You've got to learn to fight like a girl

The other day Will and Helen were playing with their friend, M, when suddenly M ran in crying with huge scratch marks across her neck and shoulders.  Helen followed right behind her, crying/screaming too about how M was being mean.

After a loooong cooling off period, which involved M going home and Cort carrying Helen kicking and screaming and then wrestling her into the shower, I got to the bottom of it.

Apparently M told Will and Helen that if they wouldn't play what she wanted to play, she wouldn't be their friend anymore. M has an older sister, so she knows how girls work to manipulate their friends. Of course, Will didn't want that to happen, so he immediately started playing with her. 

Helen, on the other hand, was not so persuaded.  And she does not have an older sister.  She has older brothers.  So she did exactly what the boys do.  She got mad and attacked M.  Hard.  The girl still has the marks two days later.

Um, seriously?  That's not how we girls do it, Helen.  Just tell her you won't be her friend, either.  You can change your mind whenever you feel like it.  Unless you continuing attacking people, because then they might not change their mind.

I'm trying to decide whether she'd be better off if I taught her to fight like a girl.