My 6 year old daughter is a nightmare on playdates

"With respect", I didn't say anything about OP's DD having SEN or not.

What I did say was that it's nonsense to say that schools will have flagged up issues if SEN are present. Many, many schools have no idea about autism in girls and will never raise a problem as long as the child flies under the radar.

I almost always kept my kids apart for playdates as something about the friend + sibling setup was really problematic. So either I'd purposefully do something with the other sibling, or I'd set up a separate playdate for one of them elsewhere, or have my husband take one out while I hosted a playdate for the other one. Combining 3 children never worked out well for me.

I also didn't have playdates longer than 2 hours unless there was a specific situation (babysitting or whatnot) as that's when it all would start going wrong.

Personally I'd stop this setup and try something altogether different as maybe it's hard for her to balance having someone in her space AND for a long time AND with a younger sibling. Bring her and a friend to go do something together. Meet up at a park with a picnic. Have a specific activity (craft or lego set or whatever) set up for them. My daughter would sometimes struggle with the 'go play' bit of starting a playdate but if she had a focus to start it would be easier.

@tumblingdowntherabbithole With respect it really is not. As others have said dc can feel ownership of what happens in their house and with their toys. It’s very normal! Saying it’s this or that diagnosis is wrong. It’s probably jealousy and immaturity in a 6 year old. My DD did it with one child. Also dc don’t always play nicely. Even very reasonable pleasant dc can react badly to things they aren’t ready for.

I think schools will have noticed inability to work with others and playground spats. On MN every single issue is now Sen. We are crying out for some common sense!

@Batherssss I would say, treat them as though they have ASD even though they don't have an official diagnosis, and do a lot of reading on how neurodiversity presents in girls.

We managed this with DS by running adult mediated activities for example science club, D&D. Things that required some level of adult supervision.
Have you tried things like craft activities or baking which requires you to be present so your daughter doesn't need to feel overwhelmed, responsible and uncomfortable at the reality of having friends over?

Self sabotage on play dates. My neuro diverse children are like this

Any advice for mothers of such children pls?
My daughter is entering her final year of school with high expectations of herself and her future.

Exercise is so good for children.
Gymnastic, tennis and hockey were all great for my child.

I have noticed with my 6 year old that sometimes playdates at home can lead to issues because she wants to control things because it's her home environment and her stuff that they are playing with. And if the friend isn't as receptive to her ideas or wants to play with very special things this can be difficult for her to accept. Putting special things away, exploring expectations in advance and what if the friend doesn't want to do exactly as she wants and shortening play dates have all helped.

I always found lavender oil calmed my stressed dd. Just a sniff

TBH not much works in the moment to calm things so we have to adapt the overall environment/expectations/parenting in general in order that it's less likely to happen, or he's more able to cope with the situation in the first place.

That's quite tricky, because you don't want to end up with a situation where you've removed or avoided the stressful expectation entirely because they do still need opportunities to practice that skill. (In fact, they probably need that MORE than other children.) It's just that the opportunities to practice need to be at a level they can actually succeed. It's a bit exhausting TBH but that's part of why it's classed as SEND. It might be that you don't need to go quite this far! The article I shared before has some good suggestions about how to handle difficult playdates both in terms of setting the child up for success in advance, but also what to do in the moment if it's going wrong.

This is just nonsense, it really is.

I'm autistic and school never noticed or flagged a thing. Neither did university. It wasn't until I had three autistic burnouts in six years and did my own research that I realised there was something more going on and spoke to my GP.

It's very, very common for high-masking girls and women to go decades without any kind of diagnosis. They're labelled as quiet, or a "pleasure to have in class", or quirky, or awkward, or shy.

Neither was mine. Then she went into burnout during A levels. And that was the end of A levels.

She was quiet and compliant at school. Schools don’t pick up female presentations because they hide it so well.

Kindly meant, but my autistic daughter was never spotted in school. Neither was her profound dsylexia....because she is very bright and very good at masking, with a photographic memory.

We only realised at 14 when I joined a lot of dots.....eventually.
She is high achieving in every area, sports, academics, music, beautifully behaved in school, great friends.
She is still autistic and dsylexic.
Girls get missed all the time.

OP, maybe play dates after school are too much.
Fresh air and exercise might be better.
Play dates at the weekend for a while.
School can be tiring if she has been masking.

