Competitive nursery mums

[ApplesOrangesBananas]

The other mums at nursery are incredibly competitive, from everything such as who has the biggest vocabulary to who is the “smartest” (not sure how you can quality that at 3) and even whose child the teacher likes the most.

Any advice on how to cope with this? It’s starting to drain me.. I tried to avoid the other mums at pickup but it’s not that easy and DC often wants play dates. There is one that is especially bad but our DC are very close. I knew there would be some mums like this but to be honest I didn’t expect it to start until primary school! And we haven’t even got to applying for schools/allocation yet..!

Like you my child is really young and I’ve noticed the same thing. I was hoping this would get better as the children got older but apparently it doesn’t really as my own parents say they have friends who still do nothing but talk and brag about their now grown children (we’re all in our 30s)!

I try not to engage with it, just smile and nod and stay quietly confident in my own child. All children are different, all have their own strengths, but I think this weird tendency to feel the need to “compete” must stem from some bits of insecurity.

I do my best just to remind myself what I know about my child, I am proud of her and know she’s amazing (they all are in their own ways) and I don’t need validation from anyone else to make this true.

I also have managed to make a couple of mum friends who are not like this at all and that really helps.

I must have been really lucky so far. My children have been in nursery since I returned from maternity leave. They are 7 and 9 now and I've never experienced this with other Mums.

Whatever the verbal equivalent to 👍 is, do that.
Seem disinterested and don't engage.
Oh right, cool.
Really?
Interesting
That's nice

Just smile, nod and ignore. It’s good practice for when your child is at school.

Silly girls like this make me laugh. Too much time on their hands.