Reception friendship

[Moomilk]

Hi all,

what do you make of this. My daughter started reception in September. She made two close friends immediately, they are lovely girls however quite a bit louder than DD and over the course of the last five months, my DD has started gravitating toward another little girl who is more similar.

I have developed friendships with the original 2’s mummy’s. We text a little and have had a night out.

I decided to invite the new friend for a play date and when they both came out of school, one of the original friends said please can I come. The mum said ‘up to you’ so put me on the spot. So she came too. It was fine but really negated the point.

i felt frustrated. If I try to arrange more play dates with others, I can see this being a reoccurring theme. How should I handle it? I don’t want to be mean or exclude children. But I want my DD to have a wide variety of friendship.

thanks

Say 'No, I'm sorry Sarah, but it's Jane's turn to come and play today. We'll pick another day for you to come over and play'.

yes You are right. I need to grow a pair! Why don’t other mums pick up on social cues though. If I wanted her to come also I would have invited her

Agree with the pp, you just say oh we will sort one for another time! You’re not excluding anyone as you’re inviting new people into dd little friendship group.

Perhaps your clues weren’t clear or the Mum isn’t good at social cues or she wanted/expected you to be truthful so she wasn’t the one saying no to her child.

Dare I suggest she should say no? I haven’t invited her therefore she not invited, no?

You can't direct your child's friendships like this.

However, the mother of the original friend shouldn't have put you on the spot that.

She should have said no, I agree.

I don’t feel I am directing friendships. I feel I’m making opportunities for my DD to have a wider social circle, which to my mind can only be beneficial.

She needs to do that herself.

It's like a climbing frame in the playground, she won't learn how to climb it herself if you lift her up.

Well she's your daughter.

My son is six and I'm a big believer in letting him figure as much stuff out on his own if possible. He's done it too.

He has a close group of friends and a wider circle. He's also awesome on a climbing frame 😎

The process of figuring stuff out is what gives them confidence.

Learning all of that himself, has given him confidence.

I'd ask your daughter who she wants to invite over. It's her guest.

Whether you like the mum or not is neither here nor there

I agree with you OP. My DD had a very strong friendship with a girl in her class in reception, but it was too strong. They were codependent on each other, couldn't cope when one was off etc. Both the friend's Mum and I recognised the problem and both of us arranged separate playdates with other children at our houses to try and encourage a wider group of friends.

Guess what, it worked! DD is still besties with the other girl, but it's a much healthier friendship and they both play with other children in the class.

There's a big difference between doing everything for our children Vs giving them a much needed helping hand every once in a while.

I think next time you just need to be polite but firm and explain that it's Daisy's turn today but you'll definitely have Millie next week etc.

We get this from time to time, the little ones love to ask if they can come over and their mums aren't always helpful in shutting it down. It isn't always linked to another kid coming, one little soul asked every day for two weeks if it was the day he was coming over yet. They're just little and don't understand polite behaviour yet.

I do variations on "Sorry, Jon is coming over today, but I'll arrange a date with mummy for you to come again."