Is it normal for some 5 year olds to want to have a best friend all to themselves?

[skewiff]

My DS is very posessive over friends. He wants to play with them all by himself and if they play with other people would rather play on his own. However he holds the resentment inside of him and then lashes out later. Today he broke his best friend's glasses on purpose.

DS says that he was feeling sad and lonely because he was on his own for the whole of lunchtime. His best friend was playing with another group of friends (also DS had v v little sleep last night - but that's another story).

I have said that DS feeling sad and lonely was not best friend's fault. DS can sort this out by being brave and playing with other children/ and or playing with his best friend in a group. School have dealt with it in their way. But I can see that this is a recurring issue and its all based around DS wanting his best friend of the moment to play solely with him.

I have encouraged him to go and play with friend X, Y and Z and he either says that they 'might say no' or that he doesn't want to.

I am hoping DS will grow out of the one on one posessive stage - but don't want to be deluding myself.

Thank you.

My 4 year old is becoming more like this. I think it's a slight over categorisation in his part, if that's the right way to put it. He seems to classify people as 'his friend' but then if they play with someone else they are their friend and not his friend, which upsets him. I just see it as a phase / lack of understanding about how the world works!! And I keep telling him everyone is friends together. I don't like seeing him upset so am just hoping he 'gets' this concept soon!

My DD is like this too. DH was apparently like this at school when he was little. I don't have any advice but hey, that's two of us posted already so it can't be that unusual :)

The school need to help him. They were amazing with my DD when she was having similar....they organised circle games which all the kids took part in...and made my DD be gamesmaster so she decided who played which part....they let other kids be gamesmaster too and it REALLY helped her.

The kids then all wanted to play these games again and organised them alone.

My DS1 was exactly like this. He used to say that he just wanted ONE best friend and he didn't like other people playing. He also used to almost 'lose his mind' at lunchtime because the other children made lots of noise with their cutlery he was shy beyond words as well. When he was asked, in year 1, what did he want to be when he was a big boy he said 'I want to be a husband and a Daddy!!' His teacher laughed at him - he asked her why she was laughing and said that he thought it was the best job in the world.

Well my quirky, slightly odd 30 year old DS1 got married in August to his girlfriend of 12 years and their 4 year old son was 'star of the show.' At their wedding they had about 120 guests and at least 100 were friends.

That from the child who said he only wanted one best friend!!

Thank you everybody x