Tell me honestly, will DD2's teacher think i am a towering nobber if i speak to him about this subject...

[AitchTwoOhOneTwo]

6 year olds... this whole last term has been 'Mum, x is my number one best friend and y is number two and z is number three...'

so i said to her 'this WILL end in tears and the reason that i KNOW it will end in tears is that i too was a 6 year old girl and it always, always does' and advised her just to play with everyone so no-one's feelings got hurt.

and now, guess what, absolute sobbing as she has been demoted from number one to three with the girl who is her number one (you are keeping up, aren't yo? ) and 'I HAVEN'T CHANGED AT ALL, MUM, SO WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?'

farking hell.

should i say something to the teacher? not about dd herself, because there is no way on earth it's only dd at home crying. would it be ridiculous for me to suggest they do a 'circle time' or something about not rating their friends like bleeding top trumps and just being NICE? or am i living in parenting la-la land?

If your DD wants you to have 'a word', then yeah, have a word.

Your daughter sounds fantastic by the way

cool in school stuff nice, habs, might mention it at next parents' council thingy.

oh that's nice of you to say, faerie. she's nuts, but great, i think.

Aitch - I think you had better have a word tomorrow morning, so that the teacher knows what is going on when your DD starts conducting her poll.

Oh yes I've mentioned something to my daughters reception teacher when we've had tears about fallouts. Teacher brilliantly sorted it out with circle time chats about kindness etc and buddied some different pairs and also spoke to playground supervisor. Better next day.

I have every faith* that you'll be back here tomorrow reporting on a great moral victory for your dd

*and all my fingers crossed

really stealthy?

I think it's your job to talk to your dd about the rights and wrongs of this, tbh. Unless there is actual bullying involved, it's not really within the teachers remit, why do you think it should be?

Also, he might wonder what the clipboard is for...

I would, just in case it goes wrong... but I may well be am a paranoid overprotective parent, so feel free to ignore me

Interesting. When my dd was small she pinned up a pice of paper on her bedroom wall on which she had written the names of all the children in her class and underneath it she wrote' everyone in my class is nice' I never asked her about it at the time but I thought it was sweet and have kept it in my 'memories' box. I now wonder if it was instigated by teacher or something that was said/happened at school

She is great, faerie. And just gorgeous. Aitch, Dd has been 3rd/4th wheel in a group since playgroup. Best to learn strategies at this age, I reckon, before it gets really mean.

interesting, floggingmolly... i guess because every single girl in his class is affected by it? is it not in a teacher's remit to encourage them not to act in a way that is hurting their classmates' feelings? (genuine qu btw, i would have thought it was a no-brainer, but then i am often surprised by school things on MN).

I agree, I think if they're all at it, it could become ingrained behaviour. It's just not very kind, is it?

so do you think i should say something, habs? or just teach her strategies myself?

i've told her that basically her pals can choose who they want to play with, and that has to be their choice, but that it reflects on them, not her. she's a great girl, so if they don't want to play with her, she can take her great girlness and go play with someone else, their loss. she seemed quite convinced by this, but it's probably a great big elephant trap that i haven't thought of.

i remember all this stuff really hurting when i was wee, i'm actually really pleased that she told me because i know i didn't say a word to my mum because i was genuinely ashamed by it.

IME male primary teachers don't seem to "get" girls friendship issues, so although I would probably have a word in the same situation, I wouldn't be holding out any hope of it actually achieving anything.

Have a chat with the teacher. We have done at dd's (7) school in the past. They tend then to do a circle time about being nice to everyone and tell the dinner ladies / playground staff to keep an eye out

he is gay, if that helps...

I don't think it would hurt to say 'I just thought you might like to know that this xxxx is happening and I thought that maybe a chat on 'all being friends' from you would work alongside the parents all telling them not to do it. Oh and DD1 is planning on doing this ... today, have fun '

I remember being the same at their age, it was never nasty, it was just sorting out who fits where and negotiating friendships I guess. As adults we are just a bit more subtle about it

Do you have parents' evening coming up? Might be an opportunity to mention it. And I think that if schools have a responsibility to tackle bullying, then prevention is better than cure, iyswim. But yy to those strategies - same as we've done w Dd.

I would say something.

We are suffering similar issues with DS1 (nearly 5)
There is a boy at school who just wants to be with him the whole time and doesn't like him spending time with others, DS finds it all too much and wants to play with lots of other kids, but the boy seems to get jealous and then winds DS1 up.

It got to the stage that I had to talk to his teacher about it as DS would be trying to escape from this kid, who is getting in his face (and therefore aggravating things) and the boys parents shout say things in the playground like 'Oh well, you're going to have to STAY AWAY from [DS1] today as he's obviously in a VERY GRUMPY MOOD'...which would then upset DS1

So, the teacher is involved because I am not there for 6 hours of the day when they are interacting and someone else sees what is going on, not me.

And yes, I agree, it is part of a teacher's role to encourage the development of healthy attitudes towards others - not forcing everyone to be ''friends'' necessarily, but at least not bugging the shit out of each other until someone snaps and lashes out!

yup, it's really not nasty, i think. but i worry that it has the potential to turn so, and i asked dd if she thought that anyone apart from her had had their feelings hurt by it and she said that she knew for a fact that one girl (actually delightful but parents are a bit older and odder so i think she might be the one candidate for being formally left out) had definitely felt that way because they'd discussed it.

When Dd had a bad patch, teacher and ta friends told us to contact school. As it is, the friend was a bit mean to Dd in front of me and her mum, which was good as it was then dealt with effectively.

no parents' evening, habs, more's the pity.

your poor dd, habbibu. just the thought that she has had even one 'bad patch' makes me want to throttle on your behalf.