And so it begins.
Little girls being mean.
And to my most sensitive and least confident child, none-the-less.
Unlike Sage, who's confidence and positivity is a natural gift from God, Cadence has to work harder on building hers for herself.
She's the one I fear being mistreated the most, because of her extra sensitive spirit.
So when Cadence came home from dance and told us that two girls from her dance class were making fun of her for calling her church shoes "tap shoes" the mother bear instinct in me when wild!
I wanted to jump those two little girls! Who do they think they are?
And then I was disappointed in myself that I wasn't in that dressing room after dance class to help prevent this from happening.
But I very quickly realized that I'm not going to be able to be everywhere all at once.
What is more important than being able to prevent this from happening is actually this:
What Cadence's realization about those two girls was.
When she told us about the girls this is the first thing she said:
Cadence: "There's two girls in my dance class who don't love themselves."
"Why?"
Cadence: "Because they were making fun of me, and people who make fun of other people don't love themselves."
This was a lesson we taught our kids less than a week ago!
How relieved I am that we had had that discussion.
How even more relieved I am that Cadence was actually listening, and taking it in.
And the most relief comes in that she actually TOLD us about it.
I know this mean girl mentality that my kids are going to have to face is just the tip of the ugly ice berg. And no, I won't be able to be everywhere all at once to protect my kids from harmful words and/or treatment; nor should I be, even if I could.
Because more important than preventing this from happening is teaching my kids to love themselves, and to be strong enough and confident enough to handle the meanness and cruel behavior of others for themselves, and to continue to treating others kindly and taking chances on people despite it all.
How am I doing this?
Well I don't really know exactly or specifically.
I guess I'm just hoping that my own confidence, strength and knowledge of my worth and who I really am will serve as an example to my children. They learn more from example after all, right?
Plus little discussions about these type of things help too. I constantly remind my children that they have worth, and I help them recognize the things that they love about themselves. We talk about how it's awesome that we all have uniqueness, but that the most important is that we are all children of God and that he loves all of us.
