Tweening

[prof_fran]

I didn't really expect that B. would be starting to tween already as she's two months short of 9, and despite the fact that she is precocious in many academic ways, I would not have said she was socially ept, much less precocious. But she's starting to do things like being more private about her body (and it is very slowly, almost imperceptibly except to her mother, changing); she talks about her friends in a way that reveals the cliques developing (and how so-and-so can't be friends with this other one because she's friends with this third one). She is still the quintessential tween though--she still wants toys and to play but she is also aware that she is too old for them.

But I am also struck by the fact that she chooses non-conformity as her brand of self-identity. The rage of the week is SillyBandz (http://www.sillybandz.com/)--shaped bracelets. Kids are wearing dozens and trading them. When asked if she wanted any (prepared to acquire some so that she wouldn't be totally left out), she shrugged and said no, that they were cheap plastic, that they broke, and that she didn't see the point. We talk a lot about a bully in her class and she comes home one day to say that she suddenly realized that N. wasn't popular, that she (B.) had friends in all of the classes and that was way better. She seems oblivious to fashion, hasn't asked for make-up, etc.

She's a good kid. We're starting to enter new territory here.