DS in YrR - is it too soon to be worried about him having no 'best friends' (sorry - long OP!)

[MarthasHarbour]

Sorry if this is long - need to vent as have been stewing over this for almost a week!

DS went to a private nursery from 8mo and has always had friends and has been sociable. He started YrR in September, he only vaguely knew Boy A as i know Boy A's DM quite well (Boy A didnt go to his nursery). He knows Boy B really well as they went to nursery together but werent 'really good' friends although they do get on well.

He didnt know anyone else in the school as the nursery was in a different town so they all dispersed to different schools.

I thought he was settling into school really well despite only knowing two boys, his teacher said that he can be a bit quiet and doesnt really instigate conversations but is happy to join in when in group activities.

Some of the other parents have started having the DC's round for tea, i didnt get involved in this at first as i wanted to see who his friends were and i didnt want to just invite anyone over. He has been invited to about four birthday parties since Sept but no 'playdates' until last week.

On Monday he went round to a friend's house, the first invite we have had but it was a disaster. The mum obvs hadnt told her DS (lets call him Boy C) that my DS was coming. I also hadnt realised that Boy A was also already there. Boy A and Boy C basically took the piss out of my DS. Not bullying as such but they clearly didnt want him there, lots of 'what are you doing here - we didnt ask you to come and play - get off my toys, you cant play with them etc etc. Anyway it calmed down after a while and my DS didnt even seem to notice the pisstaking but the other DM was like this the whole time.

So i have learned that DS isnt actually best mates with Boy A and Boy C - i can live with that and wont encourage the friendship. I can then leave Boy A and Boy C to it.

This left me thinking about who DS is actually friends with... i thought he had bonded with Boy A but TBH regardless of their age (4) i wont have DS spoken to the way Boy A did. He still classes Boy A and C as his friends as he doesnt have the self awareness to realise what they were doing

I then thought about Boy B (the nursery friend) - his DM is in a tight knit group of friends and i dont want to just barge in and demand that we 'join' IYSWIM. Although i think with a bit of chat i can arrange to meet up with them sometime out of school and see where that goes.

However, i am now worried about DS. A couple of weeks ago he mentioned that nobody would play with him in breaktime - at the time i didnt let it get to me as (a) i used to say that to my mum so know what DCs can be like and (b) it may or may not have been true or maybe just for 2 mins or something! I said to him that he needs to just join in with the other children as i am sure not all of them didnt want to play...

Now i am left in a dilemma - do i start being pushy mum and micro manage his life by trying to arrange meet ups with DM's or leave him to find his way.

Both DH and I hated school and felt like 'outsiders'. We thought DS had more confidence than that but after this we are not so sure. DH thinks i should steam in and get people round for tea, but as i say i now dont really know who his friends are - i thought Boys A and C were his friends but they were basically vile to him

So i am really looking for a bit of perspective here. The answer i want is 'dont worry it is too soon and he will find his way'. But DH worries that if we leave it too late then cliques will have formed and we will be too late. DH and I are clearly trying not to project our own crappy schooldays onto DS!

Yep that was an epic - and yep his is our PFB! I fear the minefield is just beginning!

Perspective please oh and hand holding or slapping with wet fish

TIA

Hi Martha, I would contact his teacher for a chat, she should have an inclination who he is likely to become friends with, then invite them for play date. Good luck x

I really wouldn't worry too much at this stage. My dd is in junior infants (e.g. Reception), had four children from school to her party today. But she has not been to any parties or play dates so far, even though she is getting on fine with her peers. He is only 4! Their idea of friendship at this age isn't very developed. I can see why you were upset about the play date if the two boys went out of their way to exclude your ds, but introducing a third child into an established friendship is asking for trouble. It's all very fluid, dd was 'best friends' with a boy in the first few weeks, fell out with him, is friends again now. It's a bit like the first term at uni, you make a lot of bad choices. He will be fine!

Thank you honeymoonmummy my friend suggested that but i was worried i would come across as 'that parent'. However he has been in class for 5 months now so prob not that unreasonable a request!

Reception is still really young to be making best friends, ime it's very fluid at this age.

DS1 didn't have a 'best friend' in reception, he had a few friends that he seemed to play with but didn't have a single playdate.

In Y1 he made a best friend but they were very 'love and hate', had a couple of playdates which didn't go that brilliantly. Sometimes said he hadn't made any friends.

In Y2 it seems to have come together, he now plays with a small group of boys including one of his former friends from reception and his best friend from Y1, they all get on well and he sometimes does playdates though now I'm back at work we don't have time very often!

Anyway... in a nutshell try not to worry too much, speak to the teacher if you have any specific concerns but otherwise give it time :)

And thank you too rhetorican you have more or less said what my head is thinking

I think if i had realised that the other boy was going to be there i might have thought twice as they have really bonded - but then again DS has always got on really well with the two boys individually (although this is classic dynamics!).

I will try and chill about it - DH isnt helping but i know that is just him not wanting DS to have the same experiences as him.

Thanks Meg i guess i wanted to hear from someone like you who has been through the school system for a couple of years - your post has made me a little calmer about the situation.

Going to show DH all your responses

Martha, rather than approach the teacher, maybe mention it at next parents evening, is one coming up soon?

