So my daughter is being bullied by a couple of girls in our neighbourhood. They used to be her best friends. For some reason, they have turned against her over the last three months or so.

It used to be so nice. I would open the back door and a grouo of 5 or 6 girls, all around 5 years old, would play together and run from garden to garden. Now they exclude her from this group, or tease her, call her names, push her. Because she is the youngest and smallest, and because she is probably a bit oversensitive and cries easily. Girls can be so cruel.

Her world used to revolve around that group. She is badly hurt by the situation, and does not understand why this is happening. And I can't deal with it. She has suffered enough. She cried the other day and said she wishes E was here so she'd have her to play with instead. She would be nearly 3 now. This really tipped me over the edge and I have been crying constantly since.

I have tried to speak to the parents but that fell on deaf ears, they insisted that kids are kids and they need to sort it out amongst themselves. They don't go to the same preschools (every single one of them to a different one) so I can't tackle the problem from that angle.

I feel so fiercly protective, probably excessively so, because I don't think she can take any more. Losing her sister and seeing me battle through life-threatening birth complications was so hard on her.

What do I do? I tried to teach her some coping mechanisms, but honestly she does not stand a chance against those two. She feels lonely and sad and stands by the back door, hearing the other ones play and laugh outside. It breaks my heart. What do I do?
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I don't have any advice for how to deal with the bullying, but I sure can relate to how you feel about your daughter, B, that she has lived with too much already. For me, it is an intense desire to protect my daughter, who was three when her sister died, and the knowledge that it is in some ways futile to try, because so much can happen. My daughter is bigger and stronger than a lot of her friends. Last year, in kindergarten, she had a kind of mean friend who was tiny. E was always getting in trouble because everyone assumed she was the 'bad' one because she was the biggest. This made me mad, but it also made me desperately sad, because couldn't anyone see, try to understand, what my daughter had lived through, worked through all the time, that their kids didn't have to deal with, were completely oblivious, too. It's hard to explain this feeling - but I often think of how if people could only know how much WORK it takes for the bereaved to live in the 'real' world like 'normal' people...I think it's the same for kids. And no one ever takes kids' grief and feelings seriously. I have come, over time, to thinking that some of the things E learns from this are valuable (though I would wish she would never have to learn them and though I am still so angry that she does). For example, the idea that life isn't fair. I have completely given up on the concept of fairness, because it's a joke in our life context. What's fair about a dead baby sister? We have tried instead to work on kindness. On being kind to others when we can. And on the rightness of being angry when we deserve to be angry. Or of being frustrated when life is frustrating. These are emotions and states that are discouraged in children, but that we have to work through. I doubt this is helping, much but if I were in your situation, I would probably try to find ways to let her express that anger and frustration and I would be very blunt that things don't work out the way we like them to, that some people are not nice sometimes, that we can be true to our own feelings. I feel like the immense discomfort of our grief and the way I learned that we have to live through it, with it, has led me to see that we also have to do the same for other situations where we experience discomfort. And my expectations of other people have dropped so low. I'm not saying what you should do - just what I think I would do based on the things I've experienced along this 3+ year road.

I know your little E is so young still and it is horrible to go through these things - the normal friend problems of raising a young girl, the horrendous pain of bereaved parenting and of helping bereaved children. I'm sorry you have to. My E also talks about 'what if A were here,' and she would be three and a half, so our girls are close in age. If I could, I'd bring my E by for a playdate - I think these little ones benefit as much as we do from a peer who gets it. Sending a big hug, and sorry if this reply is too much.

I'm so sorry this is happening, and that the other parents are not receptive to your concerns. I've been reading this great book "How to talk so kids will listen, and listen so kids will talk" and it's helping me have tools to support my kids' emotional growth. I think even if the other kids are being mean, if your daughter knows that you're there and that you hear her pain, that's a great gift to her.

JLD, thank you, Oh how nice would it be if our girls could meet and play. It will remain a nice thought with probably something like 5000 miles between us! And no, your reply wasn't too much at all. It resonated with me so much.

No one ever takes kids' grief and feelings seriously - that is so true. I mentioned to another kindergarten mum (who knows our story) that she still speaks a lot about her dead sister. It came up after she gave me a blank stare when I said that she'd been through a lot, in an effort to explain some of her anxieties. That woman looked me straight in the eyes and said that she is surpirsed that she still remembers. WTF. How could she ever forget. I was so angry.

And R, thank you for the book suggestion. I found it online. It got great reviews, and I ordered a copy!

We'll muddle through. Somehow. This is hard. Being a kid is hard sometimes. Being a babyloss kid is even harder.

Hi B-
My heart goes out to you and your sweet big girl. I know that super sensitized feeling, like a protective Mama Bear, and we have had similar, but not quiet so intensely in your face and space situations. My older daughter is soon to be seven, and her baby sister would have been four in September. She is very lonely for her, and never, never forgets her, even though she had just turned three when she lost her baby sister ( B, some adults are just fucking idiots!)
and has had grief related behavior to work through and the whole nine yards. I really understand the pain of seeing your daughter rejected. It just extra sucks.

Practically speaking, the book R recommended is a great book. My other suggestion is widening her social circle and involving her in other activities, and inviting her pre-school friends over.

Discussions I've had with my daughter about friendship, specifically regarding two young ladies I shall call Potato and Discontented Kitten Face, are about how you feel around them. Friends should feel good to be around, period. If they don't feel good, then it's not friendship.

Potato and DKF have a history of actively excluding my daughter during and after dance class. She told me sadly "They just don't like me." I said" Did you do something to them?" She said no. So I started to list possibilities, reasons why you might legitimately not like someone, like "Did you stomp on their toes? Did you push them and call them names? Did you cough on their snack?" "Did you put gum in their hair?" "Did you break their toys and then laugh?" "Did you steal their shoe and fill it with peanut butter?" It got her laughing, and then I told her that if she hadn't done any of that stuff then they had no good reason to not like her, and whatever the problem was it wasn't about her. I reminded her that happy people aren't mean to others. It helped her in the moment, and we've reiterated it when needed, the repetition of the message is important.

If all else fails there is always "Piss on 'em." My dad taught me that : )

With love and big, big hugs to you and both of your precious girls,
Jen (AdiaRose and Imani's mom)

Jen, I laughed out loud about your nicknames for those two girls. We do that too! I call them goldfish face and nasty little sidekick. Thank you for sharing your daughter's experience. I like how you told her that they must be the unhappy ones. It is so true. We've been keeping busy, and L seems a lot happier for now than when I first posted. And I am trying hard to relax a little.

PS I received that book and read half of it already. I love it!

:) Good! I'm glad your daughter is hanging in there!
Love you you both!
Jen