How the girls do it, and it's only, a process of life, that we all, get singled out, in our, schooling years at one time or another in life…translated…
She's Alone, in Experiencing These Moments of Her Sorrows & Sadness, and as Her Mother, I Have, No Idea, Just How Helpless She'd, Felt……….
Before bed, my daughter started telling me how she'd felt, the fifth grade female older schoolmate when practicing the sports, she'd cried, reason being as the coach got everybody together to huddle up, the classmate, K, called out to L, who was not yet ready, "hey, quickly! The coach is telling us to huddle up!", but L was upset, started screaming at her, "stop rushing me, leave me alone!", the K left, with that look of, "I don't know what I did to cause her to react like that" then came the pairs tournament, and the girls are all, backing away from teaming up with L, then L started, crying. My daughter spoke in that high-and-mighty tone, told what K told the others, "why you crying! She has a heart made of glass." I'd found from my daughter's tone of voice as she was, describing this, that she'd, agreed with the interpretations of K's beliefs about L.
I'd stopped my daughter, asked if she felt the same as the other players? Wanted to teach her, that it's not okay, to kick someone when s/he is, down, that wasn't a heart made of glass, I'd had her taken the perspective of her classmate, "had it been you? If nobody wants to team up with you………" my daughter fell silent, then, with that voice of anger, that bit of, upset and sadness, told me, "yeah, it'd happened to me, too!"
illustration from UDN.com
On this night, she'd cried, a very, long, time.
At first I was, surprised, then it was the heartache for her, and upset. I'd started, blaming myself, I'd never heard her spoken of this before. I have, NO idea what she'd gone through, dealing with these times of her feeling upset, from getting singled out from her, peers all alone, and I'm her, mother, I couldn't give her the positive energies she was in dire need of, to give her a boost, not even, a warm, hug. We are so very close, and yet, I'd not known a thing about this. I'd wrapped my arms around her, asked her gently, "why didn't you tell it to me?" she'd told me, "because I forgot what happened, once I got home.", and there's, that mixture of feelings in me then.
My daughter told, as she'd begun playing with the team, as she was placing the equipment into the bags, the players of the same grade level yelled at her, "Stop bring your equipment here!", because at the time, those girls who were friends are paired up together. When it came to play the doubles, nobody wants to be play with her, because she was new, very tiny in frame, too weak, couldn't play well enough, and so, she got, singled, out.
My daughter poured all of what's happened to her in the past year or so as she'd joined up with the sports teams, the girls' unfriendly means, their bad attitudes, their awful words, she couldn't understand why she was, mistreated, felt hurt, not known how to respond. Her mind kept on running, asking, "why did they treat me like so?", and, "how can I, respond back to those who are mean to me?" I'd contemplated, this passage of life, the measuring of the interactions of interpersonal relation, the cliques, and finding a place that you fit into in the groups, the singling someone out, and this was only in her middle grade years, and we're, already, entering into, learning how to handle this, adult, subject matter.
I'd also recalled L, her attitudes are unstable in the teams, straight up, and, she'd ordered the other players, around, bossed them. When my husband went to see my daughter in her game, saw L being unfriendly to our daughter, hitting the ball out of bounds, and had my daughter go and fetch it, or when they're paired up, and my daughter couldn't hit the ball, and L would, look, upset.
singling someone out...photo from online
As a teacher of technical high school for over twenty years, I'd witnessed more than my share of bullying between the female students, and how they were, traumatized by the bullying, the comparing the grades, looks, following the leader blindly, getting involved into the cliques, singling each other out, whether it be in the classrooms, online, the rumors and the mean words from the keyboard turned into the doubts, to causing the girls to turn into, adversaries, enemies. Then, the girls may have learned from watching their adults or in the media, that having what it takes isn't quite enough, but we have to, stand up tough, even when we're, not, the louder we are, the more chances of winning that we have.
It's always like this, the girls would get hurt, they either hurt others, or be hurt by, others. But, it really, shouldn't be like this. I still believed, that interacting with one another kindly, is what most of expect the world to work, and what these girls should learn is, that "someone else is better than they are", and that having the abilities, is all that matters. Xun Lu the writer stated once, "I thought people respected me, because I'm outstanding; later, I'd learned, that they respected me, because THEY are, outstanding." I would keep on using these words, to respond back to my own students' and my daughter's, being bullied or bullying others.
And so, this is only, a stage of life, that we all can't, avoid, back in the days when we were in our late elementary and early middle school years, I'm sure, all of us all had the experiences of getting singled out by a group, and, that hurt, because we desperately seek the approvals from our peers, we needed to belong to a group, that's what growth is, and then, we eventually (hopefully!), all realized, that hey, I do not give a SHIT how YOU may feel about me, so long as I do me right! This is a lesson that all kids must learn, the hard, way, in order, to gain the wisdoms of life that we all needed, to become what we're, meant to, be in our lives.
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