My Little Pony on a Friendship Tour of South Africa

Applejack - My Little Pony

I don't think we can ever get enough of My Little Pony. They are all about magic and friendship! But most of all, they are just cute!

I love the fact that all of them represent an element of harmony that helps share important friendship values. Knowing girls and the importance they place on their friends, it is values that needs to be echoed to them!

Wordless Wednesday #333 - Every day is #FriendshipDay #FriendshipisMagic

Girl politics and how to teach them not be bullies!

Girl politics are a nightmare!

This is a second time I am going through the highs and lows of friendships with a little girl.
There are more politics in these friendships than the politics of South Africa! (What it sometimes feels like!) To Little Miss of course, but also to us while we have to listen to all the sad stories each day! I'm sure it is more complex and exhausting than the stuff we hear on the news every day.

I hear about the best friend who do not want to play with her! And then sometimes only at certain times. Then Little Miss is all alone during recess at school, and she doesn't have any friends. Then another girl wants to play with Little Miss, but Little Miss does not want to play with her...

The politics are all about including and excluding!
They are all reverting to this bully behaviour! Little Miss included!

We do not see a lonely girl when we fetch her at school. She is always busy playing with someone! The Teacher has also thrown an eye, and she also doesn't see the "outcast" as she complains she is!

We had a Parent evening last week, and I discussed the friends' issue with the Teacher. Little Miss was there. The Teacher suggested that she plays with a little girl in the class who also complains about being alone. The response was: "But I don't like her! I don't want to play with her!"
(Me: *Throws hands in air with eyes rolling!*)

That made me realise that we have work to do with Little Miss.
We have to teach and preach her to be a good friend. She cannot continue telling girls that she does not want to play with them. If she does not follow this rule, she can't expect other girls to play with her!

I remember that I used to make bed time prayers with the eldest about trying to be a good friend every day! In the end it did pay off!

I hope it works again!
(Because no two girls are the same!)

How are you handling the girl politics?


Related post:

- Girl friends

Play ground friendships

Play ground politics can be a daunting venture for any little one...

Walking up to strangers and asking them to play with you!

Up until this day I haven't mastered the skill!
I was just too shy as a child, and I could usually be found hanging round my mother's knees...

That's why I am so extremely pleased that I have daughters who find it much easier to make new friends.
Maybe it is the day care that makes them used being around other children, but I suspect it is also their personalities that makes it easier on them...


Phew! I love it that they can make friends more easily than me!


There is nothing more important than having friends!

Toddler and friends

Friends are a very big deal to the Toddler! She is always telling us she wants to go and play with so-and-so!

When we buy anything for her, she also keeps a sweet or a toy for a specific friend, called Cara. I had to promise her the other day that I would buy another present for the friend. Because I kept an extra McDonald’s toy in my handbag (a back-up), and she was very upset...
It was her friend’s toy! (She can't open it!)

At 32 months (Toddler out of the box) she is still playing alongside the friends, not with them. “Mine” is also a word being heard regularly! But the friends being there are very important...

Even though she sees play mates at day care every day, she still feels the need for her special friends!

Girl friends

If there is one thing I want to learn my girls is how to appreciate their friends...

At about six years of age  the eldest used to complain about fights with her friends at school.
"This one wants to play with that one, and she doesn't want to play with that one..." And so forth!
Day after day I had to listen to the dramas in Little Girls' country! It was all about girls' politics!
(I hear from friends that it is the normal age for that to happen.)

It does not stop, but they become better at handling rejection as well as treating others with empathy and understanding!

I explained to my six year old that she had to be the best friend she could be!
She had  to be the friend who did not differentiate, and who treated everybody the way she would like to be treated.It also helps to understand that you should have lots of friends, and not only a Best Friend!


It worked! I am planning to do the same again when the toddler reaches that age!

In the meantime it is all about teaching the toddler the concept of sharing! The toddler did not want to leave the swing on Saturday at Tiny Tumbles... (see photo)

How do you handle the friendship dramas?
Do you sometimes step in when things turn ugly, or do you let her sort it out on her own?

