How to approach other American kids?

Mybaby

(Sorry, I cannot type Chinese.) My older daughter was born in US and she is 5 and half years old now. This coming fall she will be in kindergarden. Up to now, she only went half day pre-K. After school, she stayed at home with me, my husband and her younger sister. During the afternoon, our whole family will go outside to have about two-hour quality time. Her personality is very easygoing, sensitive and obedient and more mature than her age. The reason I need help here is not because there is any problem for my daughter's personalty. She is an emotionally and intellectually healthy girl.


Several days ago, she mentioned to me something bothered her during the past year.

The following is our conversation:

D: Mum, Why I did not have any best best friends in Pre - K class. I hope I could have hundreds of best friends.
M: I know you like friends. Friends are very important in our life.
D: I feel they didnot like me. ( Tell you the truth, I did not feel good when I heard it.)
M: You feel they did not like you and did not want to play with you.

D: No. Some of them wanted to be my friends. But I did not want to play the way they played. So I refused. I wanted to play Pretend-to-be baby with Belly. But when I asked her if she  wanted to play with me. She did not even want to talk to me. She acted like she did not like me.

M: When you wanted to play with her, her response made you feel sad. You are sure she got your meaning (I know I shouldn't ask this way.)

D: Yeah, she did not say ' Could you say it again?'. She just acted like I was nobody. ( Now, I feel sad about it too.) Mum, I like school. How can I approach them and let them play with me? Every time when they talk to me, I listen very carefully and I was very nice to them. Why when I wanted to talk to them, they didn't want to  listen.



She is very sad about it. Me too.


Actually her communication skill and her personality make her a very good playmate. She is respectful, patient and nice.  She never had any similar problem when she played with other Chinese children. She could approach other Chinese kids easily and had lots of fun. But at school Asian is minority and plus  her English is not so good. she seems having some difficulty to approach or to find American friends. (There are only three Asain girls, my daughter, two Koren girls. One of the Koren girl liked my daughter very much and always followed her  and played with her. The girl's mum also told me her daughter liked my daughter most in the class. When I asked my daughter, she told me the girl is only her playmate not her best friend.) She seems not very satisfied with current situation. And obviously, her definition of friends is more than that of her age.


My concern are below:

Is this already a big issue or not? We should involved to help her or wait for her to learn to deal with it?

If I should help her, how I can help my daughter get more involved with her wanted classmates? (She always talks softly. When the kids are cray playing, it is hard to get the attention.)


Our family background is: after school or work, almost all of our friends are from Asian. I and my husband are not social animals. Her personality is very like us. We don't feel there is any wrong with the personality but obviously we don't want our daughter to be separated from other American kids since she will stay here for her life. So please please help me and let me know what you think about it.

Thanks a lot!

Mybaby

Thank you so much for your answer. This is the first time I ask for help here and I am very happy to see it.  

She seldom complained to us and  even if she met the similar situation she only described it as if it did not bother her. This is the first time she told me she got separated at school. When she plays with Chinese kids, she coordinated very well.  

"假设猜测的，可能很多亚洲父母很想融入主流文化，和白人交往，但是潜意识里其实对此点反而是恐惧担心的，那么孩子就会感受到这点，会应现在人际交往上。"  

On the contrary, for both of us, we don't have this situation. We have been here for ten years. My husband is a professor and I was a student. After having my precious, I gave up my Phd and stayed at home to be a housewife so I can take better care of my family. Both of us are family guy. We seldom wanted to socialize  with other White people. Actually, we don't have too much desire to get involved into their culture, either. (If we want, we can attend Church activity.) For some reason, we see both upside and downside of both cultures. Both of us think, we should keep Chinese culture at home. We eat Chinese food and only speak Chinese at home and when we are reading stories, we translate them into Chinese. So although she was born here, she does not look like an ABC. (Her Chinese (oral) is very good. But her English is not.) Once she told me, at school one unknown boy came to her and said " I hate Chinese." I told her It was very very mean to say that and there is nothing wrong to be a Chinese and Daddy and mom are very proud of being Chinese. Then she said "But I am not Chinese. I am American."


I will continue and talk to you later. I have to wake my daughters up. We will attend a library kid activity one hour later. So they have to eat something before we leave.