Role play, role play, role play.
It is likely that your little girl is a bit overwhelmed on playdates. It could be the sense of other people in her space, or playing with her belongings, or if she is the oldest child, not having had play dates role modelled. When my girls were that age, if problems arose, we would concentrate on the skills needed for playdates. 'It sounds like playing with the jigsaw with X was hard earlier, what happened?' Get a sense of the trigger and then say 'Okay let's act out how to sort that out.' and let her go through all the scenarios. Ask her how she feels (angry) and how the other kid feels (hurt, bit afraid in new house, feels she does not like them) and get her think of the best way, you could role play the other kids. This is all a skills development thing, role play and using play in general, was a game changer for us, we played out everything, problems, if kids were going to something new, i.e. hospital appt etc. Play is the language of kids. Hope it works for ye too

And as a pp said you need to run the activities.

Playdates can be really overwhelming for little children they don't know what to do with themselves so it ends in "tears" i was never a fan when mine were young, we would go to neutral territory like the park or soft play and just a few times a month the back and forth reciprocating also can be never ending and stressful.

OP just stop them for a while or cut down she isn't coping with friends in her space touching her stuff and I don't think it is fair on any of them she might be branded as "difficult " and she is only 6.

Shorten the play date. And finish them before she gets tetchy.

firm rules before eg you are the host they are the guest. You are rude to them you will go to your room.
let her temper tantrum and send her to her room and ignore

At that age I used to limit free play unless they could cope with it and played nicely. In a few years you'll have play dates where all you have to do is provide snacks, but not at 6. You need activities that are fun that you run. Time in the garden or park is great but again I'd try and direct activities. A drink and a snack to break up the time. A craft activity or baking or drawing etc but I would be supervising closely. If you think your DD needs a little downtime cartoons for 15mins with a hot chocolate just to chill. Really try and make sure her friends enjoy coming to your house even if your DD isn't why they had fun.

@Satisfiedwithanapple Exactly. We have such a rush to label dc. It’s utterly wrong.

Agree.

All six year olds have dubious social skills at times because they are six.

Would it be worth trying a short play date at a weekend? If she is holding it together in school all day, a play date afterwards might be a step too far.

If she’s ok at school it’s not send! They really will have spotted issues and they haven’t. Every single issue is a sen red flag these days. Poor child! It’s more of a my house, my way. She’s immature at playing. It’s not that unusual either. So change interactions with others and do shorter bursts.

My son has adhd. Generally okay with playdates now, but i do a few things before it starts:
-explain the plan: I set the scene in a short, succinct way. I usually tell him the end phrase I will use and what we will do to end it. When it is our house he tends to be far more excited/harder to manage his feelings. So i encourage him to put special toys that he isn't willing to share in my room, kids aren't allowed in my room during playdates. I also suggest an activity before the other child arrives, usually something they have in common, or water play or something general. This helps to structure the playdate. I then have a snack prepared before so I'm nearby if he struggles. I also have a backup activity in my head incase free play doesn't happen naturally, or they aren't agreeing so I distract with the new thing.
I also consistently use the same plan no matter where if he starts to feel 'fizzy'. He's used to it now. I take him by both hands, bend down for eye contact, and i ask him to come with me to just 'have a minutes peace because your feeling a bit fizzy right now'. We then go and do breathing exercises. We practice these breathing techniques like blow the candle out, box breathing etc when he is completely calm so this has really helped when the feelings begin to build.
We roleplay, but I do it with what he likes (cars, tanks). I read books and we talk about the characters, and if I can't find a book that fits the scenario then I make up 'once upon a time' stories which for my son includes robots, army, aliens but always has a moral or story to support his learning about social situations.
I used to have to hover a little when we were having playdates, no distractions for me. Now I rarely need to involve myself. And he has great playdates inside and outside of the house.
It's tough, but every emotion is your child trying to communicate with you, whether they are or are not SEN. What is your child trying to tell you? That she struggles with these social interactions. If, and i mean if, SEN is a part of it then I think it's the same process but take it slower, it may take more understanding, time and calmness from you, and the more it links to the kid's interests then the better.
How can you teach her? What does she need to learn, break it into little chunks and not one big problem..

The reason I posted a link relating to ADHD is that my son has ADHD and also displays these tendencies.

I don't mean to say this means your DD has ADHD. Someone else mentioned a child with ASD who presented similarly, so I think what (all three of us) are seeing separately is basically a child who is becoming overwhelmed with a situation and then becoming hypervigilant as a response. DS definitely does this - when he's wound up and overstimulated (which happens more when there are more people around) he becomes massively reactive and whatever happens to him it's almost as though it's magnified x10. So his brother might go to touch his train track and DS will react as though he's just smashed the entire track with a mallet - because it feels that intrusive to him.

He doesn't do it so much any more but it used to be as well that to try and cope with the confusion of other people he would be controlling and try to tell them what to do.

I think it's possible that having a general tendency towards becoming overstimulated by a certain scenario would have a similar result, which might or might not be part of a wider SEN profile. It could just be a weak area where she'll catch up.