Struggling to make mum friends at school

[TwinklyOliveFawn]

I’m so gutted, it’s my DC second year being at this school now and I really thought I’d make some friends. As a disclaimer DC has a lovely group of friends, is extremely popular and I intend to do a full class party as an icebreaker. But has never been asked on a playdate. Coming into the school I knew one mum from a play group quite well but she found her way into the ‘inner circle’ and started to ‘not see me around anymore’. She no longer invites me for play dates as she has her crowd and I’m sadly not a part of it.

The class size is small, they all seem to know each other now and I often see them picking each others kids up, I’m hearing about summer play dates, nights out, then seeing it on instagram, they are all hugging at the school gates and it’s as if I’m not even there I try to smile and make conversation but it’s like I’m literally invisible…I just feel terrible because I’m quite shy, it takes so much for me to approach someone and I really tried to put myself out there …

So I do stick around at parties and make conversation but no one really seems interested more than a bit of small talk. Is it me, am I the problem? I’m maybe 10 years younger than most of them so I’m wondering if it’s that because I can’t understand why I’ve become the one that is left out. Anyone else has this experience?

That sounds really tough and I'd be feeling left out and hurt too, maybe if they think you are younger they might assume that you are not interested in hanging out with the "oldies" but that's no excuse to exclude you.

Don't assume it's you that is the problem, people get very cliquey at school and sometimes they just don't see past themselves and their wants and needs. I hope you meet your "people" soon as you sound lovely to me!

Isn’t it the children who pick who they want to have a play date with? That’s how it worked when I was a child, I’d ask my parents if a friend could come over. Neither of my parents were friends with any other parents. I’m sure in a few years your child will be asking for friends to come over and play. Have you tried asking them who they want to invite to play? It sounds like it’s your shyness rather than age (it’s really hard to guess ages, and it’s not something I’ve noticed as a barrier).

Do you need new friends and that’s why you’re focussed on this? I think once you’re an adult you can’t assume you’ll get on with someone just because you have children of a certain age, work in the same office, share the same hobby, etc. Maybe it might be easier to separate the adult friendships from the children. Let the kids make friends and you carry on with your regular adult friendships outside of school.

Are there others you can form your own group with?

I assumed so as well, I just thought that since DC is so close with their friends at parties and outside the school gates, that maybe someone would want to invite them for a play date.
no of course but I’m new-ish to the area so I’m constantly seeking connections/prospective friendships.

How many play dates have you/your child initiated?

School gates can be horrible places with cliques and in-crowds. Some folk might have known each other for years too, even pre-children. TBH, you cannot force friendships - just be friendly but not overly so and maybe try to make friends for you or DC through clubs or hobbies? I honestly don't keep in touch with any of DCs primary school mums, and his closest friends didn't even all go to the same primary.

Honestly do none of these mums work? I never hung around a school gate…like ever.

I was didn't go straight to work after dropping DC off, or come from work on way home, but the gate wasn't really my hang out place either! Too many annoying folk there, imho.

Yeah it really works both ways…you’ll just have to arrange a play date first.

That will be part of the issue though, you can’t expect others to invite your DC for playdates when you haven’t invited anyone yourself. It may also be too much for others to j bite people for playdates dates when they don’t know the parents well, far easier to invite their own friends over. If you want your DC to be invited you need to initiate and invite her friends over to yours.

I hope that inviting everyone to DC party next month will break the ice, fingers crossed

My advice is go to baby groups rather than try and crack the gate mums. Older children must chose friends not predicated on their mothers. Given the number of people I’ve seen fall out because their children change friend groups, your future self will thank me.

Tbh primary school friendships are so fickle esp in the younger years that it seems a bit pointless investing much effort into playdates. You can spend weeks cultivating a friendship and then they chop and change and you're back to square one with a new bestie. I'd just focus on your own friendships based around interests of yours, and let the dcs socialise in school, and encourage new friendships out of school through extracurriculars. I found it was more beneficial long term to develop skills and a wider social circle through those than having lots of playdates, which is really just sitting in someone else's house and playing with their toys under their rules.

