How do you deal with your childrens "bad" friends?

[chicagomum]

DD is 4 and now attends pre-school nursery every afternoon. She has recently become "bestfriends" with another girl who to be perfectly honest I would rather she didn't play with. This other child's behaviour is disruptive, most days she has to go and sit on the naughty chair. She has bitten dd twice, yesterday she pushed another child over and tore a brand new book. DD plays with her almost exclusively and she is starting to say and do things. WHen I question her about where she learnt those words etc she replies "from * (girl's name)".

I don't want to over react about this, but as a general rule dd is pretty well behaved and I don't want this to be spoilt by bad influences.

How would you deal with this situation?

She needs to learn about friendships, good and bad, for herself. There is no point in you telling her not to play with this particular child. However, you could talk to her about how the friendship makes her feel, and what behaviour you would consider appropriate in a friend, and generally encourage her to stand up for herself. Definitely encourage your daughter to have a sense of her own self-worth independent of friendships. As for the bad words and other bad behaviour, just maintain your own standards and emphasise that "my friend did it" or "my friend made me do it" are not valid excuses. I hope that helps!

Have a word with nursery staff and tell them your concerns and ask them if they could incourage her to be friends with other children. Snack times sit her with someone else or painting time e.c.t

Without wanting to sound too controversial, I do defensive social engineering on behalf of my kids, and I'm aware that other people do too. My dd had a 'best friend' who bullied her and I deliberately and energetically invited other girls round until dd had a wide circle of 'best friends'. Needless to say the bully moved on to other victims. OTOH my ds is being vigorously courted by the mother of a boy who tends to choose disruptive boys as his friends. If you don't take action, your dd risks getting into trouble herself. I particularly didn't want my dd to be a bully's sidekick, going along with tormenting other girls. Good luck!

Chicagomum, consider the possibility that your daughter might become a good influence on her best friend; it's not always the case that the naughty child makes the "good" friend misbehave. I was really proud when I was told by a nursery teacher that my son was a good influence on his best friend who was the nursery naughty child. I take it your daughter's best friend is also 4. Her behaviour doesn't sound all that unusual for a child of that age, though I can see why you find it upsetting. Some children do take more time than others to settle, and lash out while they are doing so. It doesn't mean they're always going to be badly behaved.

That said, there's nothing wrong with encouraging your daughter to widen her circle of friends, or quietly allowing her to drop her best friend if she wishes to.