I don't have the answers yet, but I have learned enough to be dangerous, and ask better questions..

What does it mean when you really don't like a child? I mean, everyone knows they're innocent. They can't really do much wrong. It's our guidance that's so important in helping them behave appropriately, demonstrate respect for others, etc.

Or is it?

My daughter (8), has a younger friend over (7), and I just find her totally irritating. In fact, it's worse than that. I actively dislike her. From the way she grabs my daughter's cat and holds her in a death squeeze to her patent disregard for my authority....I don't like her. I see in her a lot of sneakiness and conniving.

And I don't want her over here.

Is that bad?

I decided to whip out my psychology training, and talked with her mother about it, well aware that the situation was likely created at the parental level. My friend, her husband and the maternal grandmother dote on the child endlessly, and baby it nauseatingly (do I do that to my own as well - I suspect so - that's probably why I am irritated) and the child has as a result, learned to navigate smoothly through every hole left gapingly open by the three adults too busy crooning to discipline her.

Then she comes here. To the single mom with no back-up. The single mom who has to put on both loving mother face and that of the terrible mother. There is no other authority source here.

And we've run into trouble, she and I. We all sat in hot tub some time ago, and my lovely cat decided to sit on the rim and watch the goings on. The little girl moved to touch her, and I asked her not to, since cats tend to dislike wet hands in their coats. She looked at me, looked at the cat, looked back at me, dipped her hands in the water, and dumped the contents on the cat, who of course dashed off angrily.

I took this girl by the hand, and asked her why she did that? She looked into my eyes, with a defiant air, and said she didn't know. I took them both out of the tub and drove her home.

So here it is some months later. My friend, now a newly single mom, needs a sleepover so she can go out. I need the same. Oh the trades you get into as a single mom when you have no family to lean on! I asked my friend to be sure that her daughter minds me while she is here, otherwise I shall have to return her back home. It's not that I am so strict, but I realize this child needs more boundries than she's getting. However, I think it's gone so far now that she won't respect any new ones being set.

So the child turned up, nice as you please, ready to mind, but already this morning we are running into trouble. She is pushing my daughter to push me. Break every rule. Try every ruse. See what happens.

And yet, she's only a child. A 7-year old. So of course I am questioning myself here. Is it just bad chemistry at work here? Is it that she's already learned (been trained, I should say) that adults are idiots and treats me as more of same? Is that it?

I am the adult here. I know more. Don't I? I am supposed to find the middle path. I presume kids aren't born evil. That's movie fantasy stuff, isn't it? This is not that, surely. This kid is just too well trained in easing past any adult resistance to her behavior. That's the problem.

I think.

These things are hard. If something in me is really reacting at a deeper level to something in this child, something dark, something that's emerging in a setting where adults are too lax in discipline, then what to do? What if she would have been fine under another scenario?

And how to approach my friend, who will surely be wondering what's wrong with me when I keep sending her kid home? She does look at her child's actions, I am sure, but I have watched the kid in action at home. Believe me, all three adults are blind to her movements. They pat her on the head absent-mindedly and say, now honey, we've told you about this...and move dreamily on to their next task, whatever it was.

What does one do in these situations? Ditch the friend and child? Try to have a heart to heart talk? Try to reach through the haze and get the point across?

I just don't know...