What can I do to help my child and friendships?

[cozgirls]

Have an 8 year old dd. She is one of the youngest in her year. Academically fine, emotionally seems young.
She had a best friend since she was 3 who emigrated last year. Since then she's struggled.
She finds that she's not being invited to parties or outings with girls she thought were her friends.
6 of them that she plays with daily are having a sleepover tonight without her.
I've not heard anyone say a bad word about her and teachers say everything is fine as far as she's concerned.
We've tried inviting girls for play dates, and they seem to go fine, but then they don't ever reciprocate, but they continue to ask my dd if they can come to play after school, meaning most weeks she brings a friend home with her as I'm put on the spot at home time.
I just don't know what to do to make her happy and to stop her getting left out.

She says in school everything is fine. They all play together and no complaints.
She just never seems to be invited to anything they do as a group out of school. And she doesn't understand why.

Are the mums all friends? Sometimes that's the issue. Are you chatty/friendly with the other parents?

Otherwise, just carry on hosting. Unless all six other girls come from awful parents eventually she will start getting invited back.

Does she have friends from outside school, from clubs/activities. That's really important, so focus on building that too if she doesn't have it at the moment.

I work strange hours so never do drop offs. At collection time I need to be in 3 playgrounds at the same time, so don't ever chat to the other parents to be honest!
Although most weeks we bump into her friends on the walk home and end up bringing them for tea as we live a couple of doors away from school.
It's just hard seeing her upset.
She does activities out of school so makes friends, but these never turn into play dates etc as usually from different schools.

Are all the other parents friends? Do the kids play well when they come round or do they walk all over her? Who is asking for the playdates - the girls or the parents? Maybe ask her teacher who she really plays with in school and what the dynamics of the group are like.

I would gently encourage her to widen her net - are there any other girls she might like to ask to play from school, or could she do some out of school activity - if she doesn't already - so she can form other friendships and is then also less available?

I would start knocking back a few of the invites and being subtly less available. Treat your dd in other ways on those evenings doing something the two of you or with siblings or family friends.

That said if she enjoys having the girls round and you think it may be the parents excluding her, then have them round occasionally, but give your dd space to develop other friendships too.

If she's friends with these girls in school and no problems, then my guess is the mums are friends and aren't inviting her because they don't know you very well.

Yeah I'm wondering if it's more the parents. The class was mixed up this year and she's with lots of girls who were already friends.
It's the girls suggesting the play dates after school and they'll come over and put me on the spot and ask me along with my dd if they can come over.
Maybe I do need to be less available. Teacher said she's not noticed any tension and she appears to have lots of friends. But then they'll arrange parties and group activities and not invite her which makes her really sad.

My first thought is that those parents are friends. I tend to have my friends kids over a lot or share lifts with them just because it is easier. I would continue having them over. Maybe do something like bring the whole friendship group to the cinema or for pizza. There will be at least 1 parent who will reciprocate. If you invite all 6 to do something, you’ll be able to watch the group dynamics and see if you can figure out what is going on.