Getting Real With Jennifer Poole
A friend of my daughter’s has been saying she knows the stars of a popular Disney show. She has told my daughter that she video chats with them and has even given my nine year old a T-shirt signed by the cast and a personal letter from one of the male stars. I know the friend has entered a contest to be on the show as a guest but I know she does not know these people personally.
When I was young, I would pretend to know famous people to try to be cool and win acceptance from others, and I hope that is what this ten year old girl is trying to do. In this day and age of bullying and mean girls, I worry that this girl might be doing this to eventually try to humiliate my daughter. The friend has encouraged my daughter to write back to the cast, and I am concerned that if she does that anything she says might be used to embarrass her later on. I have seen girls spin these kinds of tales and then publicly embarrass the innocent child who believes them.
They say things like “How stupid you must be to really think I knew famous person and even if I did what makes you think she would write to someone like you!”
So I had to very gently burst my daughter bubble. I told her I did not want her writing any letters to the cast because I did not think her friend truly knew them enough to get the letters to them. I told her I did not want anything my daughter wrote to be used against her later. She agreed and admitted that the stories her friend had told her didn’t really make a lot of sense and she is probably making it all up. I love children’s imaginations, but as a mom I need to make sure they are using it for good and not to harm others.
