June 6, 2011

Can someone tell me how you teach your kids the lessons you had to learn the hard way?

As a teenager I got caught up in girl drama.

I went to an all girl Catholic school, hence the girl drama.

The drama included but was not limited to: gossiping and backstabbing.

One would think I had learned my lesson; however, that same behavior followed me to college.

It also included ending the relationships I had with a couple of the high school girls.

To this day, I can not recall exactly what happened or how these relationships ended. . .but they did.

This was in large part due to my lack of loyalty to these girls.

Fast forward fifteen years later.

Now I'm the mom of a young girl, two actually...only one is school aged.

How do I teach them how to be a loyal friend while at the same time expressing the importance of "telling" me or another adult if there is something going on that isn't right? 

Confused?  

Basically here's what happened in a nutshell:  Someone called someone else a bad name.

Instead of telling an adult my daughter tried to handle it herself, inadvertently telling the other girl about the name calling.

She hurt her friend in the process.
That same friend was berated by the older girl for calling her a name.
My daughter's friend was in tears. 
Not sure if she was deathly afraid of getting in trouble or hurt by the older girl's words, or hurt that my daughter got involved. . .
Anyways,
Maybe I'm making too big a deal about it...

but I don't want her to learn these lessons the hard way--by losing friends.

I don't want her not to tell me something that a friend said or did out of loyalty either. . .

so how do I teach the lesson effectively?

Sigh.

Suggestions?

Just another day in the neighborhood