At what age do you stop "directing" your children's friendships?

[Countingthegreyhairs]

Hello, this is a question for more experienced parents than me. Apologies if it's been asked a million times before - I have done a quick search - without much luck.

My dd(4) has recently started to express definite opinions about who she wants to invite home for play dates - and who she doesn't.

Should I go along with these preferences or should I still have an influence in her choice of friends?

The reason I ask is that the friendships in her class seem to change pretty rapidly from day to day. I have tried to discourage dd's friendship with one particular girl who seems to be quite aggressive (she came for a disastrous play-date once with her mother who said nothing when her dd hit mine over the head quite hard with the wrong end of a tennis racket ) but there is another girl in her class who (owing to language problems) doesn't have many friends and I've been trying to encourage a friendship but my dd is not keen. DD has now been invited to this girl's birthday party. (I've explained that we shouldn't accept the invitation if dd is not prepared to invite her here for a playdate in return.)

I know I'm probably making heavy weather of this but would welcome some practical advice pls. Don't want to be an over-controlling mummy but is 4 too young to have complete freedom when choosing friends?

[Countingthegreyhairs]

Thanks Ineedacleaner - I've been mulling over your post - partic last sentence - and I'm sure you are right - OK it's official "back off" time ....am still a bit reluctant to invite "agressive child" over though ...perhaps should do so and deal with any probs as they arise

[Ineedacleaner]

In truth I have never directed dd's friends. We have had other children to play here but they have always been my friends children and come with their mum when she had popped in for a coffee.
My dd is 4 and there are not praticularly any mums at the nursery I would say I was particularly friendly with there are a tiny few that I would say I don't particularly like for one reason or another but I wouldn't stop dd being friends with any of the children. I have learnt from my own experiences as a child and from experiences as a mother that there is no point getting yourself tied up in knots over it, forcing anything or falling out with another parent over children because you can guarentee they will be friends again tomorrow while the parents are still fighting it out amongst themselves.

[Countingthegreyhairs]

Screaminghousewife - that's sounds like a good pragmatic approach.

The thing is though, DD gets terribly upset when I don't invite the "agressive" friend home (I don't like using that word to describe a four-year-old but am doing here for clarity's sake) and can't understand why I'm refusing invitations from her mother either. She's desperate to go to her house for tea!! It's confusing for her, especially when I invite other friends from her class home. Probably making too much of a meal of this (pfb syndrome and all that) but I don't know if I'm doing the right thing to be honest ...

[screaminghousewife]

I have a teen and a reception age child and from experience, I can say it's never a good idea to dictate friendships. They will be friends with whomever they want to be friends with.
Of course that doesn't mean you have to invite the ones you don't like to your home.

[Countingthegreyhairs]

Thanks DV. Much appreciated. [Loud blowing of nose].

Had a real watery-eyed moment yesterday when packing away clothes that dd had grown out of ....sniff ....

[DarthVader]

[Countingthegreyhairs]

OK, thanks, am persuaded PointyDog & DarthVader - there's an overwhelming consensus here - I'll back off and let her make her own choices ... she's growing up [stifled sob].

[pointydog]

I have never directed my dc's friendships. Even on the odd occasion I have really wanted to.

[DarthVader]

Her friends, her choices, surely?
It is completely usual for girls to be in and out with each other all the time and the first term at reception is normally spent by girls getting to grips with dealing with this dynamic!

[Countingthegreyhairs]

Thanks DDsgirl - I didn't do pre-school play dates either and prob. not explaining this v. well but it's more of a question of whether to "encourage" dd to continue this friendship when she's reluctant to do so rather than specifically reciprocate party ifyswim.

Agree I should be more "hands off" and that it's important to let my dd learn about relationships and make her own mistakes ...something I am working on as I don't find it easy .... . I guess I'm just worried that at 4 she doesn't have the accumulated wisdom to make those decisions totally unaided but perhaps I'm doing her a disservice by thinking that.

[DumbledoresGirl]

All of my children are 4 or over. I have never directed my children's friendships, but then, my children have never really had friends back to play until they were of school age. I just don't do pre-schoolers coming round to play. So when my children reached school age, they would ask if certain children could come to play. I usually put them off until they have asked several times, just to be sure they are longer lasting friendships, but, to be fair, you could invite a child one day and they could fall out with your child the next so you never really know how firm the friendship is.

I have never heard of reciprocating a party invite with a playdate so that is not an issue IMO.

