To ask for advice... how to navigate friendship issues

[jennywrites]

Sorry for the cheeky use of AIBU for traffic.

Relevant background info is that I was badly bullied at primary school, and I am quite an anxious person.

I have a 4 year old who has just started reception. She seemed to be settling well, had made friends with two girls in particular , but yesterday came home in tears saying those girls were running away from her and wouldn't let her play.

She says they've been on play dates together and she feels left out and sad.

I know that these things do happen, and it's not a huge issue in the grand scheme of things. I'm just hoping that parents who have been through these things before can help offer me practical ideas for how to help her navigate the situation and not let it knock her confidence.

I've really felt anxious about it and I know this isn't helpful or sensible. They're just 4 year olds and anyway this is likely to happen throughout life.

So what can I say to her to help? Also, is there anything I can do? I'm up for arranging play dates I just felt it was still quite early in the term but is she missing out if I'm not arranging those?

Please be kind, I know it's not a massive deal but I'm not feeling great about it

Try and take away the focus from these 2 girls and encourage her to mix with others. Ask her about other people in her class.

You could chat to the teacher and see if there are others she could play with and create friendships with?

I would probably tell her that the other girls just think it’s a game and don’t realise they’re upsetting her. If she’s assertive enough you could encourage her to tell them that what they are doing is making her sad. Maybe mention it to the teacher so they’re aware. It will likely blow over otherwise encourage her to make friendship ms with a wider group. As a parent it’s so upsetting to hear a child has upset yours but unfortunately this will happen often at primary school but they usually just move on and make friends again quickly at this age.

I bought a book called "How to Be a Friend" which walks through how to handle situations like this which I found useful with my DD. We still return to it at times.

My DD had a lot of trouble understanding you can't force someone to play with you and I had to do a lot of repetition about finding someone else to play with if the person you wanted to play with says no. She was a child who used to go straight to the teacher complaining that X wouldn't play with her, I've talked to her about how she should only do this if they are saying mean things, telling others not to play with her, and so on.

Playdates are a good idea, they did start early for us.

I encouraged my daughter to have lots of different friends, so she goes to Rainbows, has playdates with different kids, I've tried to steer her gently away from the "best friend" concept partly because she doesn't naturally have one, but I also think it can leave kids in a precarious position when it falls apart.

Thank you all so much. I've bought that book, it looks great!

It's reassuring to hear it's normal and I hope I can help her not to worry about it

Would recommend the instagram page 'Nurtured First'. Gives good approaches to these common friendship type situations.

@angrycowl that page is brilliant, thank you so much

I work in Reception and while it's definitely an age where friendships are becoming more apparent, children are very fickle and even those that have fallouts are often best friends a couple of days later.
We have lots of times when our children are grouped, lots of free play and other targeted small groups so there's generally a lot of mixing - even the friendships appearing the closest will still be encouraged to move around and spend time with others.
You could have a word with the teacher and ask for her to be buddied up with someone, we often do that for our quieter, less confident children but would work well for someone who felt they were being left out too.