Sure wish I was kidding about this one, but apparently our angel child is “falling in with a bad crowd” at school. Every mother’s dream (or is it nightmare?).

Anyway, turns out there are 3 little girls (who are all super cute, by the way) at Zoe’s school who have pulled some, as the teacher put it “Mean Girls” moves on some of the less outgoing kids, and Zoe has chosen to go along with the mean crowd. In fairness, the teacher did say that Zoe was the only one to apologize and then follow that up by playing with the little girl they were isolating, but still. Bummer.

And that was a few months ago.

Flash forward to last week when Zoe was sent home with a note that she had PINCHED another child on the back. When we picked her up, she was in a glowing mood, until the after school teacher mentioned that Zoe had a note in her box. At which point, she started BAWLING.

First, “it was an accident” (not true).

Then, “she was in my seat and she wouldn’t give it back and I wanted to sit there” (sounds more like truth).

We finally calmed her down and talked about ways she could have handled that differently, but who knows what will happen next time… Peer pressure is a strong influence, and our kid is not the one to sit in the corner. I guess we should have expected this.

I’m thankful that the teacher thinks there’s still hope for Zoe. It’s so weird to watch a kid test the world and to try and figure out how to best handle these situations.

• First thought = consequences. But will that make her do it more?
• Next thought = teach her alternatives. But how to know if she’ll make the right choice when we’re not there?
• Last thought = go with the flow and hope for the best ;)

We’re open to suggestions!

Other signs that we might have a thug on our hands? Our kid loves DARK movies. She really liked Maleficent… We tried to talk her OUT of going, but we were there opening weekend. We talked about what to do if she got scared and thought this would cure her for scary movies, but she didn’t even bat an eye at the scary parts. She also loved Paranorman, an animated film that actually has some gory (well, in a Halloween way) moments.

And in fact, my mom just took Zoe to see Wicked at the Pantages, which most of our friends thought we were CRAZY to send her to – and she loved it.

So, cross your fingers folks. In the meantime, we’ll try to keep focused on the ANGEL kid we get most of the time: