Bad Girls

Emma has been coming home from preschool talking about a game that she plays with another girl named Charlie. It is called Bad Girls and they try to catch the older boys, Ben and Spencer. One day she even came home and used her jump rope as a gun. We very quickly redirected her and hopefully we won't see that again anytime soon!  Emma does not watch those kinds of movies at home and she never watches TV so obviously this influence is coming from the other kid(s). I guess we can't keep her sheltered forever!
At parent teacher conferences we brought the subject up and the teachers said that the one child does talk about vampires and killing bad guys and even named the Nickelodeon show that it all comes from (I can't remember the name). One teacher said she won't allow her 10 year old girl to watch the show. And there is a 4 year old who has watched it enough to encourage other children to act it out with her? Yikes!
Sometimes the nature of the game leans towards having super powers. Steve tells Emma that everyone has super powers when they be themselves. So the other night at dinner it was just Emma and I and she started telling me about how she was pretending at school to have super powers. Before I could say anything she said, "don't say what Daddy says, Mama. Don't tell me to be myself." I had to cover my mouth so she wouldn't see my smile. And then I proceeded to tell her my own version and that Daddy is a smart man who tells the truth. She gave me a "are you kidding me?" look. And then Emma said, "I told you not to tell me that!"
Emma continued with her story about how she likes to play bad girls who chase the bad boys. I asked her who plays (her and Charlie). I asked her what some of the other girls do (a few chase Preston and one girl "does nothing").  Then I asked her what Ben and Spencer do when the girls play this game. Emma said with a silly grin, "They look at me with astonishment and say 'what?'"  And yes, she did use astonishment all on her own! I was astonished!