When Little Mean Girls are Your Trigger

The following post was written when my daughter was in kindergarten. It reveals the mama-bear side of me, but also sheds some light on parenting triggers.

In the parenting group I’m running, A Mom for All Seasons, we’ve spent the last week talking about our own childhood experiences and how those can sometimes shape how we parent. We are talking a lot about triggers and the importance of identifying them so we can keep ourselves from parenting from a place of reaction and instead keep a calm energy as often as possible (We’re only human, right?) This post shows my awareness of my behavior but possibly my ignorance to how my own stuff would trigger me in the moment. Luckily, it all ended well. I didn’t make any angry parent calls or visit the playground to give the know it all a piece of my mind. (Phew!) In writing about the incident thought, it is clear I had some insight into how I could have handled it better so my daughter would have learned not to let meanies get her down. Ah, we’re all human, right? Keep reading if you want to see how I let my own stuff get in the way.

I was a Gamma Girl. If you’ve never heard that name, it was coined by an author writing about high school cliques. Gamma is used for the girls who are not in the Alpha or popular group, but seem to be content right where they are. That was me.

I was never in the popular crowd, but I had friends in the group. I was never a cheerleader but I knew them and they were nice.

In college, I was President of my sorority . This, as anyone knows, means I wasn’t the popular one but people liked me. The popular girl was the Social Chair. It’s a known fact.

I liked being a Gamma Girl and I mostly had no problem with Alpha Girls. Sure, a few run ins in middle school left a mark, but mostly the popular girls were fine. They just possessed a level of cool I never had.

I actually hope to be raising a Gamma Girl. Someone who is nice to most everyone but doesn’t get walked all over because of it.

I hope to raise someone who doesn’t shy away from leadership roles but also doesn’t feel the need to force everyone to do it her way. I want my kids to be smart but not smug about it.

We have been very lucky that The Girl, has thus far, been surrounded by other Gamma Girls.

We’ve been mostly free from girl drama. That was until today…

Here’s the scene: my girl and I are playing around with iTunes and she asks for the song Hot n Cold by Katy Perry. When I start singing it, she gets all irritated and with her best snotty attitude says,
“mom those aren’t the words.”

“Yes, they are.” (Because, of course I am not mature enough to just let it go even though she is a small child and I should remember that. But, it’s music and apparently when my musical knowledge is questioned I get testy.)

“No, mom (insert Alpha Girl Name here) said they weren’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, when we were singing it at recess I sang it like you just did and she told me I didn’t know what I was talking about that I was singing it wrong.”

Here is where, as heat travels rapidly through my entire body, I say to myself, “Calm down, they are six. You must handle this appropriately so you can teach this future woman how to not throttle a person every time she’s challenged.”

My pep talk didn’t work.

Instead of a lesson on letting go, I said, “Well, (Alpha Girl) was wrong. I am right. Here is the song.”

And then played the song. (Can’t you hear the “nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah” in my tone?)

When we got to the point in the song where she heard she and I were in fact correct about the lyrics, she responded with a very appropriate, “YES” and an accompanying fistpump.

Turns out I am not SO okay with the Alpha girls, especially the know it all kind.

I should work on that.

And pray that my kid doesn’t throttle that girl tomorrow.

Maybe she’ll just have a sing off. Now that, I could get behind.

P.S. Looking for more parenting guidance and tips for self-care? Check out From Chaos to Calm a guided training to help you feel better in this tough season.