I'm not your friend and you're stupid...

[GooseyLoosey]

Dd is 3. She is generally a lovely sociable child but can be extremely stroppy (and screams a lot when she is)!

I have been aware for at least a year that there is a child at her nursery who does not like her at all. That's fine - no one is liked by everyone and it is probably a good life lesson to come across people who don't think you are great.

For the past few weeks dd has been coming home from nursery saying that this girl has been saying "I'm not your friend", "You're stupid and you look stupid" (which is a big deal to dd) and "I'm not playing with you" . This girl has got a reasonable number of the other girls in the nursery to do the same. Dd reports this but has not seemed outwardly upset by it as she has other friends. I have asked nursery about this and they have said previously that dd seems happy and plays with lots of people. However when I dropped her off yesterday, she was hysterical and begged me not to leave her and one of the assistants said that she had been getting upset a lot lately about little things like getting mud on her clothes.

My question is, do I insist that the nursery intervene here or do I try and equip dd with the skills to deal with the situation herself (on the basis that the nursery cannot really stop this)? I am not going to remove her as she will start school in September and if necessary I can take her out of nursery for all of August (but I was hoping not to).

im not sure how/when children learn this behaviour i thought it was a natural thing to do with growing up BUT altho i have 3 ds ds3 has NEVER been to school and hes 7 several times whilst playing out kids say things amongst themselves and ds3 doesnt 'get' the undertones of nastiness(they werent directed at him)bbut if a friend is a bit mean to him he just shrugs it off i asked him if he was bothered and he wasnt he said he will be my friend tomorrow and wasnt phased at all.

I think this is learned behaviour from a school setting and so i would say you need to teach your daughter a coping mecchanism let her know that she is lovely and kids can be mean and that its better not to get upset cos why should she care what a child who isnt her friend thinks etc build her confidence so she can deal with it herself.

in the past with my elder ds ive gone into school and tried to get school to stop it now i see that perhaps the best way to del with is is to let the child herself do it.

Thanks, that's what I have done to far and have told her all the things like it says more about the girl who is doing it than her and up to now, she too has shrugged it off. I just worry that now it has become a group thing and it does seem to be having an impact on her.

I think you should raise it for those two reasons, Goosey. If dd was happy at nursery and is now hysterical about going, that needs to be dealt with. And I know they are all three but nursery really should not be allowing a group of children to gang up on one individual.

That's kind of where I am ending up Edam but I am just not sure what I can expect nursery to do about it. Any ideas?

Surely they can have a general 'chat' with the children about being friends and not saying mean things? Like a mini version of the moralistic assemblies they get at primary? And if that doesn't work, asking key workers to keep a closer eye and see who is behind it. Encourage your dd to seek an adult out to tell them when it happens. Hopefully, I'd have thought they are too young to start on the old 'tell-tale' business just yet. Young kids are used to being 'told on' aren't they?

Definitely get the key workers to keep a very close look out for this kind of behaviour. And to have a chat with dd to let her know it's OK to tell a grown-up when it happens and that grown-up will help. And a general talk to the whole group about playing nicely and what counts as not nice.

keyworkers talk to dd about it being OK to tell them, I mean.

The nursery can do a lot about it Goosey
It is part of their duty of care to make sure that they provide a safe and happy environment.

I would ask the staff to do 3 things:

1. monitor your child fully through a complete session and see if they can work out exactly what the issues are. Is it purely connected with other children or are there other triggers that are upsetting your child. Important to encourage your child to talk about it but she might not even realise herself at that age what is really worrying her. She might get really upset and frustrated trying to get her coat or shoes on for a walk, perhaps the bathroom is worrying her etc etc
2. communicate with you - let you know what is possibly upsetting her. For example, if she gets really wound up and upset over muddy clothes then you can help. You could laugh it off together, explain it can easily be washed, send her in with waterproof trousers for walks etc etc
3. If they agree that she is becoming really upset on a regular basis and they know exactly what it is, then it is up to them to develop some strategies and targets to help her overcome/work through/avoid/ support her. Eg. - DD doesn?t enjoys walks and afterwards is often miserable and worried - hates wet socks and muddy clothes. Answer: encourage and help her to put on wellies, have a spare change of socks on hand and praise her lots when she joins in with the other children splashing in puddles to encourage her to start enjoying the walks again.

Nursery staff should be trained in teaching children this sort of thing. I know dc's infants- and even juniors - have done a great job teaching children that bullying is unacceptable and teaching them techniques for dealing with it and looking out for one another- as a result, there is very little bullying at these schools and most of the children appear emotionally very mature. So yes, you can ask them to do something. As long as you ask them nicely

Thanks all - looks like it would be reasonable for me to ask them to do something then? The think that slightly concerns me is that they seem wholly aware of it - her key worker tells me she never gets upset at all but another member of staff have told me that she does and none of them seem to think that there are any children she does not get on with. However, she cannot be making all of these things up, a few tall tales I would accept but not on such a consistent basis.

Is the best approach to tell them what dd has been saying (maybe not name the children involved?) and see what they propose? I agree Cory that I do not want to get their backs up.