Friend fallen out with me over what my son said

[Tumbledrying]

Sorry if this thread sounds daft. My son is 4. I made friends with 1 of the mums, we got on great and it was wonderful to have a "mum friend".

Anyways she stopped talking to me after my son hasn't wanted to play with her son as much at school.

I have tried to talk to ds to ask why incase there was anything I missed, he just says he wants to play with everyone else too and that sometimes they want to do different things! Apparently this has left friend's son in tears :/ they're just kids. I have asked ds to include friend's son too and he has but I can't force a 4 year old to only play with 1 child at preschool

She admitted to me she feels hurt for her son as he's already shy and I understand that. She even said "you can't control what kids do it's okay" Frankly I do feel a bit sad as it was lovely to finally have a friend to talk to and confide in. Now she avoids me during the school run and the last message I sent her, she ignored.

Is this a common thing once kids go to school? For mum's to fall out over what their kids do/say? I understand if it's bullying but if this is how it is over little things then i'm happier without friends lol

I know I should be unbothered but it is bothering me at the moment if i'm honest

Honestly, the amount of times my children fell out with their friends one minute and were best friends again the next. Never get involved in kids squabbles unless there's bullying involved

I never fell out with the mother's over this. Throughout school children have loads of different friends. I would always encourage my children to have lots of different friends rather than one best friend.

She’s heartbroken that her son is hurting but imo a bit daft to fall out with you over it, if she goes through all the school years like that she won’t have any school mum friends, they can swap and change friends quite a bit in the early years.
It’s common for some mums to fall out over the actions of their DC, some people just put that aside with a ‘kids! What can you do?’ Type attitude and carry on being friends.

It doesn't sound like your DS has done anything wrong. I don't like how the word resilience is bandied about these days but it does sound like this other child needs some mature guidance on how to navigate friendships and the playground, it's unlikely he'll find a friend who only wants to play with him.

I don't think it's your son's responsibility to narrow his friendship list so that her son isn't lonely, harsh as that sounds. If she feels like he's shy and needs more friends, the answer isn't to pressure and ghost her own friends, it's to put herself out more and give her son more contact with other children, like taking up a sport, or helping to build his confidence by learning a new skill.

She's modelling a very poor approach to gaining friends by the way she's behaving towards you and that is more the problem for her son than your son wanting a broad range of friends (as is perfectly right and appropriate).

Absolutely, that's my thinking too. I couldn't imagine falling out with anyone over something like this.

I always thought of her as easy going and relatable. Not once did I think she would stop talking over this. It's become very awkward now at the school run

Yes I agree regarding her son and this isn't going to help him in the long run at all. I have also said this in the past when she expressed how she is concerned about him

Nothing you can do, foster relationships elsewhere but keep saying Hi and smiling. Kinds will have many friends as the time goes by.

She's in for a shock when they go to school.

She sounds like she needs to grow up A LOT!

This is absolutely bang on. We have the problem also with my child.

I've gone distant with a mother as she'd always communicate how upset her child was (that ultimately my child has better social skills and is happy to apply a boundary) but not take any action to support her child to understand this is okay and normal.

Just continue investing time into people who are a little less hard work. Sounds like your child has developed a great sense of self and actually isn't proactively doing anything wrong.

My child grew bored of being guilt tripped by this other child for having other friendships and not complying with all their demands. My child has actually started to dislike the other child and avoids them.

Yes this is the thing, it did feel like hard work. Took her ages to let me know what was wrong in the first place. I'll just have to accept that she genuinely doesn't want anything to do with me anymore because of this, as silly as that sounds. Oh well. Thanks all for your replies