Please HELP! Hate note. scary, sad.

[MamaPrincess]

It is scary and sad even more because my LO is the one who posted a hate note

at her best friends house. She had some unresolved feelings bottled inside

not to say that the other kid is an angel and he did few really ugly things

to my LO but whatever happened, hate note is NOT an option.

When I have been contacted by the mother of the other child that there

was "I hate you " note written on their wall.. My jaw dropped.

At first I wanted to believe there was some mistake of course..

then my LO admitted to doing it.

LO did it at the beginning of long and happy play date so

the harder was to believe for me that my LO was the author.

However apparently she did it right after arriving for what

she felt hurt before.

Help, what to do, I told her that she will be punished

for writing it, for using the H word and for damaging

someone elses property and I need to figure out what

punishemnt is the best for the situation and till then

she is on hold. We also need to fix the wall..

Please suggest how to handle the situation.

- the LO is 6.5 years old.

She is kind of sorry for what she did but not terribly sorry,

she was smilling when I told her that we have been contacted

about the note and hwen I asked if she did it she kept saying

"I don't know"... with a silly smile...  like she did nor care much.

Then she said that she did it before the playdate went good

as she was upset about the past.

In whole honesty the other friend tends to be quite inconsiderate

of her needs and tends to be selfish, self centered and

inconsiderate great dela and I witness it crashing my LO

feelings in many ways.. but she kept coming for more

hoping each time will be better and she will get something

of the playdate for herself too, some fun.. she really

was fond of the friend..

so agian, I need to handle it somehow and I am at loss.

I am frustrated, disappointed and sad because of it

and I just felt like someone pulled the rug from underneath.

I fear that she might learned it at school or take it to school.

this atittude and what then? I know I have to address it

but how to do it best? I did not want to punihs her today

because I am so upset and angry that I know could

overdo it and not to the point as now I owuld just

like to ground her for life :).. sadly.

please help.

[One_Girl]

If it was on the wall not paper I think you should see about bringing her over to scrub it off the wall. If it was on paper I wouldn't do much beyond limiting playdates with this child and asking her how she would feel is someone wrote that they hated her on the wall. It sounds like this is embarrassing for you but young kids do and say embarrassingly blunt things so try not to overreact.

[BellinghamCrunchie]

I wonder if it could be more the embarrassment you feel as a parent for something your child did? It does seem to me that concern is appropriate but I think you are overreacting.

I don't see that what she did, either writing on the wall or using the word "hate," is particularly bad. I'm pretty sure 99.99% of 6.5 year olds have done both of these at some point.  If some child came to visit my DD here and wrote that on our wall, I would be way more concerned about how the playdate was going and why this happened and how I can resolve the issues between them than I would be about a tiny bit of very typical property damage. I think I would also be embarrassed that a guest had to resort to that kind of behavior to feel heard and to get people to pay attention.

[mamazee]

I agree with the PP. If this happened at my house I'd be worried about how the playdate went and what was happening between the kids and whether that could be fixed, and also about the actual property damage, though unfortunately crayon on the wall is something I have experience with so that wouldn't be a huge deal. But I would not freak out over it.

So she needs to learn a few things: appropriate ways to express how you're feeling vs inappropriate ways, precise and constructive words to use when you're unhappy, and also property damage. IMO, those things can be taught better by working with her than punishing her. Talk to her about the choices she made and what other choices she could have made. Ask her what made her so upset and go through some other ways she could have handled it.

But she doesn't sound like a bad kid, just a kid who hasn't learned yet how to handle being upset at someone.

Good luck!

(And I apologize if this is disjointed or incomplete - I've been interrupted at least a dozen times.)

[SpottedFoxx]

I can't help but being struck by the fact that you keep making excuses for your child and blaming the other kid.  If the child was so terrible, you never should have let her to over there to begin with.  

Your daughter did something wrong.  She needs to make amends.  If she wrote on the wall, then she needs to go back to the home and scrub the wall clean.  She needs to apologize to the family.   Then... you need to work with her on finding more appropriate ways to express her feelings.  Since she can write, maybe a diary for her feelings would be a more appropriate place for her to be mad at someone and get out her feelings.  

[mnj77]

I can't figure out if she wrote on the wall or posted a paper note.  Obviously, she shouldn't be writing on other people's property, so that should be addressed.  Otherwise, my take is that we all feel like telling someone off with a nasty note once in a while, and we need to learn how to deal with those feelings and confrontations appropriately.  Give her some skills, like sleeping on it before you send the note, asking someone who isn't involved to read it first, trying to talk to the person face to face in a calm way, etc. 

I might tell her a personal story, like "The other day at work someone blamed me for something that wasn't my fault and I was so mad!  I wrote out a long email saying how mad I was, but before I sent it I showed it to a friend.  My friend helped me tone it down and put it in a more respectful, productive way.  The person who made me mad came and we talked about it and resolved the problem.  That probably wouldn't have happened if I'd sent my original email.  If you're feeling mad and want to write a note, you can always show it to me first." 

I also think one of the most helpful things we can do for our daughters is to maintain perspective and be a little detached when it comes to their girl drama.  Be her calm port in the storm, in other words.  Girls (and probably boys, but I don't have one) are going to be nasty to each other at times as they learn how to navigate friendships.  If you get all punitive about this, she isn't going to be likely to come to you for that perspective the next time a girlfriend hurts her feelings and that would be a shame.