Ways to help my highly (OK, over) sensitive DD with her friendships?

[JessiCake]

DD is Year 1 and struggling in the playground at school.

She's an only child and a fairly intense character (I just mean that she absolutely throws herself into things she loves, she's not remotely overbearing or anything). She's on the quiet side (though she is quietly confident) so she struggles in groups.

Her class is by chance full of quite loud, very confident children so there's slim pickings for the children she feels drawn to.

After a very difficult start last year she eventually made a 'proper' friend. However it's always been an 'imbalanced' friendship because the other little girl has lots of other 'options' - older siblings so always has a guaranteed pool of people to play with at playtime etc. Still, they really clicked and - as she has a tendency to do despite my attempts to keep things light - DD got very over-excited over the course of the last few months about having a 'best friend'.

Many of the other girls have kind of paired off (though I'm sure the friendships will be shifthing) so I can see why she wants that pair-bonding thing.

Of course it's obvious where this is going.

The 'best friend' has distinctly cooled towards my DD in the past couple of weeks, resulting in her starting to say DD isn't even allowed to sit next to her :( I won't mention that to school yet as it's only happened once tbf. But in general she just isn't playing with DD, or - more upsetting for DD - is playing with her for a few minutes and then vanishing with older friends. DD is then left alone at a point when everyone else is alreday playing with others and she just doesn't have the confidence to join in.

Obviously other girl can play with whoever she wants! But it's what I was concerned about when I could see DD putting all her eggs in this one basket, as it were.

DD likes a few others and does/will play with them but she's disproportionately sad about her 'best friend' 'changing', and I can see that from her POV nobody else comes close.

I'm advising her to cool things with 'best friend' and find other people to play with but I know the moment best friend says she wants to play with her again DD will be delighted and trot back :(

I'm encouraging her with eg playdates outside school but nothing really 'takes'.

We are adding outside activities if she wants to do them as I am trying to help her build her social confidence a bit that way.

Is there ANYTHING else I can do? I don't want to get over-involved; I know she has to work through these things for herself and in her own time but I want to help if I can. I think it's hard when they're so little. And DD naturally struggles with this stuff, always has.

Thanks for reading.

Hmmm... difficult. I was your DD at school. It took me years to come to the conclusion it was better to have a group off friends rather than one best friend. I used to just prefer 1:1 friendships and having a 'best friend' made me feel secure.

I don't think there's really much you can do apart from try and gently encourage other friendships.

Thanks so much Violet.

I was a bit like DD too and longed for a 'best' friend (never had one as a child, was part of a small group though).

I think you're right that there's very little I can really do apart from encourage other friendships. I'll start afresh on this next term; all the emotions are heightened for her at the mo I think as it's been a long term and she's tired.

It's painful when I can see how bewildered she is; obviously she (unlike me!) didn't see this coming!!

She definitely liked the security of feeling bonded even if it wasn't entirely reciprocated so I can understand why she's reluctant to let go of that. But I can also see that she isn't very impressed by being so suddenly ditched! I'm hoping she'll just back off this friendship for a bit as I don't want her just waiting around for whatever crumbs are thrown her way.

Bless her, that's really tough. I don't know how to explain to a child that it can push friends away if they begin to feel "smothered" as it were. But it sounds like it should be addressed so she doesn't repeat the same behaviour in future.

Can you ask the teacher for suggestions on how to handle it? Perhaps they can intervene and subtly suggest some group games?

My DD was like yours, OP. Does she do anything outside of school?

My DD started secondary school this year and was worried about making new friends (her 'best' friend going elsewhere) but it went much better than she expected!

Thanks Ghost and Sassitude.

Ghost, you've hit the nail on the head there, I think. 'Best friend' is a pretty free spirit so I suspect a lot of this has arisen not just from the imbalance but also because she just doesn't want to be 'tied down' to one particular friend. DD isn't the sort to do that typical domineering thing eg refusing to let other play with best friend etc, but I can totally see that her 'crime' may have been that she's just too darn eager and eg that she'd always hopefully wait around at playtime to try to get best friend to play with her.

I don't know how to explain the smothering thing without affecting her confidence. She's acutely embarrased when she thinks she's done something socially 'wrong' or 'silly' and will probably be distraught if I mention anything like 'smothering' (though I wouldn't use that word obv.) ANY suggestions??!!! (help!)

Sassitusde, yep. she's just started a group weekly activity which she's enjoying. I'm hoping it may help. I will encourage her to add something else, not this coming term as the jan-march one is so tiring, but in the summer term for sure.

I just want to help her with resilience, really. I can see how important it is for a child like her (when it doesn't come naturally!)

Oh and Sassitude that's nice for your DD that it went better than expected making the jump to secondary 'alone'. I'm glad it worked out.

My Dd is sensitive and has struggled to make a 'best friend'. She's had a friend since birth (they're 8 now) and she told my daughter that she wasn't her best friend. She was really hurt. I explained that its better to have lots of best friends, for all occasions. So now we focus on a friend at swimming and a friend at brownies, and holiday friends etc, pretty much everyone is a potential friend. My DD seems a little less fixated on it now.

Focusing on lots of different friends at different activities is a great idea.

I wonder how this can be turned into a teachable moment in a sensitive way. Do you do bedtime stories or read together? I'm wondering about telling a story about this type of situation, something she can perhaps identify with and understand without it being directed at her personally. Along the lines of if you love something let it be free etc.