If there is one thing that is guaranteed in life when you are a girl it’s this: there will be drama. Plenty of drama. Particularly, mean girl drama.

I dealt with it a lot growing up…and as a mom of three daughters, I am prepared to deal with it again. I just wasn’t expecting it to be so soon.

My oldest is 10, and she recently found out that someone she doesn’t know was saying some not-so-nice things about her.  (The cool thing was her friend defended her). Apparently it was all over a boy.

Face palm.

Eye-roll.

Come on kids…you’re 10. This isn’t an episode of Dynasty.

When Gia was telling me the whole story, I started to see red…and I was biting the inside of my cheek. Tell-tale signs that I was in full Mama Bear protective mode and I was about to blow.

So I took the “recommended” amount of cleansing breaths because I knew this was a teachable moment…and I knew it would not be the last time we had a conversation like this.

This isn’t a school issue…I would not be emailing the teacher or principal.

This isn’t an issue where I try to find the parents on social media and demand an apology.

Nope.

This is a LIFE issue.  One that you need to learn pretty early on because people never really leave the “middle school lunch table.”

Cue the talk:

“So…this girl doesn’t care for you.  She apparently doesn’t like you…at all. That’s ok. When people say mean and nasty things, it’s natural for us to feel like we want to retaliate with even more hurtful words. We want them to know that we don’t like them either…eye for an eye right? It’s okay to be angry and hurt…that’s completely normal.  Just know this…not everyone is going to like you. You’re not going to like everyone. That’s ok.  But remember this: don’t treat people as bad as they are…treat them as good as you are. Period.”

DON’T TREAT PEOPLE AS BAD AS THEY ARE…TREAT THEM AS GOOD AS YOU ARE.

It’s. A. Struggle.

Because there is that fine line of taking the high road and being treated like a sidewalk.

But if you make it a goal to only surround yourself with the best kind of people…the ones who ADD something to your life…then everything else is just noise.

It’s a tough lesson for a 10-year-old to learn.

But learning how to respond to mean girl behavior may be one of life’s most important lessons.

We will never be able to control what people say or think about us.

But we can control how we react to it all.