My Bipolar Friend

Depression always lurks nearby... If you do not have depression, you know somebody who have...

I had to live with it in a previous life: Depression - I feel sorry for the people living with the depressed

Even though I do not have the Big D (and never will), I sometimes get the downers, or go depro for a while. We all go there! What makes the difference, is that I can  talk myself out of it... But I get an inkling of how it must be to suffer from depression.

I have a bipolar friend, and it has become increasingly difficult to talk to her. I have been phoning her for months where she do not pick up the phone, or return my calls. When I finally get to speak to her, I can hear that she is reticent in exchanging any information about her well-being. I do not know if she is in a UP or DOWN phase, but usually the UP phase is noticable by lots of creative thinking, no sleeping and lots of over-the-top ideas! The DOWN phases I usually don't know about it, only after the fact...

I find it very frustrating, and I have given up to try and talk to her. But I will always be here when she wants to talk again...

I want to say to her:
- I value your friendship!
- I miss you!
- I am really interested in your well-being, and when I ask about how everyone is doing, I am really concerned about you!
- I miss having a conversation with you!

I will be here, waiting for that call...

Soap box tirades

Emotional abuse is not on! I think it is the worst kind of abuse! Because you can’t show the wounds! I have been stewing now for days with a bad aftertaste in my mouth. It was part of my previous life, and today I go into full battle mode when there is even the slightest breeze of emotional manipulation in the air!
Why do we keep quiet when we are caught up in the game? Do we need to play out the drama until we finally realize that it is not on? Or are we too proud or too ashamed to admit we are not being treated as we should be? I think that has been my reason for putting up with it for so long! Ten years, but ten years has passed since then as well. (Wow! It shows my age.) When I hear of a friend who has been subjected to it as well, I am amazed at how much the modus operandi shows similarities.
Partners that tell you and make you feel crap, AND tell you that you’re thinking are wrong. Partners who do not do their share, but make you feel guilty when you try to hold everything together. Partners who prevent you from being with your friends and family and wants to have 100% of you all of the time…
Enough of the bad stories! I am kicking the soap box back underneath the bed. Powerwoman do not dwell on the past for too long. Everybody has to make their own decisions about how long they want to play in their dramas! Thank goodness for friends and family who help you through the bad times! (I support you too, friend!)
Now my drama is about babies and dogs and teenagers and trying to cope with being a working mother and wife! Peanuts for Powerwoman! (Wink-wink, smile)
I wonder what type of dramas we keep playing that we could have stopped long ago?

Friends and Grumps

I am enjoying my friend Yvonne’s blog tremendously. Although I know the story, and most of the anecdotes, it is still very inspiring to know that she got through her divorce, and became an even stronger person than before. In my wildest dreams I did not think that she would get divorced from her husband. He was a Grump, but I thought that she could handle her Grump, the same as I handled my X-Grump. (Smile) Unfortunately her Grump cheated on her…
But I want to talk about friendship, and how she helped me through the years when I went through my own traumas. I met Yvonne at pre-natal classes when we were pregnant with our daughters. Arnia is now 16 which translates into nearly 17 years that we have been friends. Her daughter were born five days before Arnia, and we have been doing coffee ever since. She cried with me when I tried to get Arnia to drink a bottle, and when I had to stop breast feeding because she would not drink a bottle at the day mother. I could always phone her, or drink a coffee with her. I remember a time before I got divorced, when I felt so suffocated at home, that I drove to a nearby quick-shop to make a phone-call to her. When I went through the difficult divorce, she helped me with advice, which she sometimes went to great trouble to find out for me. She was more than willing to make a sworn affidavit when I asked for her help getting an interdict during the violent days of getting a divorce. She helped me looked after Arnia many many times. She always had an ear open to me…In the meantime she had to raise three children and had to cope with her own Grump! She gave us our wedding cake five years back when Dries and I got married! That was such a sweet gesture. Having such a friend is more valuable than can be measured in words! Friends like her help us handle all our Grumps and grumps… Thanks, Yvonne!