad, but there’s an underlying meanness to him or her.
We see how they treat others, even if they’re nice enough to our own child. And we worry that that will at some point be directed at our kids.
Or maybe that’s already happening yet our kids aren’t stopping it and are still continuing the friendship.
And we hope that soon, that friendship will fade away because they’ll be placed in different classrooms, on different teams, that someone new will come into the picture and change the dynamic.
We want our kids to have true friends, who they’re nice to and who are nice back.
We’re so protective of our kids that it’s easy to see when a friendship isn’t good for them.
But can we see it for ourselves?
That friend who is “just trying to be helpful” but really, is doing nothing but playing on our insecurities and cutting us down at every chance. Who says things that cut you straight to the heart but then later acts as if it’s not what she said or that you took it the wrong way.
The one who is only around because of what we can give her, do for her. And we don’t see it until we’re no longer in the position to dole out what she’s looking for and then, looking back, it’s so clear.
The one you’re there for all the time, who would get upset if you aren’t there for every little thing, yet is nowhere to be found when you need a friend.
We wouldn’t put up with this kind of crap if someone were treating our kids this way.
They deserve better.
But so do we.
And oh, how freeing it is, what a relief it is, when we realize this.