As for trying to direct your child towards children, I am not in favour of that. Let your child decide who they want to be friends with. My son had trouble with friends when we moved and I learnt through a friendship with another mother that her son was having the same difficulties so I started directing my son towards hers. He came for my son's 8th birthday treat. Soon after that, I found out what a hell he was making my son's life and I regret forcing my son to invite him to his birthday treat. Actually, your child knows better than you do who they want to be friends with. And if they turn out to be mistaken, well, that is all part of learning about relationships.

[Countingthegreyhairs]

Sorry Martha200 - wasn't ignoring you - crossed post. Your son sounds v.switched on and his school sounds fantastic! DD (very, very sociable only child) is a bit more desperate for friendship and so tends to be easily led ....which I worry about.

She was was shocked then howled at tennis racket incident. I paused momentarily whilst waiting for other mother to intervene: when she didn't I just exchanged the tennis racket for a foam ball and comforted dd. Still don't understand it really. I've discussed incident with rl friends and they said maybe other mother was waiting for me to do something as we were on my territory and there could have perhaps been a cultural misunderstanding (she is Chilean) ... ... but I always feel I'm responsible for dd's behaviour when we're visiting other people ....

So I guess the consensus is: don't direct your children's friendships even at the age of 4 (aside from putting them in obvious danger of course) let them get on with it, and try and build up their own self-esteem


You are scaring me now seeker - will have many more grey hairs by then I think

[seeker]

If you think the friendship thing is fraught now, just wait til she's 9!


Or 11, like my dd, who is trying very hard to juggle new friends from secondary school and old friends from primary school - an trying to interpret the feelings behind three word texts and .....aghhhhhhh!

[Countingthegreyhairs]

... well, she was practising her serve Meemar

EmsMum and Anna 888 - agree that you can't really force things when it comes to friendships and that things will change rapidly over the course of a year ...

Sorry - should have explained that the girl who isn't very popular has already come to play dates here and dd to her house, so party would have to be reciprocated eventually ifyswim. It's only recently dd has started to be not so keen ...

Total surpise to me that this friendship issue would be quite so fraught ...

[Martha200]

I know what you mean, though I am not really an experienced parent!, but my ds (4) started school this year and a couple of weeks later he was invited to a party. It was a real eye opener for me. Within moments it became clear both children are from very different backgrounds, the friend had a very aggressive sibling, and then I thought back to my own childhood. I am sure I had friends my parents would rather I did not have, but they were pretty open to at least trying to get on with my friends and in getting to know their parents.

The way I see it, is there is nothing I can do when mine is at school to influence his choice of friends, he has to learn about friendships/relationships and I trust that he is able to make his own judgements and learn from his experiences as we all do. 6mths ago he pulled the plug on a friend a year younger whom he no longer wanted to be around due to her aggression. I had always told him if he didn't want to play with her he didn't have to, but he was very forgiving of her until the day came and we found that he was telling the mother how he should parent her child and we walked away from that friendship. (long story there.)

to the mother who said nothing about the tennis racket incident, how did your ds react? Reality is not even schools can have eyes in the back of their heads when it comes to monitoring behaviour all the time, so all I can do is talk to my child about what is/what they find acceptable behaviour or not (I got to hear about all the really naughty children when he first began school!) and what to do/not do if there is ever a problem.

The school covered bullying as well in a play which made the conversation come up naturally, and part of that conversation was who are our friends and why, what makes a good friend, which was pretty interesting conversation at the time.

Sorry, that's not much advice, but just how I view things.

[Anna8888]

At 4 you should let your daughter go to any birthday party she is invited to if she wants to go and you think the family is OK. But birthday parties don't have to be reciprocated IMO, especially not by a playdate. You give the birthday child a present and that's the end of the story. A year (the period over which the class has birthdays) is a very, very long time at four.

[EmsMum]

Its tricky. DD has a new friend at school who we aren't keen on...we just haven't got round to inviting her yet somehow... but I've managed to pounce on parents of girls both DD and I do like to arrange playdates.

About the less popular girl... I really think you should let DD go to the party with no strings attached. You never know, if your DD enjoys it then the friendship may blossom, more likely than if you try to force it (though obviously you mean really well, kids can be contrary).

[meemar]

Hi, I think all you'll ever have control over is who she brings home, not who she is friends with IYSWIM.

My DS1 has a 'best' friend at pre-school, a boy he always talks about and plays with and sits next to all day, but strangely they've never played together outside pre-school because it's never worked out logistically somehow.

If your DD doesn't want to invite a particular girl back, I wouldn't push the issue - if they get friendly in school she will do it by herself.

Incidentally - is there a right end of a tennis racket to hit someone over the head with?