There Was a Little Girl... What Turns a Good Girl Bad!
There Was A Little Girl
There was a little girl who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good, she was very, very good,
When she was bad, she was horrid!
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Girls are kind and compasionate things that long for close and honest friendships. So why does it begin to go so wrong as young as Year 2? After many years of being a girl, and working with girls, and helping them through their issues and problems I have identified several common occurances.
1. There has been
an unknown misunderstanding. This can be really hard to work out so usually it involves all parties sitting together and going through the story slowly with feelings and thoughts verbalized to find where it occurred. If the girls are able to empathize and are forgiving this usually clears up quickly. Since no one actually hurt anyone, emotionally or physically, when the misunderstanding goes away, so does the hurt attached to it.
2. A struggle for individual identity.
This often occurs when the girls think they both think and feel the same way about everything. They think that they will always choose the same things at all times. Sometimes one girls is more dominate and the other less dominate. Eventually the less dominate will want to be more assertive as she will feel pushed around. Without guidance and role-play opportunities a good friendship that could be redefined is lost or damaged beyond repair.
3. Poor character. One of the girls might catch a bout of poor character and begin to gossip, become jealous, lie or steal, etc. Unless this girl comes to the realisation that these types of choices will become habits, and then become part of who she is, and that they will damage all of her relationships, it may be difficult to salvage this situation and finding alternate friends is often best.
4. One person moves away. Either become great penpals and/or skype to maintain this friendship - but definately new friendships will need to be formed. 5 close friends is a good number.
5. One or both parties feel betrayed. If it can be shown that there was no betrayal, or that the betrayal was sincerely unintentional there is a good chance the friendship will survive. If there really was an intentional betrayal now is a good time to move on.
6. Hormones. Girls live and let live - give each other some space and be forgiving as you want to be forgiven.
7. A boy. Never like the same boy - it's poison!