A Squished Heart

My daughter has been having friend troubles. It’s hard for me because she’s only six and I didn’t think I’d be dealing with this until Junior High at least. The boys have been relatively easy so far. They gather huge numbers of kids together to play or “hang out,” depending on their age, and most days it works pretty well—except for the days when someone accidentally draws blood. But either way, they’re all still friends the next day.


The other morning, while I was getting my daughter dressed, she told me about how her friend has started giving her dirty looks and telling her that she doesn’t want to play. Then, she told me the thing that broke my heart, “when she does that, it feels like my heart goes squish.” Her little hands made a clamping motion as she said it.

It’s so hard to watch my kids deal with heart break. I generally have an answer for most things, but not for that. There’s no manual on how to help anyone feel better when the people around them are mean. Thankfully, she came up with her own solution. We were at a local carnival when she suddenly got excited and started pointing. When I asked what was going on she said, “Mom, that’s my new friend—and she’s so nice.” We walked over and said hello. The girls had huge grins on their faces and immediately held hands and skipped over to the bounce house together.

There’s nothing like a friend to fix your heart when it gets squished. It’s just too bad we can’t keep hearts from getting squished in the first place.