5 year old school friend issues wwyd??

[purplemonkey123]

Not entirely sure this is the right thread for this ...
My 5 year old DD started school this year. She is mainly friends with one little girl in the class though she says she plays with a couple of other girls a little. In the past 2 weeks DD has been coming back from school telling me that the other little girl lets her play with her only if she doesn't talk to her. The other day DD fell as the other girl pushed her to win a race, and today she asked me whether we could invite the girl round. I said it was a good idea. DD then said the other girl had said unless we invited her to play she wouldn't invite DD to her birthday party.
Recently the other little girl got in a bit of bother at school for trying to escape from the playground and I have wondered whether stuff at home is causing her recent behaviour. At pick up time today, DD was trying to engage with her and the girl moved away from her refusing to engage. DD then started chatting to a boy in her class instead.

The dynamics of their friendship seems to have changed and from what DD says she is kind of walking on eggshells around this other child at the moment.

Realise this is playground stuff but wonder what I should tell DD when she reports all these things to me as the other girl doesn't seem to be too nice to her these days...

WWYD?

[Timeforabiscuit]

My dd also had friendships like this, I've tried to encourage her to play with lots of different kids, but she still makes a beeline for the disruptive ones.

Its good that your dd is shrugging it off and finding others to play with, maybe model how friends behave to each other and talk about what a good friendship is?

[tobysmum77]

I'd invite the boy round for a playdate instead if it was me. tbh I think 5 is too young for intense friendships. hopefully she won't invite her to birthday party, problem solved surely?

[deepbluetr]

I would encourage her to play with other children, inviting playdates with them instead. When she buids up more social confidence she won't be so reliant or manipulated by this other girl.

[purplemonkey123]

Thanks for your replies. Yes she is having play dates with the boy. I am trying to encourage her to play with other girls but it doesn't seem that easy at the moment. There's another little girl she plays with sometimes but she lives quite far from us so play dates are really difficult to set up.
The girls already seem to have formed friendship groups and as she is quite shy she is struggling to find a way in I think.
Today she said she didn't play with anyone in her break and that she didn't play with the girl who'd said manipulative stuff to her as it was making her angry. Indeed she was fairly angry and aggressive this afternoon at pick up :(
Anyone could suggest parenting books along the line of Biddulph's Raising Girls with practical ideas of things to say to empower girls? I don't feel I'm doing a good job of this right now.

[tobysmum77]

tbh I think part of it is to relax and remember they are very young. I also have a dd in reception, mine is very confident/ outgoing but she doesn't have a best friend at school even though some of the others do.

Your dd has a nice friend at school - the little boy who came over for a playdate. That's great, over time she will make more. My dd definitely doesn't favour making friends with girls over boys.

dd has told me on occasion that no one would play with her at breaktime/ lunchtime but when sensibly quizzed on it what she means is that none of the other children wanted to play hopscotch so she chose to play on her own ifyswim?

If you are really worried then maybe make an appointment with her teacher to get her perspective/ support with it?

I also think it's healthy to encourage them to have friends who aren't at school with them also, there are always going to be fallings out and it gives them a backup when that happens.

[MillyMollyMama]

There is a lot of movement in friendship groups and they have only just started at 5. My DD had this problem until she was 10. In year 6 it improved drastically but by then DD was going to boarding school and all the others stayed at local secondary schools. She had years of not being invited to parties, friendship groups continually fluctuating and only one constant friend (who is still a lovely girl). I did a lot of having children round to tea, not reciprocated, taking her to out of school activities and days out when everyone else was at a party. She seemed to be accepted in year 6 when the other children were less dominated by their parents, but by then she was off to another school. All you can do us keep working at it and hope the other children start including her. My DD was actually happy in the lessons and achieved very well. We did look at another school but she wanted to stay where she was. The devil you know etc...... Her class teacher offered to watch play times and did say my DD was one of a number of children who wanted to instigate playing a certain game and that learning to give way was a good thing. It gets wearing though if your ideas are never accepted. Senior school was so much better for her and she has a huge number of friends. She is only in contact with the lovely one from junior school. I found the whole episode very upsetting and I found no way of improving the situation for her. Others might have had more success.