DD being left out of playdates

[Mum22girls2022]

I don’t know if I’m being unreasonable, but I am a real worrier as never fitted in at school myself. Dd recently started primary school, along with an existing friend in her class who she very regularly has play dates with. The existing friends mother has another friend at the school, whose dd has also just started the school although in a different class from my dd and her existing friend. The three girls all play together a lot (from what I can gather!) at lunch time etc, and fairly regularly walk back to the car park after school together, playing, and I think my dd considers both the other girls her “main” friends at the school now. The other 2 girls have recently had a couple of play dates together (which they did before they started the school, although prior to school I didn’t know the other mum). My daughter has been very upset that she hasn’t been included which has been heart breaking especially when she has only just started school, and tbh I am a little upset/surprised that the existing friends mum didn’t include my dd, as we see her extremely regularly. Whilst I totally appreciate they don’t “have” to always have play dates together, I’m worried that my daughter in the long run is going to get left out of play dates regularly as they progress through school together. Should I be trying to push other friendships? My dd loved playing with these two girls and doesn’t seem to be forming many other friendships.

I sympathise, my dd is stuck in two sets of three, one in her class, and one with her friends from the other class! It's easy to get drawn in to feeling offended/left out, but it's inevitable all the kids will feel like this at some point and vital not to get too involved, just an awareness of what's going on and a sympathetic ear is enough I think.

Incidentally my dd has told me off her own back she doesn't like larger play dates, she prefers one to one. Manages fine in a group at school but prefers this for a play.

@Beamur

Teach her resilience with friendship

How’s best to do this? My reception aged son is going through similar

My son is grown up now but I remember he was one of a group of three friends and it seemed as if one of the boys was the child they both wanted to be 'best friends with' so to speak.
Luckily my son did get invited to both childrens houses to play but I do think at times he felt excluded and I remember feeling as you do.
I also remember thinking that '3' is not a good number as someone invariably feels left out.
We moved due to work and my son then went to a 4 form entry primary. Whist large the pastoral care was great and I felt it would prepare him for secondary school. In terms of friendships it was great and offered so much more in the way of extra curricular activities.
A while later I heard one of the other boys had left the original school as well and the child who had clearly been the favourite was left initially feeling very lonely.
My advice is try to encourage as many friendships as possible, rather than one or two best friends.
Good luck, as I know if your child is hurting you feel it too.

Thanks everyone for the kind words! She has a couple of class parties coming up so Im going to do my upmost to get chatting to other mums and widen her group of friends there

How to teach it?
Model that behaviour yourself is one way. My DD used to like to relive things that had happened to her during the day and we would talk it through and sometimes reimagine it if it happened again and role play, partly to explore different ways she could have dealt with it, to try and understand what had happened/see it from someone else's point of view and sometimes to take the sting out of something that had been upsetting. By finding something funny or silly and taking away the power it had to hurt her.
I think another way you grow resilience is by not placing too much importance on very small friend groups or individuals. Cultivate other friends and activities, so when the inevitable fall outs happen it will feel less catastrophic as there are still other friends.
Easier said than done! But I think my DD has been pretty good at this (with a few hiccups).
Unfortunately it's part of learning and developing social skills.
It's also about how you treat others. Personally, I am not a fan of telling kids to always be kind as often they don't get it back! I think be fair is a better one.