To ask how a child is supposed to make different friends if the whole class is in tight groups/pairs?

[ToffeeCrabApple]

Dd is 7/y2. She had various friends in rec/y1, including one sort of on/off "best friend" - they waxed and waned in what seemed to be a healthy way and also often played with various other girls, but did always seem to gravitate back to each other. DD seems to me to be a completely normal kid gets on great with her brother and cousins and makes friends easily outside school eg on holiday club.

In y2 suddenly it seems like the whole class is in one tight exclusive pair or group or other. The "best friend" swiftly dropped DD for a new girl. I advised DD to not go chasing after them, especially if they were not kind to her "you can't play" and the like. Encouraged her to play with others, had a few play dates to help her broaden out etc.

It hasn't worked. Seemingly all the girls are in very tight 2s/3s, DD is a perpetual unwelcome third wheel asking to play. No ones invited her for play dates back. I keep calmly cheerfully saying "don't worry just find someone else to play", but everyone keeps saying you can't make kids include others etc, what the fuck do you do if no one lets you play? Her big brother has said she's ending up on her own a lot and joining him (he's kind and is fine with this). He also told me quietly he's seen former "best friend" running away from her when she asks to join in.

She was completely fine till now. Confident, sociable. Why are little girls so mean to each other?

I just don't know what to do. Asked teacher, who shuffled tables around at one point but can't do much else. Poor DD is just getting sad and her confidence is drifting away.

Hi OP

I agree about speaking to the teacher again. In your shoes I’d actually email the school as I don’t think it is right your daughter is being excluded. Teachers can definitely teach the whole class about these things.

Im an experienced teacher and I could not believe how nasty some of the y1 girls were when my child started school. The teacher had to speak to the whole class many times about kindness. We’ve moved school since and found it not as much of an issue in new school.

I don’t really think play dates are that helpful. I think children find their own friends. If the teacher supports your daughter to join in a group of less hostile peers she may bond with some of them but I think she needs some support.

It is very sad to see this happening to your child.

Both my kids and I have been kids that didn’t fit in/ have the best friend in a class where everyone seemed to be in pairs/
closed groups at primary. I found my tribe in secondary school as did dd after a bit. Hoping DS will be the same.

I would keep speaking to the school, keeping in touch re what they are doing to help.

I do think schools should be funded to have staff running option games during lunchtime for those kids who are alone. Or have yr 6 kids organise them. It sucks for kids to be alone.

This was my DD in year 1 and now I’d honestly say she’s the most popular girl in the class. She now has a tight group of 3 besties at school but is frequently invited on days out/sleep overs with several other groups of girls too. The two girls who ran away from her the most in year 1 have developed into quite braggy/bratty kids who now don’t have any mate’s themselves (though DD doesn’t hold a grudge and will let them join the odd thing if they ask).

Wish I’d known it wouldn’t last forever at the time but now I see how kind, resilient and considerate of others she is. Unless you can see yourself in DDs behaviour why she’s unpopular I’d just keep the faith, do fun stuff out of school, persevere with the play dates and try not to worry. I do know how painful it is though.

It gives opportunities outside of the school environment for friendships to develop.

It sucks being left out. I left secondary school with no friends, didn't make any in college either, I never found my 'tribe'.

We've had similar issues with my DD last year, but things have improved a lot since then. It took me a while of gentle questioning when the circumstances were right to really understand what was going on. I spoke with the teacher and they were really helpful - she started getting to go to a lunchtime "games club" once a week where she could decide which friend to take with her. They also have a friendship bench and playground buddies but they didn't really help much for my DD. I also made sure I understood as well as I could what she was worrying about in relation to social interactions and we'd role play some scenarios occasionally so she felt confident she would know what to say/ do in certain situations. E.g. asking to play and then how to respond if someone was mean. Then she would sometimes take a small toy or a book in for playtime incase she was on her own. It took a while but she's now got a new group of friends... fingers crossed.

