Eternal Quandary

What do you do about mean girls?

What do you do about mean girls whom your little girl adores?

What do you when your child adores a girl who is fickle and manipulative, at AGE FOUR?

Because my newly-minted five year-old girl is already running with a posse of neighborhood girls, mostly older, and I'm already balking at the tones they use and the way they talk to each other. But the main culprit is younger than her. She seems to know my daughter's weak points, and she exploits them at will.

She tells my daughter she doesn't want to play with her, so that my daughter will cry. She pinches my daughter when she's having a rough day. Her mother explains it as "being tired", and I can see that this mom is trying, but shit: DON'T PINCH MY KID!

I just project ahead and see this mean girl's mean future and I don't want my kid anywhere near her.

Did I mention we're next door neighbors? Crap.

It's easy to get melodramatic about this. And I remind myself that my daughter will need to be tough in today's world. Blah blah blah. But she's my baby, and I just fast forward to the mean girls in high school who bully vulnerable girls and it makes my blood both boil AND run cold.

Guess it's time (Already? Hell.) to start reading books about dealing with mean girls.

Blimey.