DC (6) friend keep joining the clubs I send my DC to for some independence!

[Throwaway9876]

My DC (6) is fairly typical, but a new child joined their class this year and they quickly became firm friends. It’s a nice little friendship and I do like the child a lot. However, my DC entirely dropped all of their existing friends and these two now have a very close relationship as a pair, but with no other friends at all in their class.

There’s little more I can do about this in school, the teachers already don’t allow them to pair up for behaviour reasons (they’d just chat rather than work, so not terrible behaviour).

Although the other child is nice enough, I’m concerned at the lack of social interaction with other kids and that my DC is now dependent on this one friend.

I’ve therefore sent them to a lot of extra-curricular clubs so that they have socialisation outside of this relationship, but the friend keeps joining these too! I assume my DC is telling them enough information and even asking them to join.

I know I don’t have the right to dictate who can do what, but I’m so cross that my efforts to have my DC do something independently keep being thwarted! I’m now looking to move time/location in two of these clubs and I’d be furious if the friend followed.

YANBU: Put my big girl pants on and speak with the other Mum to explain I WANT the children to do some things separately.

YABU: It’s a free world!

There definitely has been some “you can’t play with them, just me”, although I’m not 100% certain it’s one sided! Both kids seem over reliant on the other!

I haven’t heard it recently, but then I also haven’t seen my child attempt to play in a group or with another kid in the presence of BF - they ALWAYS just play as a two.

Not really worth all the effort amd stress to diversify friendships. They will do what they want but, what I have found useful over the years is to speak to school to request different class when they move up (if that's a possibility, our primary had 2 classes in each year group)
Keep up with the extra activities as the friend may well drop a couple or as friendships shift and change there are other children on hand.
Keep inviting a good handful of mates/class mates to parties and so on.
Otherwise let them enjoy it! As others have said most friendships change loads over the school years.

I also wonder if asking for a class move in year 3 would be a good idea? We have infant and junior schools here so at the end of year 2, all the children are rearranged as they move to a new school and it works well as a way of dealing with friendships that aren't working.

Unfortunately just one class per year in the school, so that’s not an option. I’m not keen on moving schools as I liked this one for a reason and we moved to be close to it (it’s not special academically, or a particularly desirable school for most).

I’m not trying to diversify friendships as such, just give my child a chance to try interacting “normally” with others. (The two children act like they’re 3 or 4 rather than nearly 7 when they’re together. My child acts young, but I wouldn’t say abnormally so, when away from BF. They need to be around others to pick up different skills or they’ll end up acting like a preschool child indefinitely.)

I’ll definitely need to drop a few of the activities soon, but I probably need to hold out longer in the hope it’s also not sustainable for them too!

What are the activities OP?

One is swimming, how much messing about is there? Has the teacher commented? You could tell OM that you've decided to move DC and teacher had commented on them struggling to concentrate together and you're quite happy to move to another session. Obv don't lie.

If it's stuff like Beavers, talk to the leaders. We'd happily split kids up if there was a reason to.

My daughter had a very close friendship with one girl throughout primary. It became quite obsessive but I didn’t try and do anything about it. Interestingly both my DD and her friend were later diagnosed autistic fairly late on (y6 and y8) which did explain that o sessile friendship. I always worried that if the friend was absent my DD wouldn’t have anyone else to play with but it was never an issue. My DD did have different interests outside of school though and we did sometimes meet up as I’m friendly with the mum too. They went up to high school in the same form group but the other friend has become a school register due to anxiety issues and my DD has managed fine to make her own friends since being at high school. It’s been lovely. I don’t think their exclusive friendship caused any harm in primary. But I do get it’s annoying. We have another child who seems obsessed with mine who always want to hang out with mine and joins the school clubs she joins but my dd has managed to keep her more
at arms length as my dd doesn’t feel the same way.

I wonder if them not being allowed to sit together and work together at school is exacerbating the situation. They’d have break and lunch to hand out but that’s not much time in the grand scheme of a s hook day.

In swimming, they’re literally chatting/splashing each other the entire time they’re at the end of the pool being given instructions then neither knows what to do. It’s frustrating the teacher just doesn’t seem inclined to do anything about it. The one time they did step in was when the kids were dunking each other.

Other things are karate, football, acting and dancing. Similarly, I these places aren’t interested in doing anything to split them up as it’s easier to leave them to it - so they’re not participating at all and just chatting and giggling to each other.

We’re on the wait list for scouts and in desperate to get a space - with the waiting list it’s unlikely BF could follow anytime soon!

If they sat together in school, they’d learn absolutely nothing and become a bubble that would just ignore what they should be doing and even when put back on track by teachers they’d be off track again almost immediately.

