How do you give your children a VOICE?

So I have alot to say about everything and decided to start a blog and see how it goes. Ill cover all sorts of topics one of them being safety; as it relates to children and another topic being a Mama... a working Mama and of course everything in between. I am a mother of three and Ill call myself a "special prosecutor" to protect the innocent. I am not a writer but a talker so excuse the typo's, run on sentences and lack of capitalization. I hope theres a spell check on this blog post! This is a work in progress so bear with me...

So today I read a post on an Australian mommy site about a 7 year old girl being the only girl not invited to a classmates birthday party.. and it got me thinking. My Girl (she is a Fashionista and will be referred to as "the Girl" or "Fashi" in this Blog) is in the 1st grade and has been having problems with a new girl in school. Basically the new girl seems to have a mean streak and excludes Fashi.  Fashi waited after a few incidents to tell me and was pretty upset when she did.  I want to be clear I don't think she is an angel but  I was quite surprised by this because last year her teacher constantly told me that she is "kind" (her word not mine) to everyone in the class and she got the "best friend" award at the end of the year.  However, I was heartbroken when she revealed that she was essentially being bullied and of course the guilt set in. How could I not know that something was wrong? and why did she wait so long to tell me?

As much as I wanted to go to the school and discuss the issue with the new girl myself I had restraint!   Although Fashi has a pretty big voice when telling her younger brother ("the Boy" or "Captain Jack") what to do around the house, shes pretty shy in a crowd. One of my biggest fears is that Fashi will be bullied because she is more of a follower in school. I discussed with Fashi that she should stand up for herself and say something like..."your not being nice" and then tell the teacher.  I also told Fashi talk to her teacher about the problem (which she did) and I followed up the next day.  The teacher was aware of some issues with the new girl and all three of them had a talk and everything was great!  until art class this week when  the new girl said to her in art class "you think your pretty but your not!" HELLLOO what is she watching? the Real Housewives of New Jersey?

Again I had a talk with Fashi about kindness; that you cant be best friends with everyone, but should be friendly with all the kids in your class; that you should stand up for yourself not but mean but say whats on your mind and USE YOUR VOICE.. I know she has one! and OF COURSE I asked her what if anything she did to instigate any of the incidents?

Honestly, it has taken all my strength not to call this child's mother or confront the girl myself! but I know I cannot fight my children's battles (always). I just cant stand to see Fashi excluded. She needs to make friends, grow and learn in school and most importantly find her own voice. I also know that she need to do this process on her own but I wish I could protect her more and give her my voice just for a day because its a big one. 

Ok well #3 is up from his nap until next time...