dd 3.5 prefers to play with teachers at playgroup & wont mix with children

[driedapricots]

My DD is incredibly shy in group scenarios. at home she is loud and v noisy and she plays very well, and quite assertively with a couple of little friends she has known since birth and her 9 year old cousin. but she will not mix at playgroup. she has only been going 4/5 weeks, previously she was at another nursery for 2 years tho and she didn't mix there either, just walked alongside the teacher or sat quietly observing from the sidelines..then came home and acted out the entire day in minute detail for hours on end every single day! i think she actually thinks she is one of the teachers when she is there as on the rare occassion when she does try to interact with the other children it's to 'cuddle them' or 'tell them mummy will be back soon'!! we try not to make an issue out of and just gently encourage her to make little friends but it's quite upsetting as she has such a lovely little personality - she is just so reserved when it comes to these formal settings. has anyone else experience of similar thing?

[Tgger]

Give her a bit more time. She's still quite little.

My son was similar but changed a lot between 3.5 and 4. It took him ages to warm up at pre-school, but at school nursery which he went to a month off his 4th birthday, by the end of the first term he'd made lots of friends.

Keep inviting friends to play, maybe if you know the Mums, or can get to know the Mums at playgroup invite one or two children from playgroup home to play- it doesn't matter that she doesn't play with them yet. Maybe if she gets to know them in her home environmnet she will have more confidence when at playgroup.

5/6 weeks isn't that long really. It took my son maybe a couple of months or more to make friends at pre-school (when he didn't know anyone previously). The teachers did actually draw my attention to the fact he wasn't really playing with the other children, but I was sure he was fine re interacting as like your DD he played really well with old friends and his cousins etc (we'd just moved house before this pre-school). Sure enough after another month or so the teacher's were telling me he was interacting more and had made friends with one of the girls.