Playground politics

[bootlebumtrinketti]

Now that DD is 4.5 she's started to get a bit embroiled in playground dramas with her friends. Sometimes they leave her out of wind her up, sometimes she does the same to them. My question is how do you handle this? Intervene? Wait til she comes to me, upset or having upset one of her friends? I'm not clear what I need to do here...

I would leave them too it. Children seem to sort it out by the next day and everything is forgotten about as long as its going both ways and not bullying. If you intervene the kids have normally sorted by the next break whilst your still giving the other parent evils across the playground a week later because you asked her to ask her child to play nice.

Good advice thank you. So you wouldn't intervene to tell off your child if she was being mean/ unreasonable? I don't want to hover about intervening. But equally DD can be mean and I don't like to see it. Definitely goes both ways and also seems to always be forgotten quickly.

I tell mine "maybe xxx is having a bad day, but if she is regularly unkind to you do think she is a good friend? I don't, is there someone else you could play with. It is nice to have lots of friends"

If your dd is being mean encourage her to be kind. If I was there when it happened I would say "girls be kind to each other" but I wouldn't seek them out to intervene.

Do you mean in the playground at the park? If so, then yes I would remind DD to play nicely and include everyone.

When she tells us about school playground dramas I repeat the same but quite lightly e.g. 'I hope you were being a good friend and letting people join in?' and leave it at that.

If you see her actually being mean, then yes, step in and suggest better behaviour. Otherwise, leave them to it. At that age they've broken friends and made them again, a dozen times an hour.

All good advice thank you. I don't want to police it all intensely but equally it's important to me that my DD can stand up for herself but treat others well. It's hard to know how best to get this outcome (she's an only child so no siblings to learn with).