An Interesting Conversation

"Everyone in my class is so mean. They don't care who they're mean to. They'll say mean things."

Larissa was feeling fearful about giving her oral report this coming week.

I went for that old chestnut, "You can't change them. honey. You can only control what's in your mind, how you react to them."

Dad was more direct, "Just ignore them."

"I can't!" and other things best described as wailing and gnashing as teeth.

I told her that her classmates were there to help her to be able to do it, to ignore them and to control what's in her own mind.

"They are not. They just want to say mean things."

"Right. But the ultimate affect is that you get to learn to deal with it. You are learning to not let anyone else tell you whether you did well or not, whether you are okay or not. It has to be up to you. You're still young; it's hard to do. But you are learning."

She didn't say, 'gee you're right, I hadn't thought of it that way.' But she did calm down, eat her dinner, and start planning how she'd present her report.