DD is 4 and due to start school in September. She’s confident, stubborn as a mule and underneath it all, quite sensitive. She will start up a conversation with anyone 
and has never had any difficulty in building relationships with children or adults.
She can be very kind. Right now she’s telling me about her friend’s grandma dying and asking if she can share her nanny with him. She’s also been the one comforting people at school inductions if they’ve been a bit unsure.
However, there is one relationship that is problematic. It’s with a little girl she spends a lot of time with. She’s obviously very fond of this girl, asking after her if she’s not there and voluntarily learning to spell her name. When they’re on their own together, they usually (though not always) get on well, but throw in another friend and it almost always goes awry. DD often won’t hold her hand (as part of an activity), or sit next to her and shows preference towards others. This upsets the friend a lot and makes me feel awful.
I removed DD from a play date this morning because she just wouldn’t engage with this child. We went home and I explained that it was making her friend sad. I asked her why she was behaving like this as it wasn’t kind and her response was “I want to make other friends too. X won’t let me be best friends with anyone else”. She was quite persistent in this assertion.
This does actually ring true. The friend is pretty needy towards DD and I think it probably feels suffocating. There’s a lot of “we’ll be best friends forever and ever” from the friend. However, it’s always DD that looks bad, with the friend in tears.
I’m not sure how to address this. They’re not going to school together, fortunately, but they will still see each other. I don’t want DD to behave like this with anyone else either. I suffered a lot as a result of nasty behaviour from other girls as a teen, so it’s a bit of a sore spot for me.
Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.