4 year old keeps on getting rejected by other children

[Jalapenohot]

My 4 year old daughter has a heart of gold. She has never been nasty or malicious towards another child infront of me and always just wants to get along with everyone.
But it's as if she doesn't quite " get it" somehow. She will often be doing her own version of the game they are supposedly playing together when in a group, she will dress up as a werewolf when the other girls in the group are dressed as princesses, she will dissolve conflict by giving a toy to someone to play with even if she wants to play with it herself.
I love her for all of this and I am very proud of her, but she always seems to be the one left out, rejected or picked on when she tries to involve herself. She is very loud and chatty, often gets too close etc and wants to hug everyone so we've had a lot of talks about personal space but she is still always a prime target.
My heart breaks for her.
I recently saw her nervously laughing, trying to involve her self in play with 2 other girls who were perpetually running away from her. It was awful to watch and I sensed from my daughter's nervous laughter straight away that there was something going on. Eventually her eyes filled with tears and she came to find me with her arms out. I wanted to cry myself. I am seeing it all too often in many different groups and social circles and her father agrees. How can we help her?

I am nervous about the next social gathering. What can we do about it?

Social skills are like any skills with small children and some take longer to catch on. Just like some children learn to walk, read or write faster....some learn to socialise quicker.

One of my DD's found some of it hard when she was small....she's 14 now and has friends coming out of her ears!

My advice is this. Try to invite one child at a time over for playdates as often as possible...and role play with her when it's just you two.

Practice playing....do dressing up and various interactive imaginary games so that she has all the chances she can to practice.

When she has children over, observe them.

Don't correct her as such but try to model the preferred social interaction so that she catches on.

She sounds adorable and with a caring Mum she will be fine.

Sounds like fantastic advice Fortunes. Thank you

Your daughter sounds absolutely adorable. Kind, respectful and empathetic. My daughter is also 4 and, despite being very confident socially, she is still very much developing her sense empathy which is making life quite difficult in other ways.

I’ve set up a few 1-2-1 play dates recently, just a few hours here and there and it has really helped to build a bond with the friends who seem closest to her at preschool. My daughters goal (not that she realises this) is to play nicely without being a bossy little madam so I keep a close eye and help guide her along. Maybe your daughter would benefit from a couple of play dates with some children from her group to help form a bond?

I think that might really help cavy. I don't organise many playdates anymore due to her being at school but playing with a friend in her own surroundings, having me close by for support may well be the key here. Thankyou.

Your dd sounds similar to my reception aged dd. I am going to try the 1 to 1 play dates at home shortly. We have also had to talk to dd about personal space etc. because she was hugging people randomly. My dd can also be quite bossy at times, so I think it would really benefit her to have these types of play dates.

I have an older dd and this running away thing sounds familiar (there was also a spying on people theme from memory). My dd used to ask if she could play and the answer would be no, I think it was other children trying to assert their power. Instead, I encouraged her to say let's play, so it wasn't a question and to make lots of different friends, so there was more option to circulate. My eldest DD has had to break away from a not very nice group of girls at secondary school...she was able to identify that these girls weren't making her feel very good, then weighed up whether it was worthwhile continuing the friendships and she decided that it was not. I felt very proud of her for protecting her self esteem and she now has a lovely circle of friends but we have, over the years had many conversations with dd about what are nice behaviours and how it makes someone feel to be treated like this.
I also get upset watching my youngest dd going through this. I try to stay matter of fact in front of her by saying that isn't a nice thing to do to run away from people, perhaps there are other girls/boys who would like to play etc.

Socialising can de difficult for some. You cannot make other children be friends with your daughter. I would also suggest having one friend come to your house to see how that goes but I would also focus your attention on making sure your little one has the self esteem needed to cope when no one wants to play with her. Make sure she can entertain herself and that she knows how wonderful she is. Also make sure that she is strong enough to stand up for herself so that other kids don't take advantage. Address the issue head on with her. My own daughter struggles to communicate with other people and recently came to me and said "mummy when I talk people walk away from me" i just looked her square in the eye and said "that is because when you speak people don't always understand they get embarrassed and don't know what to do so they walk away mummy will help if you need me". I don't get emotional or allow her to we just try and keep it a fact of life.