Age 9 daughter left out always

[Anotherbiscuit]

9yr old has about 5 other girls in the class of whom appear to be in a clique.

Main mum organises lots of activities and mine is never invited. I have made an effort with some of them / invited in past but get blown off.

daughter is constantly asking to see them outside of school but she is never invited to any of their play dates or trips. She thinks they are her friends as they play a lot at school however nothing happens outside.

also difficult because they go to some of the same after school activities and others all get lefts together where as we don’t.

I have explained to her that we cannot control what other people do and maybe they are not such good friends but she’s gone to bed crying.

one cannot force others to be friends with your child I get that but it seems really unkind to never invite. I have invited other children in my other child’s year to things to avoid similar happening.

what is the best course of action? I was going to message main mum about it but then decided not to as she obviously doesn’t want anything to do with us !

So make sure you're always busy at weekend doing amazingly fun stuff

Oh yeah we put up a tent in the garden and played at camping and had hotdogs outside, it was epic!!!

We took the train and went to this awesome library, it was amazing!!!

Etc etc.Its how you present your life. You're not missing out.

The mother is not including you for whatever reason- fuck her and have your own fun.

definitely this, start encouraging her to be friends with others outside the popular group

I would identify the main mum and rule that dc out but focus on one or two of the other dc in the group and invite them over for pizza and film or something. Some mums are odd and don’t realise their dc can be friends with dc without you being friends with the adult.

dd2 has a group of 5 friends and they all include dd except one. Dd joined the group in year 9 and the others have been friends since primary. She’s the self proclaimed “posh one with a big house and mum has an important job”… except dh works for the same employer and is senior and we have a similar size house (standard 4 bed newbuild style not a mansion). None of the other friends care about that stuff and hang out at each others all the time. Dd can’t get her head round why the one friend won’t invite her when they’re a tight group the rest of the time.

so, in short, people are weird. Dd has learned that friends are great but family is here for always. It’s a tough lesson.

It sounds really difficult but my advice would be to make sure she has a range of friendship opportunities so it doesn't become a reliance on school friends. This is a really great age for that. Can you find an activity she would like to do and that you can facilitate that has basically nothing to do with school or school friends? It doesn't have to be anything major with a big commitment. Even doing something like climbing once or twice a month if it's affordable can be a great springboard. Swimming club, library coding clubs etc.

Also encourage her to be comfortable spending time on her own and with other children in her class.

Yes she does do clubs and has met other friends but it’s not as easy to meet up as with those locally.

i agree she is probably trying to fit in with popular group but these are the girls who she was put with in reception and I think they do actually get on. Just the mums have formed a close group.

Even though she knows they go to each others houses most weeks she’s still desperate to be included which is very upsetting.

If the mums are friends they’re just meeting with with their own friends and it’s convenient to that the girls are friends too. If it were a group of boys it would be called a friendship group, not a clique.

They're almost at an age where they sort out their own social life, by year 6 they’ll be less socialising through their mums.

How much inviting do you do? Do you invite any of these girls to yours or days out?

I don't think there is much you can do to be honest. They are happy as a group and I don't think you can infiltrate that outside school time. I think it's fine to say that to DD that those friends are busy and that she needs to consider asking a different girl to play on a weekday.

It is happening to my DD too. Eldest has close group of friends, 4 of them, some parents are very close friends themselves but they also enable play dates with other girls even if they are not so close with the parents.
Youngest is in a class where I find it very hard to organise play dates as parents are not interested for their daughters to socialise with any girl whose parents they don’t go out with. I invited everybody for her birthday she only got invited back from 2 girls. One of the girls even brought to school a goodie bag for her saying she really would have loved for her to be there but her mum did not allow her to invite her. Boys have had bday parties with some girls but did not invite her. I text parents for play dates and takes week for them to respond, manage to organise 2 at ours, never got invited back. She feels really sorry as she says at school they all play with her. We are a normal family with normal jobs, decent house etc so there is nothing wrong with us.
mums also deliberately avoid me at school gates or even don’t say hello if we bump into each other outside school, they pretend not to see me.
it just really shocks me how people can be so closed minded that they want their kids only to see the kids of their own friends and are not even able to say hello and goodbye when bumping into each other which for me is a basic etiquette rule I was taught as a kid