Issue link: https://fredparent.uberflip.com/i/1463460
10 Fredericksburg Parent and Family • April 2022 ask mom Daughter is ASK MOM offers parents two perspectives on today's child-rearing issues—one from a mom with grown children (Mary), the other from a mom raising small children (Kristi). If you're looking for creative solutions, or your mom isn't around to ask, drop in! If you have a question for Mary and Kristi, we'd love to hear from you. askmomyourquestion@gmail. com WRITTEN BY MARY FOLLIN AND KRISTI CROSSON M A RY MEAN ...suppressed anger robs people of even small amounts of joy... Illustration by Suzanne Johnson THE PROBLEM: I'm worried about my daughter and how she treats her friends. (She's 11.) When they tell her something about themselves, she tries to make it seem less-than-spectacular. Like, when her friend Megan won a prize at school, my daughter said, "I heard they just gave it to someone to help with their self-esteem." Or when her long-time friend, Sylvie, got a new haircut, my daughter told her she might like it better when it grows out. Her comments aren't totally mean, and sometimes her friends don't see what she's doing. But I do, and I don't like it. Ideas would be appreciated. To Her Friends MARY SAYS: For whatever reason, your daughter feels poorly about herself, so she's trying to make sure her friends feel even worse about themselves. Only, she doesn't know she feels this way. Rather, she feels confident her harsh judgments are true, and she's the only one qualified to dish them out. In a twisted way, these snide remarks help her feel better about herself. Passive aggression is so confusing, isn't it? I applaud you for recognizing these tendencies in your daughter at this young age. Passive aggressive adults are never really at ease, and over time, suppressed anger robs people of even small amounts of joy, which is what your daughter is missing out on. Joy. When one can only find joy in one's own accomplish- ments, the supply is limited. But if one can truly expe- rience joy in a friend's success, the accomplishments of strangers, and good news anywhere on the planet, opportunities for experiencing joy are boundless. You might be tempted to scold your daughter for speak- ing so unkindly to her friends. But if you can share with her that you see these comments as a cover for her inse- curities, she might be willing to open up to you. What's bothering her? Why is she so upset—or even angry—with her friends? Why is she feeling so poorly about herself? Let her know that joy is her birthright, and with prac- tice, she can experience it wherever she goes, even if it 'belongs' to someone else. Tell her also that if she wants to feel good about herself, she doesn't need to be better than anybody. All she has to do is experi- ence other people's joy as her own, and her friends will be right there with her when she has her own happy news to share.