Just picked up a very sad 6 year old from school - what would you do?

[carla]

Basically, there were three best friends. Now dd has been ostracised (she says for the last four days). Didn't now until today, when she looked so sad in the back of the car and when I asked her why said 'I'll tell you when we get home'. Question is, would you mention it to the mum of x (who I'm quite chummy with) or leave well alone? After all, she can't make her play with her.

TBH I wouldn't mention it yet as you could find that they are all the best of friends again in a few days.

My Dd1 is always saying that so and so won't play with her and then it soon chnges back again.

I might ask the mum if she knows anything but not make a big deal about it. As Nutty says, they'll be best friends again in a couple of days.

I wouldn't mention it just yet either. does your school have a "buddy bench" - somewhere kids can sit if they haven't got anyone to play with, other children usually spot who's on the bench and go invite them to play

We have had a fair bit of this over the last years. It seems to be something that little girls 'do', tbh. If it doesn't escalate, I'd leave it be.

agree with the other posters. would also suggest, if she doesn't do already, that dd maybe starts and extra-curricular activity away from her schoolfriends, e.g swimming/guides, so that she has more than one set of friends, and if things go badly at school she has other friends to fall back on, so situations like this won't affect her so badly

Oh i am so sorry to hear that dd is so sad, i have just posted on a school matter (nasty bully stupid mother) so i know how you feel to see your child so upset.
Have you thought of askin one of the other little girls to tea and then maybe when it's just the two of them things can be resolved.
Also i agree with m2s try to involve "New friends"
if things get worse then speak to the mother (and hope she is a decent sort who listens)
I hope things get better, i am sure they will.

Jampot, love the idea of a buddy bench - do most primary schools do this? I've not heard of it before.

loads to say and THANK YOU all so much. dd1 is stirring jelly atm cos worried she might be able to read some of this. Back later, ITMN, THANKS xxxx

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carla I agree with others here, and I wouldn't talk about it to the other mum at the moment. It's nice that your dd told you about it. A similar thing happened to me when I was about 8 and all my 'friends' decided to join another girl and leave me all on my own at lunchtime on our sports day (you can tell I haven't forgotten about this!!!). It felt horrible and I didn't know why they were doing this, I wasn't a very girly type, not into 'groups' of friends, rather one to one, and as far as I know not bitchy . To this day I don't know what I had done to offend them. Things must have gone back to normal the following day because I always used to have friends to play with, so I guess it's a common 'girl group' thing to occasionally ostracise someone, maybe just to feel your 'power' over others and manipulate them (very crude psychology I'll admit!). I would just listen to your dd but not probe too hard because she may not know why this has happened, and hopefully tomorrow they'll be OK. As long as she tells you about this stuff, that's what matters, because I never told anyone about what happened to me until many years later!
Great idea about 'out of school' activities to make other friends.
Big cuddle to your dd and you xxx

This is v common with girls it seems. Sometimes I have spoken to the mum, sometimes I have just keft it, depends how upset they are. The infant school here has a friendship stop, where children who have noone to play with can wait , and they will be found a friend for that playtime. They also make two children a week playground monitors, making sure all the children play nicely. It seems to work well.

Thank you all SO much for your replies and wisdom. She seemed to go off quite happily this morning, so we'll see how today goes. She does do ballet, (in fact with the very girl in question) but somehow I feel friends outside school can't make up for what must feel like a very long break time if you're alone. What made it worse for me was her 4 year old sister (who's not even been there 2 weeks but seems to have hit it off friends-wise) saying 'But I played with you for a bit, Anna'. Jampot, I too love the idea of a Buddy Bench. Might suggest it to head but feel it might get poo-poohed as they didn't think of it first. And like you sobernow, I also think threes seldom work well.

I think the idea of asking each girl to tea at different times is a good one.

Re the buddy bench, this is an interesting idea, but isn't there a danger of the same children being there every day and it becoming a bit of a mark of an unpopular child to go there? How is that circumvented, for those of you who have experienced it?

re; the buddy bench - the explanation at our kids school was that it was where you went when 'you couldn't find your friends in the playground' (no when you're billy no-mates as us mums call it amongst ourselves ) and all kids were encouraged to play with anyone on the buddy bench. Seems to work quite well & havent had any neg. feedback from either of my 2.

I did the same today
My 6yo was nearly in tears when I had to explain that she wasn't going to her friends birthday party tomorrow - as she hadn't been invited......this is a child that I look after, so it was doubly difficult to explain (as she's round our house twice a week)
Aren't little girls mean to each other

Hi Carla, hope dd's friendship problems resolve soon, and that she was OK at school today. I do know what you mean - that you don't want her to be lonely at break/lunchtimes, but it is still useful to have a different set of people for her to socialise with as a reality check - so if things are going badly for her at school, she can see that it is not her fault.

take care

My Dd's school has several buddy benches and also have school councilors. If someone is being left out or upset then they can go and sit on the buddy bench and a councillor will go over and talk to them.

My Dd was upset today as she wanted to be a councillor but didn't get enough votes.

Ooooh that does sound nasty Katiemac. I'm surprised her parents hadn't said anything about that.

I made sure dd invited all friends whose parties she had been too and those who she regularly played with. She did moan about a couple of them but I told her would be ill mannered not to ask them and she was fine with it and they all played together.