Perspective. My reasoning tool for all things great and small.
It dawned on me that I am in a completely different Zone than everyone else. ( Pun intended)
I am a soon to be 61 year old tent with a growing spirit of a child with the wisdom of a crone.
My granddaughter forces me to be a better person. Not because she demands it. She doesn’t know the difference. I demand it. I know the difference.
My granddaughter is in a one up man ship with her best friend. They send pictures of anything new they have acquired ( stuffed animals, duct tape…a HUGE trend right now…or any acquisition from Bath and Body Works.)
The reason for sending pictures to one another is under the guise of wanting the other to be happy for them.
It is clearly a gloat issue.
If one doesn’t respond how the other *thinks* she should respond, the tension between them is upped a notch. Until a sleepover and then the tension is given slack.
I have absolutely no idea how to handle this. In time all things work out more or less, but not without a peripheral etching idea of how the world is beginning to work. How they individually fit in.
My granddaughter is an easy going personality B with a fairy dusting of complete absent mindedness.
Her best friend is being taught about the role of whining and how to get her way with a good dose of pouting.
Having been perceived as a pouter myself…okay…maybe I actually was a pouter, I understand the actions of the friend. I wanna slap the shit out of her. But on a deeper level, it could possibly mean she wants attention. Or she is a bitch in training. I was the former. Not that it matters, because the actions outwardly appear to be identical, and it leaves the recipient in a quandary, dealing with it in a way that either ups the ante or makes them shrivel away like the wicked witch of the east. I was the latter.
All I know to do, when my granddaughter gets chastised for not responding in the *correct* manner, is point out to her…*how do YOU feel, when said friend doesn’t respond in a way you think she should?*
No matter her answer, I simply state…”I see…so there are two sets of rules going on here.”
…… Absolutely guaranteed to be continued.