Nursery bullying?!

[Danini]

Not sure what to think but my LG 3.5 yo has ongoing issues at nursery.

Child 1 (SEN needs, friend): hit her in the head, pulled her hair, slapped her with a toy, scratched her. All situations revolving snatching.

Child 2: bit her when she would not give away a toy

In addition my LG has shared that several girls has said that she is "not their best friend" to which I told her to respond "you are not my best friend either" Not sure if this has been only one occasion that she keeps repeating.

Today she told me a boy said she was not allowed to play with a group of children that included one of her best friends.

I didn't think bullying it would start this early?? How do you teach her to stand up for herself, I mean what can you answer to "you can't play with us". Surely it's mean but then you can't force anyone to be friends?

My LG has a mild speech delay (only recently started with full sentences) but no other signs of SEN. The nursery has had a big rotation in staff in the latest months and it does correlate with the above starting.

I don't think it is bullying.
It is small children learning to manage emotions.
They all need guidance. Labelling it as bullying age 3 or 4 generally won't be helpful.
Do go and talk to nursery about it all however.

It's not bullying, it's just small children being small children. Nursery should be picking up on it and encouraging being kind and gentle, but 3.5 year olds are not capable of premeditated bullying.

This is just standard toddlers being knobheads, I wouldn't call it bullying.

It's not bullying. Small children need to learn how to be around each other and how to communicate properly when something is not going their way. They don't just arrive at nursery knowing how to do that.

Agree it's not bullying.

It's not bullying, it's 3 year olds learning how to interact with each other.

The 'you're not my friend' is very common but isn't nice and should be discouraged rather than teaching your DD that this is the right way to interact with other children.

It’s not bullying, but it’s also not ok to let it continue. I’d be speaking to the nursery staff and asking them what they do in the moment, and how they prevent it happening.

My son went through a hitting stage. Nursery were great, they kept a close eye on him to see what triggered it (he was policing other kids behaviour!) and intervened early, preventing it, he got the idea and stopped doing it.

Absolutely normal 3 year old behaviour, I got so worried when my little one told me similar only to find out that she also behaves in the exact same manner. One day X is her best friend, the next day X is not the best friend and Y is.

Do however speak to the nursery so they can keep an eye on it, sometimes they address the whole group and talk about feelings etc.

Children say those kinds of things ALL the time. It’s used as way of trying to ‘bribe’ other children to be their friends or do what they want. At this age it is not bullying. ‘You can’t come to my birthday party’- is a very consistent theme among very young girls. It’s a way of trying to control a situation that they are still currently learning how to navigate.
Small children are usually coming from a place where people ( their parents) do mostly what they ask. Other small children don’t. So they need to learn ways to negotiate things. This kind of social media exchange is one of those ways.
If you feel she is being physically harmed you need to speak to them. Other than that, teach her to brush it off and find someone else to spend time with.

Many thanks for all your replies!

All DC do this, it is up to us to model the correct behaviour. Don't encourage her to mirror the behaviour.

The best friend thing was so annoying. Mine did that a bit earlier and was coming out of it just pass 3.5. Lasted months. He's 4 in Nov and I'm hoping we are on the other side..

You'll stop being their best friend too when you annoy them! Be glad it's just at nursery for now!