I have a seven year old daughter. She’s very sweet and caring and will help anyone. In someways she is very mature for her age (understands complex topics) but in other ways not so much.
Shes been having an issue with boys in her school. Quite a few of th girls seem to be having it too. So far I’ve had the boys harassing the girls in the loo- to the point the girls won’t use the loo, boys punching girls and saying rude things (like they’ll punch them in their privates).I’ve reported these to the school. It stops for a bit then starts.
One boy in particular seems obsessed with my daughters and her friends. But particularly my daughter. He’s very rough with her. He hits her, picks her up and drops her and won’t leave her alone. I’ve reported it to the school and the heads view was that the boy was really nice and my daughter “shouldn’t let one incident ruin her day”. I told my daughter to yell( ie “leave me alone”) at him to leave her alone but she was told off by a teacher for being unkind.
One of the issues my daughter has is she doesn’t see anything wrong with him hitting her. She takes it literally that she must be kind to people- even if they aren’t to her. Today this boy, after hitting her, said he wants to marry her and she thought that was okay. I know that’s just child talk but she thinks it’s totally fine for a man to hit a woman.
I have tried so many ways to get her to see that you shouldn’t accept that. Even when she says things to me like “I’d forgive you for anything you did “, I tell her that she doesn’t have to . I’ve had other people talk to her. I’ve explained examples like “ what if mummy had a friend who did that?”. She tells me I shouldn’t be their friend but says that she has to put up with him hitting her as he’s her friend.
I know I am finding this very triggering as someone who has been abused by men all my life. I’d say most of the women in my family have too- it’s like it’s in our DNA. My daughter is not aware of any of that. But I see so much of myself in her: the person who always let people treat them like shit and forgave them. I knew what it was like to have a shit time in life so felt drawn to people I thought I could help. After years of counciling, I see that and have changed.
I have tried to model behaviour such as apologising when I am wrong, not letting people speak to me like shit and calling out behaviour that is unkind. She sees this. We read books about strong women and she’s very interested in knowing about how far women have come.
But what do I do with my daughter? I’ve considered counciling, but I don’t know if she would do it. She resists talking about feelings and it seems no one can get her to see she does not have to tolerate being hit by anyone. I am so worried about history repeating itself .
What am I doing wrong? How can I fix this?