Dd2's behaviour when friends come to play

[AntiJamDidi]

Dd2 is 3.5 and we don't tend to have friends coming to play very often as both dp and I work ft. Dd2 plays and shares very nicely at cm's house and at pre-school, she is apparently lovely with the younger children at cm's house and is developing more confidence at pre-school to talk and play with the other children rather than alongside each other. All sounding great so far.

Today the little girl from next door came to play at our house. Should be fun for both of them, they are the same age, they consider themselves good friends, they apparently played really nicely when dd2 went to their house earlier in the week. Dd2 was NOT nice to her friend at all when she came here to play. She told her friend off every time she did anything that was against dd2's 'rules', she moaned an whinged if her friend didn't want to play exactly what dd2 wanted to play, she threw the biggest tantrum I have ever seen her throw because her friend got the name wrong for a toy . I put her in time out in her bedroom so she could calm down, dp stayed downstairs and played with the other little girl, dd2 screamed and shouted and threw things at me, then she fell over as I maneuvered her back to time out (for about the 50th time) and sobbed that I had hurt her deliberately and she hated me. She did eventually calm down but it took about half an hour from her kicking off to her coming back down to play nicely.

Does anyone have any tips or strategies to help us avoid this sort of behaviour happening again? This is so unlike her that I'm not entirely sure how I could have handled it differently. We're thinking that maybe we need to start inviting friends to come and play more often so she gets used to it happening and how to behave.

While i dont really know how you could have handled things differently (my DS is only 2yo) i would have said it may be a one off due to change of normal routine with christmas, more sugar/chocolate/sweets, later evenings etc. It could be that your DD isnt used to having to share her own toys rather than the ones at cm's which are everyones.

My 3.5 year old has similar tantrums but we are slowly seeing her have less... Sure it's just an age thing. We work FT and had 2 girls over to play luckily on little girl managed to say "don't shout at me" when my little girl tried to grab something off her nd my dd screamed her head off. She want nice to the other girl saying that friend X was her best friend ( in front of her mum!). Kids are unfortunately not nice to each other but unless its getting violent, I'm a firm believer in letting te kids sorting it out for themselves.

With my dd when she's in one of her moods, she goes in her room until she's calm and doesn't get anything she wants until then. Sure little ones go through it - but my dD is far worse than my son ever was!

Some children find it hard to share their own things, but can be fine at CM, toddler groups because they know the toys are not theirs. They get over it eventually! It can be good to have a chat about sharing before little guests arrive and to put away some toys that your DC doesn't want t share. Good luck.

Thank you all for your replies. She has had a really busy few days and lots of late nights due to Christmas so that definitely played a part.

We didn't think to talk about sharing first because it was a spur of the moment arrangement rather than planned in advance.

I don't think it helps that the girls have such different personalities, dd2 likes to choose one thing to play and sticks with it for ages whereas the other girl likes to flit between playing with lots of different things. I think dd2 finds it a little bit overwhelming.

I think we'll start inviting more people round at weekends so she gets more practice at sharing her toys and being nice to visitors.

I never had this problem with dd1 but when she was this age I was at uni and had a bit more time so she had more friends invited round and knew the expectations.

I have 3 DC's, 2 of which have gone through similar but the older one was the worst. First child and all that!

3.5 is about right. That is when they really haven't quite developed people skills and that the whole world doesn't revolve around them but they are now able to 'play' properly with their imagination. The two don't combine well at first, this has to be learned.

They all do it to different extents. First children will obviously struggle the most as sharing isn't something they have to do day to day in their own territory! Suddenly this other little being comes in with different ideas, touching THEIR stuff - arghhh!

That is probably why she played better at her friends.

You just have to keep telling her and dealing with it as you did until she grows out of it, and she will.

Ah, she isn't a first child. My DD is my 2nd child and just turned 4 but she was awful at first too. Much better now but still not brilliant. DS1 was an absolute nightmare!

Thanks princess What you said about first children makes sense too because there's a 10 year age gap between dd1 and dd2 so dd1 doesn't want to share dd2's toys. It's almost as if I have 2 "only" children as they don't do much of the sibling squabbling that so many families have.

We've invited another friend to play this week while I'm still on holiday so we'll have a nice long chat about sharing before she arrives and we'll see how it goes.