Unwanted Attention

Megan can't be considered a very sociable sort of girl. She is usually quieter and prefers not to take the first move to get to know friends. Get her to walk up to someone and introduce herself, she'll find that unnerving. She prefers to take her own pace and get to know friends along the way. That was how she was in childcare through to K2. She's still the same in P1. We've learnt not to rush her nor push her to make friends too.

Maybe because she's been in a childcare centre with boys as well as girls since younger days, she's pretty ok around boys. She knows how to handle herself and what boundaries are to be drawn with the boys. But since P1, I've come to know of three different boys acting kinda weird around her.

1. The first boy was C. He was the first boy she held hands with on the first day of school while lining up during dismissal time. Since then, he insisted that he must hold her hand everyday. She was honestly quite annoyed cos my gal doesn't like to be "tied down". :D I advised her to tell C nicely that she will only hold his hands sometimes cos she also wants to make friends with the 29 other friends in class! The day she held another friend's hand, C walked up to that friend of hers and punched him in the chest! Gosh. >clear throat< Megan was so worried, she told me how glad she was when the FT decided that she will hold C's hand everyday now.

2. Then came SZ. I noticed Megan looking a little down one day after school. After some probing and coaxing, she told me that she had been disturbed by SZ cos he would follow her wherever she went - esp during recess. And he had the irritating habit of coming close to her face and blowing her hair. He would also secretly take her waterbottle away while she was away buying her food during recess and hide it.

We wanted her to learn how to deal with the situation herself, cos we thought that there is probably nothing malicious about the boy. He probably lacks the social skills to know how to make friends the right and acceptable way! So for 4 days, we taught her new ways of telling SZ not to be annoying and also have her tell her FT about it.

The situation remained status quo, then I noticed she was beginning to get scared of bumping into him outside of school... that was when I knew I had to step in. We emailed her FT and related what had happened. Thank God for a good teacher. She replied promptly to say that she didn't know it was that serious and will be interviewing both children. And she would have to inform SZ's parents about what had happened too. We didn't feel that it was necessary so asked for the FT to observe him for two weeks. If he continued, his parents should then be told.

It's been three weeks now. SZ and Megan are now friends. :) He no longer does the annoying things to her and I see her happy face everyday after school.

3. Finally, it's Ry. Ry attends the student care centre situated in the same premise as Joseph's childcare centre. He is also Megan's classmate. He is loud and the class joker. Punished many times by the various teachers and proud of it. He walked up to me last Friday when I was in Joseph's school and said, "Aunty, you know I love Megan?" Ooooook, I said. I looked over at the little girl, and saw that same irritated face I did with the first two boys. In the car, she said that Ry would always walk over to her desk and say that out loud to her. Aiyo. Can you imagine Daddy Alan's face when he heard this? haha...

I'm gonna try to not be an over-protective mom here. I'll wait and see if there's a need for my intervention... or maybe not. HAHA... :P