To want to spy on my DD in the school playground to see if anyone is playing with her?

[morningpaper]

5 year old DD has been depressed about school for a couple of weeks - says no one plays with her at lunchtime.

I THINK what's happening is that she has a BIG crush on an older girl and whe the older girl doesn't want to play with her she gets upset and won't play with anyone else.

AIBU to want to sneak into the school and see what is going on? Or is that freakish and controlling?

I don't think I WILL, I would probably get arrested... although I could think of a chore that I needed to do... errrmmmm

I have seen my son play in the playground. I live right next to the school and can see him from the house.

It was only a glimpse and I just saw my son having a lovely time with four other boys. I haven't been arrested by the police for looking out of my own window for 30 seconds.

I suggest that you try and invite some friends over from her class. That would encourage her to play with children who are the same age as her.

I also spun this lie to my own mother, she came and watched me and saw me running round with 10 other kids.

I would suggest that this is a symptom of another problem, maybe your DD is having difficulty in another area or has seperation anxiety from you.

Hmm I'm not sure... The Teacher has said on several occasions that she doesn't mix very well with her classmates and seems find the other children 'childish' and is a bit baffled by them (she is a bit of an old lady TBH). I think she gravitates to the older children and it is not giving her the chance to mix with her own classmates because she is either playing with or pining after these older girls.

We have had a few play-dates with classmates but TBH we have a lot of friends outside the school that she mixes with and it is a pain to fit it all in sometimes! Also one of the older girls comes over quite a bit because she lives next door.

ANYWAY I can't moan

I think a lot of her classmates are pairing-off and she is missing out on that because of her older-girl fawning

But I'm sure it will all work out ok in the end

I was worried as my dd said she didn't play with anyone when she was in reception, when I mentioned it to my mum she said I used to say the same when I was younger so one day she came and watched me in the playground, she stood there for about 5 minutes looking through the wire fence and I was so busy playing with lots of people that I didn't even notice she was there, when she picked me up that day she asked if I had played with anyone at playtime and I said no.

Hi MP - Your girl sounds like my DD2 who is now 10. I've had to talk to her teachers about friendships on a couple of occasions, both times I think it helped. This year (Y5) is going well so far. I wouldn't recommend going to spy on her yourself, I remember asking my DD1 to do it when she was still in primary with her sister. It just broke my heart to feel she was sat lonely. Getting a sympathetic teacher to keep an eye and "facilitate" (hate that word!) friendships helped things along no end.
Hope it all sorts itself for her.

thanks theheadgirl

I have done it when my Ds said no-one played with him during breaks.

He was racing round, in the mix with the other children, when I spied on them.

I think you may be wrong to look. Ask teachers/ learning assistants, do not tourture yourself by trying to get an accurate picture from long distance observation. What will you do if you see something you dont like - there isnt a lot you can do from a distance. I know a lady who practically keeps a vigil by the upstairs window of her house. She can see the playground our children are in at the back of the house. It rarely makes her happy - she actually seem to have such expectations of seeing something bad she does every day. My ds wouldnt take hint some of the bigger boys didnt want to play with him when he started reception -ended up getting very badly kicked in groin! he sadly learnt then - but both me and teacher spoke to him together and basically told him to stay away from them because they were too old to want to play the same games with him.

I hope I havent said the wrong thing but I think you wouldnt be being kind to yourself if you did this- hope she makes some nice playground pals soon.

Being me, I would HAVE to go and look and check it out for myself.

This reminds me of when dd was in kindergarten number 2 and I didn't have such a good feeling about the place (rightly so it turned out). Anyway, early days so I dropped her off in the morning, put on a hat and glasses and stood out behind the kindergarten peering through the bushes at where they were playing outdoors. Honestly I did which would have been FINE except a pile of little kids came racing over shouting "dd there's your mummy", closely followed by the carers wanting to check everything was ok. Slighty embarrassing however I have no qualms about doing it again.

Glad your teacher is being so helpful MP. Have you considered moving her up a year at all? Maybe she'd fit in better with the year above her?