I certainly could have phrased it in such a way that it would have been less hurtful when repeated by my niece. Something like: "I could see that yoiu were being squished and that "F" was making things worse. I don't know why she did what she did, but she did seem to be doing it on purpose. Doesn't seem very nice does it?"
I was talking to my niece who, until now, has never relayed this sort of info to those involved. I put her into a very complicated position by telling her her friend is obnoxious. She doesn't understand the whole thing, she's learning on her feet, trial by fire.
Look, I will have to learn to deal with this stuff better if I am going to teach a roomful of the beasties.
It's illegal for the friend to sit in front with me. My niece shouldn't even be out of her booster seat, but she is close to the required height to ride without one (especially since the middle seat does not have a shoulder-strap seatbelt).
I am not sure that the baby seat is compatible with the middle seat and/or lap-strap.
I really don't think it's that bad... if it was capricious/ you were just spouting stuff that wasn't even true, maybe, but she WAS being/ acting obnoxious. That was definitely a breakthrough for sozlet, when I said that a given behavior by her friends was unacceptable and expressed sympathy to her that she had to go through that. It jarred her out of her default "friends are always right" mode, and seemed to give her some more backbone to stand up for herself.
In an absolute best-case scenario, you're right, you could handle it the way you laid out. In terms of preparing for teaching, that's probably better. In terms of worrying about parents confronting you though, I really think you were well within your rights.
The About article talks about telling mean kids stories about how if they are too mean they won't have any friends left -- I think sozlet's preschool teachers did a variation of that, too. (In terms of how you'd handle it in a school setting.)
Anyway, I do think that school settings are different because everyone is about equal -- you'll have your favorites, of course, but it won't be that you have the one-on-one connection that you have with S. I think it's natural that your instinct was to jump to her defense, in a way you wouldn't necessarily do in a school setting.
I dunno how I feel about using the scared-straight tactic with kids. I suppose some of them might need it. And if you read a book to the whole class you won't be singling any one kid out.
So, today went much better! First off they were in better moods right off the bus that drops them at the local recreation center after camp. As we walked to the car I explained how I changed the seating and why. I took the pressure of the friend by saying that the seat she was in was sliding down the sloped plane of the seat cushion (if that makes sense in writing). I put the booster seat, sans winged back piece) in the middle (the baby seat can't go there because the middle belt is not a should strap). The friend sat in the middle and my niece on the side. I expalined how and why that would work better and why the friend still had more space in her booster seat than silvia did so that it would be nice if she didn't hang her elbows off the edge of her little arm rests. The masking tape lines came in handy.
The friend excused herself after we snacked on fruit and cheesy-popcorn and then invited us all to see what she had done. We went into the rec room and she asked, "What's different". It was clean! She had picked all the toys up off the floor and put them away, she explained why she put what where (books with books, art supplies at the table, games on the smaller shelves, etc). I have been trying to impress that on my niece for years! And, today was my last day. I think her dad was nervous about her upset-ness. He said she wouldn't talk to him about it. I told him about the taped lines in the back seat and the re-arranging of car seats, but not the details of the fight.
Everyone parted happy, so far as I could tell! Phew.
I love happy endings--even if your niece might find the notion of A Place for Everything and Everything in Its Place a bit obnoxious.
Cheers!
Thanks Noddy! I have a sense of accomplishment!
Great! Glad it ended so well!
She didn't even want to leave.
Thanks for your help, all! Very Very valuable.
