Unhelpful friendship

[MuchAdoAbout]

DS (6) has a friend who is very up and down with him. Will play with him when he wants, and ignore him when he wants (you're not my friend anymore). This friend is aggressive (he almost hit my child when he accidentally stood on the back of his shoe) and overly competitive (my house is bigger than yours, I can eat faster than you). I find it exhausting. My son gets upset by this but then still wants to play with him.

My son is confident and a nice, kind fairly popular boy, he gets along with many kids. He can sometimes be too loud and can invade personal space when he is trying to get someone's attention - although this is infrequent and usually in response to being ignored as opposed to causing it, but still not on and we are working on it.

My question is, I would like Ds to focus less on this friendship as I feel it isn't great for him (and we are supporting the development of others with play dates for eg) but he is still very invested in it. I have been talking about what makes a good friend. Is there anything else I can/should do?

Is this a school friend? I think I'd be doing what I could to invite different children round maybe, not a great deal you can do about this at school but no reason you need to encourage contact when it's within your control.

I think all you can do is say the things you don’t like and facilitate other friendships.

Yep a school friend.

Lovely name calling @carolloveswine. Not a wimp at all. You seem quick to rush to judgement.

@Carolloveswine had a few too many today, love?

OP carol seems to be posting on loads of threads winding up posters today. Ignore!!

Very helpful Carol

Op, after many years of parenting, I would feel absolutely no guilt about influencing friendships at this age. You are in control of how he spends his time and it's good parenting to move your child away from what you judge to be poor influences, whether that's a child, an adult, the ethos of a sports club for example.

This gives you the time to teach him about kindness, true friendships and boundaries etc so that when he is at an age when you no longer have that control over whom he chooses as friends, he will make better choices.

Btw, for later on (esp secondary school) I think that the influence of friendship groups in school and peer pressure is massively under-estimated and I think it is really important, where possible, to place your DC in a situation where friendships are good and kind, there isn't bullying going on, and children are not labelled swots if they enjoy learning.