Looking for some advice on pre teen friendships from those who’ve been through it and to see if IABU or overreacting.
DD is 8 and at a small rural school with tiny class sizes, so there’s just 6 girls in the class. Since they were babies, she’s been best friends with two other girls, and the three of them have always been joined at the hip.
But recently we have started to have tears every morning and night and to hear a lot of, “they’re always leaving me out,” which I didn’t pay much attention to at first, but having seen them out together on a few occasions, she is definitely right. There’s a lot of the other 2 running around holding hands or linking arms whilst DD is left to walk or run behind them; if they have to get into pairs in an activity, they immediately grab each other and then say they’re a team and they’re going to beat DD; she says they “whisper and stare at me in lessons”. We all had a day trip to Cardiff recently and she was so worried about where we were all going to sit in the car, and sure enough the other two wanted to travel together and then laughed because she had to come in my car. It is a bit hard to hear when it makes her upset!
The other mums are two of my closest friends and they’re both very sad about it and have already talked to their daughters about not leaving DD out and being inclusive (but to my mind, once you’ve had to tell someone to include someone else, it’s already a pretty clear sign they don’t really want them there. Not that I’m saying this is permanent of course, I know they’re 8 and things can change on the daily!).
A lot of our social stuff is set up with the 3 of them together as they do classes like ballet and martial arts together. DD is friends with the other girls in her small class and she also has cousins and a big brother she gets on well with.
The AIBU is therefore more for me really as I’ve never done this before! Any tips for how to talk to myself about it as well as DD? How do I cope without saying the wrong thing to DD because if it’s like this at 8, what will 15 be like.
So far I’ve talked to DD about whispering or leaving someone out often being a sign that someone isn’t happy themselves and that it’s not really about her, suggested that she plays with her other friends instead, pointed out to her when she does things herself that aren’t always nice, and told her that she should always try and be kind to everyone and tell me or the teacher if someone is being really mean. But she’s still upset.
Should I just ignore it because they’re 8 and even if it’s been a couple of months, it will shake down? Or stop the play dates and classes for a bit and encourage her to spend that out of school time with the other girls instead? Should I arrange play dates with other children? Is there anything else I can say to DD?
Any wisdom or ideas very gratefully received!