Disallowing a friendship between two children

[WalnuttyWhip]

My DD is in Year 6 and has ASD. She has poor social skills and struggles to make and maintain friendships. Last year another child joined DD’s class, this girl was also recently diagnosed with ASD and my understanding is she had friendship and bullying issues at the previous school.

The two girls made friends with each other and over the past year the friendship circle has expanded to include a few others.

At first it was great that DD finally had a ‘best friend’, she was invited to play dates and sleepovers for the first time. But then they started to have disagreements and ‘fallout’.

My understanding from listening to DD (it can be difficult to make sense of what she says due to the way she communicates) is that the fallouts mainly occurred when DD didn’t do what the other girl wanted her too. For example on one occasion (I heard this myself) the girl said to DD ‘we are not friends with X anymore so you can’t play with them’. Except DD didn’t want to not be friends with X. That sort of thing.

At first the fallouts were minor and quickly resolved but then they became more frequent and more unpleasant. On one occasion I know my DD got very frustrated and shouted at the girl in the classroom because she was trying to concentrate on a piece of work and she perceived the other child to be ‘annoying and distracting because they didn’t want to do the work’. I have witnessed the other girl saying some nasty hurtful comments to DD but I’ve also heard DD make nasty comments too.

I have been working hard with DD to teach her what is appropriate and also ways in which she can try to resolve conflict. School have also been trying to improve the social skills of both children.

The final straw was a physical fight between the girls at school. I was called in to speak to the teacher and told it was 50/50 and both girls had hurt each other and they would miss break time the next day. When I got home DD was extremely distressed and upset by the incident. She maintains that she never kicked or shoved the other child but admits she had been verbally rude. DD said the other girl was allowed to give her side of the story and had told the teacher that she was seen shoving DD into a wall because DD had kicked and shoved her first.

But apparently DD was not then allowed to give her side as the teacher was exasperated and said they had heard enough (understandable DD is so slow at trying to say anything). I’m inclined to believe DD never physically hurt the girl because she was so upset at the perceived injustice and she’s a terrible liar. (The other girl is a known fibber/exaggerator)

Anyway it now transpires the parents of the other child have told the school that they do not want DD to be allowed near their DD and they are no longer allowed to be friends.

It’s not the way I would handle the situation. I don’t think it’s fair that school staff are expected to keep them apart and I feel we would be better to try and teach them to resolve their differences. But now that they have decided to take this course of action WIBU to ensure they don’t go back on their decision? The last thing I want is for things to blow over and everyone to decide to be friends again. The whole ‘you’re my best friend/I’m not friends with you anymore’ cycle has been really upsetting and frustrating for DD.

We've a not dissimilar situation in school with DS. There are a number of children with conflicting SEN needs

Reading your post I see a couple of points - the first is the controlling nature of another child telling the children who they can and can't be friends with.

Then I note the parents are telling the daughter who she can and can't be friends with, which isn't great. It needs pointing out to school. What effectively they are doing is proving a model of control over who can be friends with who, which arguably she's mimicking.

This is also not in the best interests of your child - the school can't take sides, they need to act in a balanced and proportionate way. This will distress your child to be treated in this way.

Then there is the practical realities of staff preventing children from being friends. This isn't realistic. The school can't stop them being friends in all situations. It's arguably not in the interests of either child. They have to be in the same classroom all day and will have a certain amount of interaction. They have to learn to interact in a better way with each other. They can't just be banned - this doesn't improve social skills.

The school only have a duty of care to prevent a child from being hurt physically. So if they are fighting regularly, then putting the children into separate zones at playtimes would be typical. But this isn't likely unless you have had a few incidents or a very major one (this sounds like a single incident of medium severity). And even if this happens they STILL have to work on their social skills with each other because they are in the same class and inevitably will have to work together at times.

What is being proposed isn't healthy and isn't going to solve the problems. It's just going to reinforce the idea that you can punish / control other kids by banning friendships. It's more likely to fuel the issue and make the cycle continue.

Thanks @RedToothBrush you raise some good points. I’d not really thought about the way in which the child is mirroring her parents regarding controlling friendships.

I agree though I think we should continue to work on social skills with the girls.

I’m worried about how it’s going to impact friendships in the wider circle too.