It was ds's 5th birthday on Monday. He received a decent amount of presents from family and friends. Dh is SAHD and takes ds to the local playground on the way home from school every day after school. Ds loves this and they and a couple of other families were the only ones there most days throughout the winter.
Ds has made a few friends there and, as we have some concerns about the (lack of) friendships he is forming in reception, we are pleased about this. Of the 11 children who attended his birthday party, 3 he only knows through going to this park every day. In addition, one friend he has who is the only one he has known since before school is, like him, a stalwart who has kept on going to the park throughout the winter. They are in the same class now but she has, I think, formed more new friendships than him but they are still good friends outside school.
Dh laughingly told me on Thursday that ds had refused to go to the playground every day so far as he had wanted to get home and play with his new toys. I laughed but said it was a pity he wasn't going as he needed to thank the 3 friends for his presents.
On Friday dh said that ds had refused to go again and that it was a shame because ds's 'old' friend had clearly wanted him to go and had been disappointed that he hadn't. Dh laughed and told me that she had said, "are you going to the park?" and ds had said, "No I'm going to play with my toys, sorry!" in that abrupt way that young dc have sometimes. I said that dh should have told him not to be so rude and to have aplogised to her and dh laughingly agreed - he agreed with me but didn't see it as a big deal. I then told ds - in a gentle, not at all 'cross' way that if he 'dropped' his friends for a week at a time like this they wouldn't always be there when he wanted to play again.
Dh thinks (thought - he's probably forgotten it now!) I was being OTT and that this was too much to be saying to a five year old. I, on the other hand, thimk that dh lets things like this slide and sees the funny side but doesn't take the opportunity to teach ds something about friendship.
AIBU?