I'd personally just encourage her to play with her brother and his friends

If she looks likes she enjoying herself in a big group, she'll soon be fighting off the girls

This happened to my son in year 2. One of the boys was encouraging others to run away from him and he had quite a few miserable months. It really knocked his confidence. He is also youngest in the class. School initially didn’t take it seriously and I had to go back to the teacher and spell it out. She spoke to my son and with permission spoke to the class about being kind and not excluding others. This still didn’t work and she actually spoke to the boy and his parents. It seems to get a little better and then summer holidays came and in September of yr 3 another boy joined and it changed the dynamic and it’s all blown over now thankfully. But it’s awful when it does happen but remember it won’t be for ever. Found Beavers (with children from different schools) was great for him, particularly during this time.

Hi,

My dd has issues with friend groups around this age. She was really sociable and made friends easily but struggled with groups. Her class has a few "Big personalities" of which she was one. We also had a couple of social engineer parents which didn't help. Sometimes the mix of kids just doesn't work and it's the luck of the draw. Came across a heartbreaking letter to Santa asking for him to help her fit in. It was a small school and a small pool of people to be pals with.

We encouraged her to make friends out side of school. She joined every club we could get her in - swimming, gymnastics, brownies, drama, netball, dance - all had a different mix of kids (some overlap) and she made close friends in each group. Anytime she struggled at school we were able to point out to her all the friends she had everywhere and not once has a teacher or leader ever said her behaviour was an issue so the problem was not with her.

I just wanted to say that she has recently left school and she is still friends with some of the girls she met at those classes. She has a "portfolio"of friendships that span several different schools. If there was drama in one area her world did not end and she knew she had friends she could rely on elsewhere.

I know everyone says talk to the teacher but there is only so much they can do. Unfortunately in life not everyone is going to click. It's a hard life lesson. With hindsight I wish I had moved her to a larger primary school but she was like your daughter and didn't want to move.

Keep reminding her of her qualities and to be true to herself and it'll work out eventually. She'll be able to value true friendship over popularity contests.

My parents were similar and I've never had friendship issues. Wasn't " left out" at school. Have had some friends for nearly 50 years . And a good local friendship group.

In fact it was rare to have" play date". Even when my own kids were young they didn't do play dates but still ended up with friends coming to us and them going to friends once they were old enough to sort themselves

NO. Then it’s going to be, “ha, ha, you sat on the kindness bench because no one wants to play with you!” No one will want to be the “bench monitor child” and will resent being made to play with someone they don’t want to play with. At least some of the kids will figure out that they’re no longer allowed to choose partners because no one chooses OP’s daughter, and then they’ll blame her for that privilege being taken away.

It is a terrible, horrible idea to attempt to help a child make friends through any method that draws attention to the fact that she doesn’t have friends. Also, it’ll make her insecure and suspicious of friendly behavior - does this classmate really want to play, or is s/he doing it because a teacher said it wasn’t nice to leave someone out?

I don't agree with this. When I was in primary in Y5/6 I used to love playing with the little ones. If I had seen someone sitting on the bench I definitely would have played. Clearly not all but a lot of kids would.

A new bench combined with an assembly /class talk about kindness should encourage people.

I hate to say it but I sort of agree with this. I’ve seen the kindness bench mentioned on here before and I really don’t think it would have worked in my inner city primary school. I think it would have been used to make fun of people.

I’ve seen the kindness bench mentioned on here before and I really don’t think it would have worked in my inner city primary school. I think it would have been used to make fun of people.

Gosh how nasty. My kids would lose every privilege going if they ever behaved like that and they know it!

Its also very easy for the teacher to mix in some instances where the teacher chooses the partners/groups. At age 7 this should be the norm anyway, its not good educationally for children to choose & work with the same partner repeatedly.

Ive tried the waiting list for beavers but this is even longer than the brownies one!

We have the same, and it’s really tricky :(