I have a YrR boy, who is good friends with two others in his class. And I won't do pay dates with all 3, because one inevitably gets a bit left out. And usually it's mine as the others are very close. When it's just two of them, they're great.

So maybe keep trying with those two, but don't do play dates with all three at once.

Its in March Honeymoon DH and i talked about doing that but wondered if we should speak to the teacher sooner. Judging by the other responses i might leave it until then.

I'd just approach the teacher - not pushy at all. Explain you're concerned and see what she says. No biggie. It's difficult to really understand what's going on at school sometimes. My dd sometimes says no one will play with her as a mechanism to get our attention on her but I didn't know that until I'd asked the teacher about it and was told she is extremely popular at school and observed her at an event at the school when she was constantly surrounded by other kids.

Good point nomoremuddytrousers i will stick to smaller playdates if offered

phoolani my DM said i did exactly that to her when i was little - got her in a right flap about it but when she spoke to my teacher he looked at her like this - apparently i had loads of friends!

Which is why i didnt take on too much when he told me last week about nobody playing with him - it just clicked a bit more at the playdate.

I feel I need to answer this!!!!
My ds (Y2 now) is the quiet type, I am not very socially confident (DH is no social butterfly either), you can imagine how worried I was about the social side of things.

I made a huge effort and invited children to playdates every couple of weeks (only one pay date a week), always only one child at a time. Even if he wasn't invited back, I persisted because I think that social skills like everything else needs to be practiced to improve.

Ds is doing well, he is not the super popular type (which I actually prefer), but he is confident happy, plays with kids.

I would def. talk to the teacher and ask her to keep an eye on him and support him.

My ds1 is in reception too, we've done quite a few play dates but I don't think he has a 'best friend' yet, they seem to change friends quite a lot. I definitely agree with other posters that having 3 for a play date doesn't really work. I would try inviting say boy A back to yours for a play date and see how that goes and agree with asking the teacher who else he plays with.

I think at 4 that (particularly ime boys) they don't really have that good an idea of what friendship really involves and the 'you can't play with that toy' is usually just an extension of toddler/pre schooler difficulty with sharing and not 'bullying' or anything as such.

I would just encourage play dates and accept all party invites and just give him an opportunity to meet/play with the other dc out of school and I'm sure it will be fine.

I also had v difficult school days from a social point of view and was the odd geeky one who didn't really have any friends and I def don't want that for ds so I just encourage any signs of friendship.

We've had no play dates with school kids yet (reception) I don't think dd (or I) are ready for it. My other two dcs were year one or year two when they did. I don't see the hurry.

I don't think you should micro manage but there is no harm in creating some opportunities for him to make friends by inviting a variety of people back.

I would say that very few year R make long standing best friends. They may talk about a best friend, but for a lot "best friend" depends on the day, what they've done and how they're feeling.
Dd2 was capable of saying things like "A was my best friend this morning, B at lunch time and C is now" with no sense of it being a problem.

I would say end of year 1 is when you really begin to see the friendships becoming more of a every day thing-but more in girls than boys. Ds is year 2 and there are boys he plays with more than others-but that's because they have the same interests so do things together. If another boy wanted to do what he was doing he wouldn't be at all bothered. And for him it's a group, not one particular one.
And from my observation (ds is my #3) that's typical. The boys don't seem to go for best friends like the girls do as a general rule.

Also from experience, as others have said, 3 is a bad number for playing together. Particularly if one comes later. You may well have found that is boy B had been the third to arrive that your ds and boy A would have been equally unwelcoming to him.

And again, "no one will play with me" is a frequent cry from children. Often it means that for 2-3 minutes of playtime they were on their own. You have to talk to the teacher to find out if it's really happening. Even coming and giving a quick glance doesn't give you the true picture. I remember worrying once having watched dd1 wandering round apparently on her own for about 10 minutes. Asked her later who she was playing with and she said:" We were playing this really funny game where one of us had to walk round on their own with a stone in their pocket, and the others had to get it out"... so the "nasty children" who were apparently bumping into my poor lonely dd were actually playing a game that they all thought was great, and dd, at the point I saw her, had the prime position of Bearer of the Stone!

Many thanks everyone.

I think i have been misleading in my OP and thread title. I am less worried about him having a 'best friend' as i remember that can be fluid when i was young. I think i just want to be reassured that he has 'any friends'.

It has occurred to me that DS is really sociable and friendly with everyone, and classes everyone as his friend. What is now worrying me is that these 'friends' dont feel the same and exclude him. This is just going on what i saw last week.

I think i will have a chat with the TA as she is-more approachable seems to see a lot of the dynamics that go on.

Lots of good advice here though - DH also passes on his thanks!!

Fwiw, the schools local to us actively discourage the children from having best friends until quite late in primary, ie they split up groups in the class room etc. I always feel soothed that this is the new normal!

dd is in yr. She tells me sometimes no one will play with her but tbh I think what she actually means is 'the others didn't want to do what I wanted to do'. I'm intending to try and arrange a couple of play dates over half term.

Definitely very fluid is also hard to sift the healthy friendships from 'I like playing with x because I can boss him/ her around' Dd is quite tyrannical fiesty to say the least. ...

TBH at the time i brushed off the comment about nobody playing with him, i also thought that could be interpreted as anything, as the examples on the thread have shown.

I am going to lay off the micro management and playdates for a while and let DS report back!

This thread has helped though - thank you