Today I recieved a phone call from a girl who I would consider to be a friend......we met a few years ago when both our daughters attended the same kindergarten and have kept in contact through playing sport together.  Miss 6 and her daughter Carli would stay together on the sidelines at our matches drawing, playing games or simply cheering us on.  Now the girls are both at different schools in Prep, and only see each other once every so often, maybe every few months.

Her mum Deb is older than me, and is quite a strong lady, some may even say opinionated at times.  Her two children are always "scheduled" to be busy......any  afternoon free and Deb organises for little friends to come over for plays with her kids.  It is school holidays here at the moment, and although we get along fine, I am very different to Deb in many ways.  I love the school holidays......sleeping in, staying in PJ'S until I am good and ready to get out of them, at whatever time!  A chance for my kids to be just that, kids.  Playing outside, watching TV, cooking with me, drawing, painting pictures........whatever we decide to do.

Anyway, Deb rings me this afternoon and asks if miss 6 would like to come over for a play, seeing as thay have just got home and have a free afternoon?  Miss 6 is also asked if she would like to have a sleepover at Carli's house?  Now miss 6 has her independant and confident ways about her most of the time.......but she also has her own insecurities and needs for love and reassurance, normal things I would say for any 6 year old?  She has only had a couple of sleepovers and those have only been very recently, with family and a very close friend, and both with her brother present also.  Both times I left her knowing she felt happy, comfortable and secure..........otherwise I wouldn't have left her at all!

Needless to say Deb was quite "pushy", but I insisted on talking with miss 6 first and I would get back to her.  After a few ummms and ahhhs miss 6 decided to go for a play, but ditch the sleepover.......I wasn't surprised.  Miss 6 loves her cuddles, reassurances and "i love you's" especially at night if she calls out from bed.  It sometimes doesn't take much to rattle her and I have to say, Deb is not the most warm person around children generally.  I just didn't feel miss 6 was quite ready for this particular sleepover, but I left it to her to make her decision........then let out a little sigh of relief privately when she made her choice.

So I took miss 6 to Carli's house for a play and when she seemed happy enough, drove the two minutes home to do my special thing with master 8, who was not invited.  Remember the board game "Battleships"......well one game took more than a little while, but I have to say, although master 8 put up a good fight I blew him out of the water so to speak. *LOL*  It was nice to spend some one on one time with him, his a gorgeous little man.  :)

I picked miss 6 up a couple of hours later and she seemed fine, used her best manners saying "thank you for having me" and hopped in the car.  But on the way home she was a little quiet and I knew something was up!  She proceeded to tell me that Deb had "told her off".  She said Carli had been bouncing down the stairs after being told not too, and miss 6 was worried that she would get in trouble for doing it too, even though she wasn't, so she told Deb what Carli was doing.  Deb's response to miss 6 was that it was not nice to "dob" on other people......and that she thought it was a mean thing to do!!  Miss 6 said she had got into trouble, and that it had made her feel upset.

Sorry, but is this just a little stupid or petty??  I know that as a mother I am as protective of my kids as any other mother is, but we raise both our children to feel comfortable to talk about anything, and that includes things that worry or upset them.  We do not rise them to be "dibber dobbers".....complaining about little things and deliberately trying to get others in trouble.  But miss 6 said she was worried about getting into trouble, so she decided to speak first.......ahh sounds okay to me?  Now I am not a perfect mum...... I try to do the best for my kids, to teach them right from wrong , to become caring, confident and lovely happy kids, with lots of hugs, love and discipline along the way.  But I think with this situation I would have handled it very differently.  If it had been here at my place and the roles were reversed with miss 6 misbehaving and Carli "dobbing", I would simply have said okay, miss 6 if you want to have friends over you need to behave, please stop doing it.  End of it.......over, finito, finished, no big deal!

So I sat down with miss 6 and we had a chat about how she was feeling.  I told her I didn't think she did anything wrong, she was not being nasty or malicious,  and was not deliberately trying to get Carli into trouble.  She is not a "dobber"........how do we encourage our kids to share with us if we squash them when they speak up if they feel unsure or anxious about a situation they are in?  As I said, I am not a perfect mum by any means..........but I sure would have handled this one differently if it had been me.