Children Exclude My 3-year-old

Dear parent,

When we imagine that we can change other children or people, we become victims and we teach our children to be victims. Treat the other children as you would treat the wind or the rain. You don’t try to control nature to shape it up for your child. If the wind pushes your child or takes off her hat, you take her out of the wind. If it is raining your give her a raincoat or take her inside. When you do that, your teach your child to respond to reality. If you taught her to manipulate nature, she would feel sad and victimized. If you taught her to be upset about the wind, she will be upset about it.

Human being are also nature phenomenon. Your daughter does not have to feel hurt unless you pass on to her your reaction and the illusion that she can change the behavior of these children, or that they are hurting her feelings. If you don’t teach her that it is sad and heart breaking, she won’t feel this way.

Instead you can teach her compassion and care for others and for herself. About the other girl you can say, “Well, she is seven. I can understand that she would rather play with older children. Lets do something else.” The girl plays with your child when she has no other. She would probably rather play with older children, or, has some other valid reason for her preference to play without your daughter when there are other kids. It is likely that your child’s presence diminishes the fun of the play for the other children due to being younger or for another valid reason. Respect this girl and your child will learn respect and self-reliance.

We cannot control human beings. We can only respond to the way they are. How can you “forbid” the children from doing anything?  You can’t. Only through fear and intimidation do adults exercise control over children. If you control these children, your daughter will learn to be a victim and she will learn control and coercion. It is better to respond to reality rather than manipulate life to go our way.

Teach your daughter that she is not a victim and that if someone does not want her in the play, it is NOT a problem. Say in a benign tone, “Are you all by yourself? Oh good! I want to play with you.” And you play with her. Or, go find another friend for her to play with, or connect with a different family that she can enjoy. Empower her to take care of herself not as a suffering judgmental victim, but as a powerful person. Model it to her by providing a solution to her situation rather than manipulation of the other children. The response to being without a playmate is playing by oneself, with you, finding other friends, or doing something else somewhere else. 

If you already taught your daughter to feel sad when the children don’t play with her, realize that she will change fast when you do. 

Warmly, http://authenticparent.com/index.html