Circle Talk

Middle school. What a tough age. Everything is changing: bodies, friendships, who they are as a person... Rough stuff.

A group of the 5th grade girls have been caught up in some pettiness. I've noticed a group of four of them ignoring a fifth girl and purposefully leaving her out. A few parents have contacted Mrs. L (classroom aid) and me about it. So, today I kept them inside from morning recess to have a circle talk. The left out student didn't want her mom to do anything about it, so I kept it vague. "First of all, none of you are in trouble. I'm new here and I noticed some tension between you four. I wanted to give you the chance to talk to each other and/or talk to me so we can figure out what's going on and fix it if there's a problem." 

Ugh, I was so nervous going into it. Weird, huh? I was worried what they'd say, like if they'd say really mean things and the friendship would be broken further, but actually, it was a really productive conversation. Both sides said it was little things adding up until it was too much. And they had been mad about the one girl being rude and instead of talking to her about it, they just left her out. Lots more conversation happened, but in the end they apologized to each other. They weren't sure how to rebuild the friendship, so I suggested they sit together at lunch. They weren't ready for that, haha. But they did come up with some other ideas of where to start. They all agreed they weren't ready to be hanging out friends again, but they were ready to be done with being mean.

It was awkward at first. None