Difficult for Madison

I decided to institute a rule that when one of the girls has a friend over that is clearly that girls' friend, like L, whom I mentioned in an earlier post, then the other child spends time with me, or working alone, but is not automatically included in the others' play unless specifically invited.

This is proving very hard, for Madison, today. Ella's friend L is over for a play date.

Madison is very social. She also has an extremely forceful personality, and tends to take over, because she's got a million ideas, and can at the drop of a hat organize just about anything you might want to do. One of those leader-types, even in a group with kids slightly older than her. Madison's personality happens to work well with one of her best friends, who happens to be slightly autistic although Madison knows nothing about it...that friend *needs* someone else to provide the structure, to do most of the talking, and Madison naturally fills in the gaps and never wonders why her friend doesn't talk much. But it doesn't always work well, especially when Ella needs not to be overshadowed.

So I've had to talk with Madison a bunch about how, even though it hasn't really happened yet, she will definitely be in the reverse situation many times in the future, when she will want to be alone with some friend. She tried to tell me that this wouldn't happen, that she would always have Ella involved, but she stopped in the middle of that claim. I think she could tell how ridiculous that must have sounded, even to her own ears.

She has required a lot of encouragement, this afternoon. Mostly, I kept her with me, just talking, but then she wanted to play with the others so much that I told her to get involved in building something and the other girls would naturally want to play with *her*, that if she built it they would come. She didn't believe me. It took some convincing, and then leaving her alone to make the decision on her own. I'm glad she tried it out, because she made some cool Lego castles. And she was wrong; the girls came to integrate their play with her building. I won't cast it up to her. But I will probably remind her of it next time.

A tough lesson. But if she learns that it's fine for other kids to want to do things on her own without including her, that's just life, no big deal...and she won't be as hurt when people do it in the future. She can go and do her own thing, in those circumstances. That, really, is what I'm trying to use this to teach her.