Listen to Yaya's story

I was having some time alone with Yaya in the playroom downstairs after Peter went to bed. She was in a good mood, so I asked her to sit on my lap to chat with me. When asked about school, all of a sudden, she began to sob"mommy, I don't like school anymore..." "Why?" "Because there are not many toys in our room.." That has always been my guess that she got bored in the middle of each fiscal year after she has got used to the programs and activities in the class, and there is not enough challenge for her, and I even think that's the possible reason at the beginning of each year she was OK at drop-off and began to cry after several months.

I tried to argue that she still have friends and she can play with her friends everyday about different stuff, which led to more worries for me. She told me her best friend's name(B). It is the girl who joined the center last year. There is another little girl(A), who is the same age as Yaya. She also, grows up in the daycare. Ever since toddler room, Yaya has been in the same classroom as her. Around age of 2, when they really began to interact, these two became very good friends. Sometimes both families would get together on weekends for them to play. Then last year after girl B came, Yaya seemed to find more interest interacting with the new girl, who is a half year older. Soon after that, once girl A's mom mentioned to me that her daughter complained at home that Yaya did not want to play with her and Yaya was not her friend any more. I asked the teacher and went once to the classroom to observe myself, turning out that girl A (who is smaller) was sometimes left behind when Yaya's running around with other kids. She tried to call Yaya but was not noticed by her busy friend. I offered to take Yaya and girl A together more on weekends and let them have more chance to play out of the school, but was refused by the mom(she wanted to teach her kid that that's the way life is, which i think is fair enough). On my side, I just don't think there's anything I can do about Yaya, since she still took girl A as her best friend. Also, She was way too young to understand how to sacrifice for a good friend. Therefore, we kept the situation the way it was. The bad outcome is, the parents never wanted to get together any more, which is not a big deal.

But tonight, Yaya shocked me by saying "girl A is not my friend anymore, I don't like her" "Why not?" "Because she keeps asking me everyday"are you my friend, Yaya?""What do you say?""I don't say anything. I just do like this" She showed me how she buried her head in her chest. "Why don't you tell her yes or no?" "Because she asks everyday. I like girl B, because she never asks, and she just say"let's play" then I go and play with her..""then you can tell girl A what you think"I explained. "I told her" I don't want to talk about it right now", but she keeps yelling at me"yes, you are my friend".. then I yelled back" no, I am not"..."

I didn't know that the situation is so bad and i did not know that Yaya began to suffer from this. But now that I knew, what can I do? Poor little girl A, I don't know how to explain to her that friends can be shared. Should I talk with the teachers and get to know more of the truth? After talking to Lei seriouly, I got a reply like, "it's nothing, it will pass, they are just kids..." Is it true?