Playground politics

I recently read an article by Metrodad on how some 5 year old girls can be absolute meanies (such as ignoring other girls and making them feel left out) and I just could not believe it – not at 5 at least! Doesn’t it take some time for catty behaviour to develop and emerge?
But I was in the playground the other day and overhead a group of Class II (between 7-8 years old) girls talking. One of them in particular kept making fun of other people- she referred to one girl as pothead because “ it seems that girl talked rubbish and spent the whole day in the pot” – where do these girls pick up these things from? Then she went on to describe another girl “who acted like maid because she wanted to carry, feed and play with her younger brother instead of letting the maid do it” - I found this especially strange since I assume caring for your younger brother should be a natural thing to do? Or not something that only maids (as against moms) do?
This girl was quite mean to S as well. She was holding a ball which S wanted to play with, but she refused to give it to her and instead kept bouncing it around near her and teasing her. I wondered whether I should give her a piece of my mind but decided to just take S to another part of the park.
Thankfully all the girls are not like this though. There was another girl who was part of the same group who came upto me and asked what S name was. She then gave S her ball to play with. Another girl was looking after her younger sister and hit a boy who came and hit her younger sister- again very strange behaviour- why did that big boy go and hit the small girl (who would have been 2 years old max) and continue teasing her when she was crying? And there was no one around to correct him or stop him doing such stuff other than the elder sister who would have been younger than this boy. ..
Seems there is a lot of playground politics- groupism ,catty behaviour and general bullying …my main challenge thus far has been to ensure S is well fed and in good humour-but I guess the challenges only get bigger when they grow up. The hubby (and me of course) are quite keen that S should defend herself against bullies from a young age – the hubby of course thinks that we should bully her now so that she becomes tough, which is too radical in my view. The other day a girl who was 2 months younger poked her and S didn’t do anything about it- so I guess it would be sometime before she takes on the bullies.

Talking about playgrounds, spending time with S at the playground also gives me a chance to see how kids are at different stages- I was the youngest in my family and also among my close cousins; so have not seen anyone grow up a close quarters. In the playground there was this 3 year old girl who was quite sullen and sat on S’s cycle and refused to get up. After 10 mins I had to request her grandmom to help get her off the cycle since S was getting restless and we had exhausted the other play items in the park. The girl continued to be sulky with her grandmom. Sometime later I was playing with S in the grass area of the playground and this girl also came there- she was looking quite lonely so I included her – by carrying her on my shoulder after putting S down, by doing ring a ring a roses in a circle with her and S, playing ‘out’ etc and this girl was absolutely delighted and kept laughing- the same girl who was sulky ten minutes back completely transformed when she had someone to play with,. That got me thinking- its so important to have someone who cares for your child and can engage them actively…touchwood one of my maids is very good at playing with S and seems to care for her as well, but as far as possible, I should try to leave office in time to play with S at least 2-3 times a week and definitely every weekend.