So my recently turned 5 year old seems to be forming very intense friendships and will then be quite rude to other children trying to join in. She had this issue first at school where she was very close friends with a girl, then suddenly started playing with a new girl and would tell the other one she didn’t want to be her friend anymore and would just stop playing with her. More recently at her birthday party she would just play with this same girl and was making her cousin cry because she was pushing him away. Now we have just been to a birthday party and she made a new friend there but would then tell other children she didn’t want to play with them and during the photos got on a strop for not wanting to stand next to the birthday boy.
The first time this happened I was literally giving birth so my husband was dealing with it and doing the school runs so I didn’t really realise how much she was really being quite mean to the other child being left out. That poor girl is such a sweet girl, I hate that she does that. That time we would speak to her and tell her she can play with three children and getting her to think how she would feel if she was being left out or if someone told her they didn’t want to play with her.
At her birthday party I would go over to her and tell her she needs to play with her cousin as well and she’s not allowed to close anyone away, especially her cousin who is so important to her. When I told her she would include him but as soon as I wasn’t watching she would do the same again. Today I saw it happening again and I got really angry said that behaviour is not acceptable you can make friends but you can’t then close other children off, you play with everyone or we are going home. I didn’t then see this happening again.
we do playdates with kids at school and this hasn’t come up then, so seems to be more when there’s a lot going on. But how should I manage this behaviour from her? She has sensory processing difficulties so get overwhelmed easily and I think she genuinely finds it difficult to manage playing with several children in a busy environment, but non the less her behaviour is absolutely not acceptable.