I am very pleased to talk with you and  thank you for your comments and help. If there is any mom can let me know your ideas (Any kind), I am very appreciated it.

Mybaby

孩子到这个pre-k还不久吧？时间长一点也许就慢慢有好朋友了。能不能邀请别的孩子到家里玩，给她们创造多接触的机会？  交朋友是个需要时间的事，也许别的小朋友本来就比较熟，人家关系“铁”，新来的不容易插进
去。 ...
然妈 发表于 2010-6-10 21:40

You may misunderstand my question. She has lots of friends and playmates. But almost all of them are internationals since our friends are international. She has no problem to approach international kids. Only American kids she feels lack of confidence. It is not me who wants her to make friends with American kids. It is her.

Mybaby

All kids went to Pre - K at the same time. The only difference is the other kids stayed full day (from 8 am to 3 pm). My daughter was the only child stayed half day ( The public schools here offer an option of free full day pre-k or half day.) That may cause some problem for her to make friends at school. (3 pm is my little one's napping time. It is illegal for me to leave her alone at home to pick up her older sister. That is the reason we chose half day.)

She only feels no friends in her class. She had playmates but not friends in class, according to what she said. She defined kids who played with her into playmates, friends, best friends. The Koren girl is only her playmate. That girl wanted to be close to her. But she told me they only play and did not chat (That girl's English is not good too).  She thought friends should be more than that.  

Is her requirement too high or not?

Mybaby

Thank you.

Yeah that is what it should be. I know her negative feeling is very normal and helpful in her life. Please forgive my natural emotional reaction.

Basically I am a kind of "lazy" mom. I doesnot have any expectation to my daughter except that we hope they are mentally, emotionally and physically healthy.

"那到底楼主想解决什么,担忧什么呢? "

I am not worried about my daughter. I did not feel she had any problem at all. I just want to talk to somebody because I feel maybe I should be partly responsible for it. Yesterday after they went to sleep, I told my husband about what she said. His reaction is a kind of, you know, he thought of course she felt lack of confidence because we never teach her English at home and when she faced new enviroment , new kids, unknown languages it was tough for her. Of course she felt shy because we only make friends with internationals. Of course she felt hard to get into it because she only went half day and spent less time with them .....

I know he did not mean to blame me. However, it is me to insist only speaking Chinese at home. It is my friends' preference to make friends with international families. It is for my convinent to let her go half day. When I saw she felt sad, I felt a little bit guilty. So I hope I could do something to make her happy (althought it maynot be necessary at all or I'd better be patient and wait for my daughter to figure out how to handle it by herself.)

Yeah you are right I may be too sensitive and not enough calm  down when facing her negative feeling.

Mybaby

好了，这下子改了。 不和你继续这个话题了，我可不想歪了人家的楼。8！:$
爱无言 发表于 2010-6-11 10:10

You are welcome to say anything here. I am very pleased to see you here.

Mybaby

我认为国外的老师对孩子(不管是幼儿园还是小学的老师),是不会很严厉的,只要家长不过分担忧,其实就够了.
琳0824 发表于 2010-6-11 02:55

Partly agree. Only agree last part. Not all teachers are good especially in daycare.

According to what one of my friends told me (she worked for several years in one best and most expensive daycare, local.), she thought the laziest Americans gather together in US daycare.

According to my daughter's experience, she went to a half day pre-school at four. After one week, she told us she saw the teacher spanking other kids. (We told her we would watch for that.) After one month, my daughter told us the teacher spanked her twice very hardly. one is because she put fake vegetable into her mouth when she played with it and the other time is at that day, my daughter was class helper helping her get the toy bags. The teacher put too much toys into the bags so my four-year-old one cannot handle it. The bag fell and the toys out. She is the first and only one spank my daughter like that in this world. we asked my daughter she wanted us to talk to the Principal or she wanted to give her another chance. She asked what would happen if we talked to the principal. We told her you will never see her in your class. The teacher will be kicked out of school. She said no kids liked this teacher but she chose to give her a chance because she thought every one makes mistakes and if she still did the same thing to the kids, we would report. Next morning, when my husband talked to her, She denied but her face flushed and she dare not to watch his eye. We all knew she lied. After that, my daughter said she only time out kids or count one two three.

