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School-Aged Children
Moms of girls....
IS this too early?!? DD (5.5) yesterday was giggling and laughing the whole time we were checking out at the grocery store. When we walked away I asked her what she was laughing at, and she said that "the boy" (bagging our groceries) kept laughing at them. I said "why- were you doing?" She responded "smiling at him because he's cute and I'm going to marry him." Flirting already?!?! AAH! And then in the afternoon, a plumber came and she was watching him through the blinds. I told her to come back to the kitchen where I was and she said "No, I'm watching the man. He's handsome. I'm going to marry him."
So, two questions-
Is this normal?
And how should I respond? I don't want to make a big deal of it, but feel like something needs to be said? Or not?
TIA
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Moms of girls....
It is normal for children around age 5 to start to think about and try to understand big social/emotional concepts like love, marriage, attraction, boyfriends/girlfriends, etc. The classic way for this to come up is for children about this age to insist that when they grow up, they're going to marry Mommy or Daddy. Another way this can manifest is by children experimenting with the idea that they'll marry a school friend, usually one of the opposite sex -- but not always!
However, I do think you want to respond to a few things: 1) I'm guessing you want to nip in the bud the idea that handsome = marriage material and that her big goal in life is to merely get married, and 2) you don't want her ogling strange men like the grocery store clerk and/or servicemen who come to the house!
When my children reached a point where they were curious about adult relationships, we just had a nice, casual -- but straightforward -- talk about how this whole thing is supposed to work. You might try something like this:
"Honey, a long time from now when you're a grownup, you will find someone who is nice, handsome, and smart, and who thinks you're just as amazing and wonderful as Daddy and I do. You may decide to marry that person. But until then, you don't have to worry about all that. That stuff is for grownups. A good thing for 5 year old girls to do is to become friends with lots of boys and girls who are nice people, and to be polite and respectful to adults, whether they're handsome or not. It's not good manners to stare at people and giggle at them. That could hurt someone's feelings, right? If you see someone you think is handsome, you can tell me about it later."
HTH!
My five year old and my five year old neice both say they want to marry people. My neice wants to marry my dad and soo on.... My neice loves the disney princess fairytales and believes in them, to an extent I think it's completly innocent as long as I talk to her about respecting herself and so on... I think obviously it's too early to have the boyfriend talk. My five year old tells my 13yo and myself all the time that she is going to marry Justin Beiber. My daughters name is Heaven and in one of his songs he says "It's like an angel came by, and took me to Heaven" she says that he is talking to her and that she is his favorite girl
I just smile at her and say "your funny" sometimes if I think she is dragging it on about the whole marrying thing or boy thing then I will say "someday when you are much older you will find your prince charming hunny" and then we shift the conversation to something else.