It’s been a rough couple of weeks at our house. Lucy’s in third grade now, and is starting to be aware of popularity. More specifically, she’s starting to be aware that some kids are really popular—and she isn’t.

I didn’t think we’d have to face this for a few years yet. My memory isn’t perfect, but I can’t remember even being aware of popularity until middle school. But that’s like a lot about childhood these days. Kids are more aware, more sophisticated, and just plain older-acting than we were.

The issue has been building for a while. Starting in kindergarten, girls in her class were aligning themselves in clubs. Lucy never seemed to be included. It stung me more than it stung her—or so I thought.

Then in first grade, she was told she wasn’t doing the monkey bars correctly, and could therefore not play with the rest of the monkey bar mafia. After discussing her options—ignoring the girls, playing someplace else, or learning how to do the bars the way the rest of the kids did—we went to the playground after school and practiced monkey bar technique.

She can now skip two bars, something I didn’t think was possible until I saw it. But apparently that wasn’t the key to popularity, either. One sad day last year, her so-called best friends told her they weren’t playing together that particular afternoon. Then they went off without her and played together anyway.

“They told me that with smiles on their faces,” she said.

It broke my heart. I tried contacting the ringleader’s mother—I wanted to invite the girl over for a play date so she could see how much fun Lucy is. The mom declined, saying it was “complicated.”

This year, it’s even tougher.

Popularity has been defined by having the right erasers and participating in a certain after-school drama program—not the one Lucy happens to be in. Lucy finally asked last week if she could have some of those erasers and take part in one of those shows.

“I want to be popular,” she said, bursting into tears. “I want to have a lot of friends.”

This is one of those parenting problems that are easier to solve on paper than in practice. We could, of course, get her a couple of erasers. It would be a bigger deal signing her up for the drama program, which is farther away and way more expensive.

In the short term, that might make Lucy feel better, even if I object with every instinct I have as a human being. Consumer conformity makes me want to puke.

And then there’s the deeper issue: I want my kids to be liked for who they are, not what they have, just as I want them to like people for the qualities that actually matter.

As I told her, anyone that is friends with her just because of her erasers isn’t someone worth being friends with.

Likewise, it would be really easy to say, “Sorry, kiddo. We don’t want you to be like the other kids.” It’s an easy line to draw, but that’s not the message I want to deliver—that her parents are forcing her to be an outsider.

It can be a dangerous thing for a parent to draw an absolute line in the sand, or so I’ve observed. Adam grew up with a boy who was never allowed to have junk food. As soon as he got over to Adam’s house, where they ordered potato chips by the barrel, the friend would gorge himself.

The last thing I want is for Lucy to gorge herself on conformity. I just want her to be who she is.

One of the things I like best about her is her creativity and individuality. This weekend, for example, she wore a long dress, a floppy hat, and a white rubber rat on her shoulder. Not many people could look cool wearing such a goofy outfit, but Lucy did. She’s fearless when it comes to fashion, to acting, to singing. I am the opposite, and I just marvel at her courage.

A part of me wants to attribute her lack of popularity at school to her wacky exuberance, but the truth is, she wears school uniforms (and decorative white shoulder rats would definitely be frowned upon in class).

I read an interesting article in the New York Times this week about how having social rivals can actually help kids. The kids who fight back against someone who’s picking on them are actually perceived by the peers and teachers as having better social skills, because the relationships, while messed up, are at least reciprocal.

So if I were to guess, I’d say it’s Lucy’s kindness that’s getting her in trouble. She doesn’t fight back. Ever. She is one of the most naturally kind people I know. Just last weekend, we were at a craft store and a deaf woman was standing behind a table making construction paper puppies.

Lucy asked me why the woman’s voice was unusual. I explained why, and as I was paying for our supplies, Lucy left my side to watch the woman work. No one else was taking part in the demo, and I could hear Lucy ask her questions and praise the work. Her interest was sincere—who doesn’t love a construction paper puppy? But I knew she had a secondary motivation, and that was to make that woman feel special.

She does this sort of thing all the time, whether it’s offering to help a recently widowed friend out in her kitchen, or giving especially an strong hug to another friend whose husband just left her.

She does it at school, too. I just got an e-mail from a mom who watched Lucy take the hand of a girl who was being picked on and lead her away from a group of other little girls behaving badly.

All of these things make me love my child even more, and this is what I tell her as she talks about the things people sometimes say to her that hurt her feelings. Most of the time, the kids just aren’t thinking, I tell her. They’re trying out new expressions and new ways of relating to people. Not all of these experiments turn out well, but that’s how kids find their way in the world.

And so this is my hope: that as Lucy finds her way in the world, and seeks out friendships, that she doesn’t lose what’s remarkable about her.

As for those kids who have the right erasers and go to the right theater program and think that means they’ve got it all, well, they truly don’t know what they’re missing.