After she went to pre-K, I volunteered a lot in her class so I am very familiar with her teachers and her classmates. both teachers are very patient, reasonable, responsible and full of love, especially the assistant teacher. They are good.

Anyway, not every teacher in China are bad and not every teacher here are good. During the first few years in US, I have same thoughts. Their teachers  are more nice, their food are more safe, their children are more happier. Their thoughts are more modern. Now for me , every person in this world is similar. They may express in different way. The behind thing is very similar. They are human being. My thoughts may not be right. Actually the more I  know the more I feel I don't know.

Mybaby

首先谈谈我看一楼的感觉哈！“D: Yeah, she did not say ' Could you say it again?'. She just acted like I was nobody. ”从这句话中，我觉得孩子伤心的关键是被忽视，而不是邀请被拒绝，更不是你说的交友问题。
...
敬听 发表于 2010-6-11 18:13

Thank you. I feel the same way. I never thought she had any problem. But she insisted she had no friends, only playmates.

I did lots of volunteer work so I had lots of opportunities to see how her school life could be. Every time I went to help her teachers, she was very happy to me, she would come to hug and kiss me and ran back to play with others. I never saw she was playing alone.  Sometimes when I picked her up at noon, some kids when were playing with would beg me " please, please let her play with me. Don't go." She was not lack of playmates. She is eager for best friends.

She likes chitchat. Her thoughts:  if they just play together, they are just playmates. If they could chitchat and play, they are friends. If they could chitchat and play and hang on together all the time, they are best friends. She could not chitchat with Americans because of her poor English. So she had no friends.

Gosh, sometimes I feel why she is so hard to feel satisfied or  is she too mature for her age. I knew most kids at her age would be satisfied as long as they have somebody to play with. could it be possible because we spent too much time together so her level of demand increased lot?

How  about your daughter, 爱无言?

Mybaby

http://www.namez.cn/thread-496-1-3.html 类似你这样的对孩子的疑问，我记在这里了。你进不去的话，可以去我的博客。http://blog.sina.com.cn/aimeiyanyao?retcode=0
爱无言 发表于 2010-6-13 17:38

I got "本帖要求阅读权限高于 20 才可浏览，请返回". but I can enter into your blog. Are they same?

Mybaby

跟老师谈谈孩子提到的问题吧，她（们）也许已经对此有了一些观察。如果老师本人就是American，更好。也许她（们）会看到一些在社交方面的文化差异。相信她们是帮助孩子很好的资源。
妮珂妈妈 发表于 2010-6-29 00:25

The teacher didn't think she had any problem. There are some other international boys in her class from Egypt, Iraq, India. So basically, her class is like half American half international. According to my observation, international kids like to play with international kids. American kids like to play with American kids. Maybe language is one reason. The only international girl had American friend in class is because she had an older sister so her English is better than other internationals.

Mybaby

个人认为楼主对待孩子的困扰，也反映了自己内在的矛盾，如果说得不对请不要介意，那就是楼主夫妻，本来就和白人社会保持一定距离，并没什么问题，但是孩子面临将来在美国生活，楼主希望她将来能更好地融入当地人的圈 ...
小和和妈 发表于 2010-6-29 15:09

I don't want to attend church program because every time when you meet with American here, there are always same topics: why you have two kids, we heard about in china you can only have one. Then they will talk about we heard about Chinese will kill baby. Then I have to explain to them......I am tired of that. Like my husband said let those people live in China and see how many people there, they will shut their mouth up.

We live in the place where the American call Bible belt. The people here are super conservative. They are not typical American. So almost 90% activities are related to religion. There is nothing wrong with the religion. But we don't like the way they control the thoughts. By the way, lots of their thoughts are actually having conflict with Bible. Anyway, that is a long talk.

The remaining 10% are related to sports. That is what our choice. Everyday our whole family will attend two-hour sport activities. Those activities are not free. So usually the other kids are American and she is the only international. She cooperated very well with other kids and some families there are her friends but still not as close as her Chinese friends.

