3yo telling friends and families she doesn't like them

[TwoLittleTerrors]

My 3yo DD has developed a habit of telling grandma she doesn't like her. It only happens when either me or DH is around. If we are busy or she's with grandma only, she will happily play with grandma. I take it it means when we are around she prefers to play with us only and doesn't want grandma to join in?

We haven't done anything to stop it because grandma doesn't mind at all.

But today she did this to a girl she played with at nursery! Obviously I'm horrified. Luckily the girl's mum is not around.

What would you suggest we should do? We plan to tell her what she said is very mean and hurt the feelings of the person. But do we have to acknowledge that she might not like the person? We don't want to just stop her talking about this sort of thing to us in private in case she might be bullied. We want in that case she felt she could come to us. How do you strike the balance for this?

[RooCluckers]

Watching with interest. My 3yo dd often tells me, her dad, her sister and anyone else she is cross with 'I am NOT your best friend' I suspects she says this to other children at nursery and although we have talked about this when she is calm and she understands this is not nice, she continues to say it!

[AlexD72]

Is someone saying it to her? i.e at nursery. Children often do or say things that they experience. Is she saying it to see how you will react? If you don't say it where has she heard it?
A popular one at nursery is ""Your NOT coming to my party" Even if their birthday is months off!

[TwoLittleTerrors]

roo does your DD go to the same nursery as mine? She often says you are not my best friend too. I didn't think it's as mean, but now you mention it, it is really the same thing isn't it?

[LittlePink]

I remember telling elderly relatives as a young child I hated them and not to come to our house. Of course I didn't hate them at all, I just had a lot of strong emotions that I didn't know how to deal with and probably could have done with someone helping me to work through how I was feeling. My nephew went through a phase of telling my mum he hated her and to go away. My mum was mortified and took it very personally. Again he was going through a lot of strong feelings and needed time and input to help him work out his anger issues over things that where something and nothing but everything to him at the time. 5 yrs down the line he and my mum get on like a house on fire and spend lots of happy times together.

[TwoLittleTerrors]

alex we didn't say anything like that. I think she must have picked it up from nursery.

littlepjnk the strong emotion thjng is definitely true. We tried to talk to her and try to understand why she's saying it, but she doesn't respond with anything sensible. I think I see it as emotional bullying and wonder if I should treat it the same way as say pushing another kid. (Ie put a stop to it).

It does seem quite a common thjng 3yo says from what I gather here.

[RC1234]

Yes my daughter does that too. The not my best friend thing seemed to really start after watching a certain episode of Peppa Pig. Now she is approaching 4 this is tailing off. Obviously we have spent much time telling her how hurtful her words are (when it is other people). When she can't think of anything else to say it is her fall back conversation and she has to be talking all the time. Her friends are all the same and it is only an issue amongst those with no memories of the joys of 3 year old chatter boxes.

[girliefriend]

I think it is a phase and will pass, however if she is being rude I would pull her up on it. The friendship side of things continues well into school I am afraid!!

Maybe work on empathy as well so trying to help her understand how her words can make someone else feel sad.

[famalam]

Oh my dd does this aswell, orders her nana to get out of our house etc! We make light of it, tend to think it's a typical sort of emotional phase they go through. We just say "well that's not very nice is it!" or "well we're not your friend then " and eventually she joins in on the joke of it all.
I don't think she does this at nursery as she loves her friends to death, but wouldn't take it too seriously if she did.

[happygelfling]

My DD (3.1) does the, "I am NOT your best friend" too. Also we get, "I don't love you any more". She doesn't hear either of these phrases at home.
She usually says these things when she's being told off or is not being allowed something.
I'm just ignoring it, to be honest... Not sure that's the right approach but I'm treating it as I would any other form of tantrum (ignore, ignore, ignore).
Obviously it's harder to ignore if she says it to another child or to a grandparent, which does happen occasionally...
Watching other responses with interest!

[Thesimplethings]

Completely normal. My just turned 3 year old had a lovely time with me playing, cuddles, lots of love you mammy your my best friend in the whole wide world stuff. Then grandad came to collect him whilst I picked up his brother from school. He said it's ok mammy I will go with granda, I love granda I don't love you I just said shame mammy loves you and you are my tickle monster.

They are just learning emotions at this age.

[MillieMoodle]

Watching with interest as my DS (3.5) tells me "you are NOT my best friend" as well. He's also said to other friends/family when he's tired or frustrated.
However, there's one little girl at his childminder's who he seems to always be telling tales on. He's been invited to her birthday party and says he doesn't want to go. He's even told her he doesn't want to go to her party I felt so sorry for her, she looked really confused bless her. I've explained that it's not a nice thing to say and she will be upset if he doesn't go but I'm not sure he understands what I mean. She's 6 months younger and I think he gets frustrated that her speech isn't as good so he sometimes can't understand her, but I don't think he actually dislikes her. I'm just not sure!