So, my daughter was in a fight yesterday…
Picked up my oldest from piano practice yesterday and when she came walking toward the car I could tell she had had a bad day: head down, shoulders a bit slumped, not quite making eye contact with me when she did look up. She got in the car and I asked her what happened, and she almost immediately started tearing up and said she and another little girl got in trouble for fighting on the playground.
Pressing her for info., she told me the other girl was the instigator (my word, not hers); said this girl was calling her names and then pushed her. My daughter pushed back (which, as she described, seemed to be the two of them grabbing at the other’s hands and shoving). After this, my daughter told me the girl slapped her. Somehow all this happened without an adult seeing anything. My daughter tells me she didn’t hit back. Back in the classroom, the teacher talked to both of them and the other girl said that my daughter hit her, too. Not much came of it, just a note in her folder, but my daughter did have some consequences at home. I hope the other kid’s parents do the same.
Beyond the consequences, we also talked about making the right decisions – walking away, telling a teacher – but she has two parents who have been known to exhibit tempers, so I can’t blame her too much for retaliating when pushed (I’m inclined to believe her side of the story).
Gotta say, though, seeing my daughter crying about this and then telling me she got hit made me want to go to the school and find the little girl who did it, yell at her a bit, maybe shake her a little (and I suppose this illustrates my point about her dad’s temper). But that would be wrong, of course.
Years down the road, though, when that girl gets to the high school, I’m going to fail her on principle.
The Lower Frequencies 
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