There have been a lot of posts on here about people replying to school party invitations and the number of people who did not turn up .I do hope people will turn up but maybe be prepared that some won't be able to .Best of luck.

OK, but you’re complaining about other parents not having invited your child on play dates, and yet you haven’t invited theirs. Find a way to do it. We moved countries mid-school year 2020, DS (aged 7) started school immediately after the holidays, when a house purchase had fallen through and we were living in a temporary rental with no transport, and DH was overseas for three weeks, but I still hosted play dates because I thought it was important to help DS settle. Now he’s a teenager, they’re all at different secondaries, but he and those kids are still friends. And I still see their parents socially.

They have known each other longer, maybe by years if kids were at nursery together. You probably have your hands full, which makes it harder to have a proper chat, and also harder for you to invite people round. It’s not personal but not surprising! Ask your son who he likes to play with and invite that kid round on weekend afternoon or Inset day.

I found I made friends at playgroup rather than school. So when the kids started school I knew a group of women already. But I’d say inviting kids to yours and yes whole class party is a good way to go.

But tbh in my experience kids started school I to chose their own friends quite quickly so it’s less a case of who you know. I also found as kids got older the mum friends drifted part.

I found the school gates quite hard - we were new to the area, I was older, I worked. To be honest I don't really understand the idea that just because the children get along that the parents will too. I just concentrated on supporting my sons in making friends - making sure we could attend class parties, inviting two or three children to regular play-dates. I didnt think too much about the other parents. I was so much happier when they moved to secondary and all the parents disappeared.

When I was in my 20s and going through it with my first child this sort of stuff would upset me. As I'm a natural introvert, it doesn't come easily to me to put myself out there. Now I don't care. I will chat to people and be polite and I've made a couple of friends this way. I wouldn't say they were ride or die friends, more just mates to have a chat with at school events. I'm not interested in forcing friendships with women I've got nothing in common with just because of our kids are in the same class. I was best mates with a friend of my DD's mum at one point. They fell out, we fell out, friendship over.
I think if you have to force those, they are not true friendships anyway. Just let it happen naturally and if it doesn't happen, it doesn't matter. The school days fly by, they're a flash in the pan.

I was a Southerner in the North who moved to what had been a mining area. It’s really deprived in pockets I am mixed race in an area which and especially 25 years ago was very white and was one of only a couple of older Mums at the school gate.

I never worry if people will like me or not and am confident. People are drawn to confident people. I would hazard a guess that it’s because you give off nervous energy as you are shy. People can pick up very subtle clues that people are hiding something and it unnerves them, they may not even be aware. Obviously it’s just that you are shy and nothing awful but they can feel it isn’t really you. I had a colleague who I felt a little odd about. I didn’t dislike her but something was off. She let slip when I mentioned an area I had read about that she was from there. It’s a very dodgy area, gangs, crime truly awful. I realised she was ashamed of her background, that was why she had a veil, to hide it.

Just be yourself.

Certainly at DS’s first primary, he was at wraparound care or breakfast club/after school, as I almost never did the school run, so barely knew the other parents at all. I still invited children he liked for play dates, either at weekends or on days when I could arrange to leave work early. That I didn’t have friends among the other parents never impacted his friendships.

These threads come up every year.

Why are you waiting for people to invite you to a play date? Can you not invite people to yours? Or if you can't, initiate a park meet up after school? Coffee after drop off (not sure if you or they work?)

I think you need to ask your son who he'd like to have for a play date, and ask that child around. A few of these and he'll be occupied, and hopefully you'll get to know the mums. You'll be busy at a party for the whole class, so don't rely on this as a way to get to know the other parents.

You could volunteer as a leader/helper for an afterschool club - say cub scouts, or local football team you'll get to know the other volunteer parents that way, and expands your social circle.

My DSs school was like this - a clique of mothers who didn't work, without younger kids, they'd go off for coffee after drop off. Their kids had to play with each other, whether they wanted to or not! I advise chatting to the other parents who aren't in the clique, hard as it can be when you're shy.

They come up every week!