If it was “new chat” keeping them together and having them get it out of their systems might help. It’s not, and a lot of the times they just talk silly at each other (as mentioned above, both kids act 3/4 rather than 6) and they’ve never stopped being interested in doing this even after full days together.

Unfortunately there’s nothing you can really do. I have a teen with a specific interest. There is another child who has the same interests. This other child finds out anything my child does and copies them. Haven’t had a single activity without him in years! Mine started a new group just before lockdown, when it all went online he stalked my kid’s profile to find out what they were doing and joined too. Now in a situation where they do something together 7 days a week - drives us both insane!
My kid is now basically planning to not tell anyone the truth about where he applies to for college, just in an attempt to not be followed again, as he was for secondary.

But no, I’ve never spoken to the mum. It is what it is.

Don't say anything!
We had exactly the same situation. In the end, from a selfish perspective, I was quite pleased as the mum was very helpful when it came to sharing lifts to these activities. It made my life easier!
It will pass. My DD is still good friends with this girl but now they're at different secondary schools and have both made lots of new friends.
I think you can gently encourage other friendships, offer to host play dates etc. Beyond that there's not much you can do. Let your daughter manage her own friendships.

I get how that would feel irritating, especially when you’ve gone to effort to do something to help your child socialise more widely, but they’re really little … it probably won’t take long before they naturally grow apart or start to develop separate interests and connect with different children. For now they’ve each got someone they have great fun with, and trust and depend on. Plus with the teachers providing opportunities to work with different children, other friendships will develop over time.

I know this is only one example but I had a best friend at the same age, and even teachers described us as joined at the hip. A few years later she started to feel a bit stifled by my dependence on her, and began making other friendships. I remember feeling a bit hurt, but by the time we were in secondary school we both had wide social circles and regularly reconnected with each other to catch up. Even 25 years later we sometimes bump into each other when visiting family at home and reminisce about the fun we had when we were really little and did everything together!

My opinion would be to leave them be (and give yourself a break from activity-hunting!).

It sounds as if you can move time/group for some of the clubs, which means it doesn't have to be a case of asking the mum not to do those activities, just not to swap to follow your child. You could explain it as being for both children's benefit - what if either your family or theirs relocate - they both need to have some other friendships.

Two kids I know were very close friends, and when one moved, they both found it extremely difficult. The one left behind was trying to break into other friendship groups she just hadn't needed to interact wth before, and actually ended up applying for a different secondary to the rest of her class because she hadn't really succeeded (although things did ease after the applications went in). The one who moved might well have struggled anyway, but I think having one intense friendship was harder to replace at her new school.

This was me and my best pal all through school. Did all the same extra curricular activities and I’ve learned as an adult that both sets of parents worried constantly that we chose each other at the expense of others. Still best friends in our thirties, and both now have other, separate, friends 😆 let them work it out themselves.

Children need to figure out friendships on their own to some extent. You can do your best to protect them from bullies but outside of that, you can’t control everything, over time your child may well get some new friends. I highly recommend you read “the gift of failure”, it’s a very interesting read about how we have to step back and let our children learn some lessons independently.

I had a similar thing, to the extent the mother would get my child to join clubs because hers wouldn't do it alone. Enjoy the friendship but keep encouraging other relationships too.

What are you doing for childcare during the summer holidays? Just wondering if you are able to sign DS up for one week at a holiday camp, and not tell DS until the night before and not mention it to the mum at all.
Do you have family with similar age children? Maybe try and encourage these kids to play together and use it as an opportunity to help develop social skills. Or neighbours’ children who may not go to the same school?
Cubs would be a great opportunity as the waiting list is usually so long, so great that DS is on the waiting list! With the clubs he already does, would it be possible for you to offer to lift share with another parent, or offer your services to take another child to the club every week, so that they can socialise in the car?

I get what you’re worrying about, OP. One of my DC has a similarly intense friendship but the two of them do different clubs and don’t follow each other around outside school. I think this is a good balance.

In your position, I wouldn’t tell your DC about the clubs in advance at all. When I did tell them, I’d be vague or add in confusing or wrong detail, so that if it is passed on to the other child, it will be harder to find the precise club.

Bloody hell OP

You are really really going to struggle with the years of parenting ahead of you

I'd enrol your DC in a summer sports group for a week, probably a team sport like cricket. I'd not tell them so they couldn't tell their friend. I'd offer to take DC and a different friend out for a treat day like a petting zoo.

Well if they're clearly not learning to swim, do karate etc as they're pissing about I'd have no qualms in saying to the other parents, sorry but I'm moving X's class to another day. There's no point them doing this stuff together as it's a waste of time and money when they won't learn.

Focus on the learning not the socialising and the other parent can't really argue. Then follow through and move them.

I think this is a good way of dealing with it as it's non accusatory and honest.