Mybaby

Thank you for your reply. There is nothing bothering me and my husband. I don't think our life will be better if we are more involved with them. Our life is good now, for us.

you are right. I have no special intention to make friends with American families. I am more close to internationals. I like them and love to be with them.
They are open, funny and friendly. We have lots of things in common . Anyway, for my little precious, now I give myself an intention to choose some American friends purposely. To be a mom is not a easy task :)

Mybaby

Thank you for your reply. There is nothing bothering me and my husband. I don't think our life will be better if we are more involved with them. Our life is good now, for us.

you are right. I have no special intention to make friends with American families. I am more close to internationals. I like them and love to be with them.
They are open, funny and friendly. We have lots of things in common . Anyway, for my little precious, now I give myself an intention to choose some American friends purposely. To be a mom is not a easy task :)

Mybaby

Thank you for your reply. There is nothing bothering me and my husband. I don't think our life will be better if we are more involved with them. Our life is good now, for us.

you are right. I have no special intention to make friends with American families. I am more close to internationals. I like them and love to be with them.
They are open, funny and friendly. We have lots of things in common . Anyway, for my little precious, now I give myself an intention to choose some American friends purposely. To be a mom is not a easy task :)

Mybaby

I understand. To contact with those narrow-minded and stubborn persons is a chanllenge, no wonder your daughter will meet such trouble when making friends.

But as you mentioned, you have lovely  ...
小和和妈 发表于 2010-6-29 23:16

Thank you so much for your interest in it. I am satisfied with the current situation. She  wants to make friends with English speaking kids. She has lots of international kids. We consulted with speech specialists. They did overall evaluation. She understands more than what she speaks. They told us after she hung on in school for longer time, she will speak like American kids. At that time, her Chinese may become a concern. I am not very worried
about her language right now.

Mybaby

I understand. To contact with those narrow-minded and stubborn persons is a chanllenge, no wonder your daughter will meet such troube when making friends.

But as you mentioned, you have lovely  ...
小和和妈 发表于 2010-6-29 23:16

I attended a church parenting program. You know what they were talking about? The topic is "how to discipline kids". The contents are how to spank kids. Those parents were exchanging the ways they spanked their kids and at the end, they concluded using bamboo is the most efficient way because it is very painful and nothing blue left. They also teach how to spank kids in public if the kids challenge authorities - that is, spanking in restroom. Those people gathered together and talked about how to treat their most precious gifts in this world like their enemies. I am not going to waste my time and energy to make friends with them. At first I argued with them and they told me if you don't discipline your kids, she will grow up in big trouble. I don't believe punishment is the best way to discipline kids. My daughters have very good personalities. I don't want to punish them or I don't want to bride them to follow me. We talked and work out the solution. Most of the time we can work out a solution acceptable for both of us.

Mybaby

看楼主描述的和当地教堂的父母聊，挺有意思的！;P
爱无言 发表于 2010-6-30 09:49

Nod! They are super Christians. The bible says if the kids challenge parents, they should get spanked. One of them brought her son to play in my house,
the boy played a kind of rough. She asked me if I had long wood spoon or not.  She wanted to spank him. I said why not use you hand. She said the pastor said hands are for love, should use bamboo to spank.

Mybaby

43# Mybaby  

:lol

这和咱们这里的父母说，“会脏了我的手！”是不是异曲同工，给孩子的感受相同？

也笑不起了了！:(
爱无言 发表于 2010-6-30 14:18

I don't know how her boy feels. He became more tolerant to spanking. When he was one years old, her mom spanked not very hard and he would listen to her. Now 4 yrs old, she need to spank him very very hard. This state child-abuse-to death rate is on top list of US. Maybe some parent are out of control and accidentally kill their kids.

Mybaby

是不是美国的法律对虐待孩子罪如此执行严格和敏感（相比咱们国家），和这个天主教的陋习有关？

这样子体罚孩子发泄情绪，会加重了父母的情绪化的......在美国，邻居不报警吗？
爱无言 发表于 2010-6-30 14:31

It depends on which state you are in. Some state is illegal. I check the state law, in this state, it is legal for parents, teachers to spank kids as a way of discipline. But abuse kids is illegal. It is definitely related to religion.

Mybaby

baidu了一下http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4ca60b2d0100be3i.html
呵呵，地图上南部基本都是红的，是允许打屁股的。
爱无言 发表于 2010-6-30 23:39

Yes. We are in one of them and worst of them. There is a lot of gray area between spanking and abuse. From my view, if you spank your kids and nothing physical harm left, that is called discipline. If not, that is abuse. Maybe that is why they were exchanging their spanking experience to avoid leaving any black and blue in body.