4yr old being bullied at preschool

[kateeliz]

Hi, my 4yr old boy is being excluded and picked on a bit at his preschool. There are a few boys his age and they seem to be into choosing 'friends' and saying 'your not my friend' etc. Our son is really bright and not as boisterous or loud and sporty as other kids, but really funny and certainly not anti social, it just seems if hes one on one with someone hes fine but if there are more kids around he closes up a bit and gets picked on. Its weird because he doesnt want to stay home from daycare, he likes to go mostly and often when i pick him up he doesnt want to come home. Its just hes started saying comments about such and such said hes not my friend, and he looks so sad. And today i dropped him off and a gang of boys ran past saying mean things to him and it BROKE MY HEART!!! Hes definitely getting picke on a lot of the time. What can we do about it?

[hmc]

Invite some of the other little boys - one at a time - around to play.

My ds used to be a little like this and still needs a bit of social engineering on my part to encourage friendships

[motherlovebone]

they are still a bit like that age 6-8, and i suppose some adults are too.
i worried about my DD in a similar way, now going into her 3rd year at school, friends with all the nice kids, i guess what im trying to say is not to worry, he will find his way, its early days.

[MarshaBrady]

Can you invite them to your house individually?
Listen to how they speak to eachother and correct it 'that's not nice' etc if they are a bit mean.

[puffling]

Have you mentioned what he says and the incident you saw with little boys to his teacher?

[springerspaniel]

My ds had a mini version of this - his 'best friend' told him he wasn't his friend. I just told him that was very silly and mean and that my DS shouldn't behave like that. Also told him to point out to 'best friend' that it was silly and mean. Didn't hear about it again.

...although appreciate that it is bound to crop again at some point.

[KTNoo]

Sounds like normal stuff to me. Unfortunately kids can start to be really mean to each other at this age and it's horrible to see, but, I think I took it harder than my dcs who seemed to bounce back from a falling out very quickly. They change their best friend every day at this age ime.

[slowreadingprogress]

I wouldn't start inviting them round individually, I think it's better to get this dealt with by the pre school as it is a pre school problem. Tell the staff what's happening and they will tackle it by keeping a close eye on the other kids and by dealing with anything that happens at the time.

I wish I could believe that inviting them round would help - I guess it's not going to harm, but I just think the dynamics are so different when they are in a group at preschool that any amount of you trying to engineer a 'closeness' is just not going to make a difference really. DS used to meet up regularly with an adorable little lad who we had round here lots but the adorable little lad still turned into a bully at playtime with a group round him and not alot of adult supervision!!!