My DD is four and her "best friend" has suddenly gone cold on her

[Aurora5]

Hello!

Wondered if anyone had any advice on this. My DD is four and very sociable. I've noticed she tends to have one close friend among a group - she had one at her first nursery from the age of one, until that child left at three!

She started a new nursery in Feb and got very close to one girl. We went on holiday recently and she talked about her a lot, got presents for her to bring home. So I suggested a first play date between them this weekend, which appeared to go well (I was around all the time and there were no fights).

But since the play date, this girl hasn't played with her at all at nursery. Last night just before DD went to sleep she said "I didn't have a very good day today - X didn't play with me." I felt really sad and immediately started garbling about how she would make lots of new friends at school in September (this girl will also be in her class).

Today when I took her in, the girl ran up as though nothing had happened and grabbed at her to come and play. My DD went really quiet and clung to me. I felt that she was confused by the affection suddenly coming back.

It makes me really sad and I'm not sure what to tell her. I wondered if there were any ideas - as she is only four it seems so young. I don't want her to lose trust in friends. She seems very consistent herself, in her affection for people.

Op you’re too invested in normal playground stuff. Be breezy and let it go, you’re over thinking it

Try not to think too much about it, I bet when you pick her up today it'll all be forgotten about.
My daughter also tends to cling to 1 friend and there have been a few incidents like this and where it's gotten a bit awkward with 3 girls and dd only wanting to play with one of them. I just say something like that's okay though x can have other friends too and maybe she was just having a bad day and didn't fancy playing so if she doesn't want to play tomorrow maybe you could play with Rachael or Hannah etc because it's nice to play with the other boys and girls too

Agree with pp. They're four! Chill out!

The other child just didn't want to play with your DD that day, that's it, no big drama.

Don't encourage your DD to become fixated on one child. Don't allow buying gifts for just one child, if you must buy gifts (totally unnecessary) then a get a bag of sweets to share with the class. Don't have just one child back for playdates.

You're over invested and inevitably that's feeding through to your DD.

Thanks all! I agree that I'm probably overly invested and definitely worry about it too much (though I've not said anything to reveal that). Just to be clear, it's a small nursery group (ten) and two entire days of being ignored by someone that you had just had a play date with in your house the day before, after months of spending every day with them. So it's definitely confusing and upsetting for her, which is what I'm noticing. Thank God for school in September and new people!

This is also the age when they want to be a wolf or a packet of crisps when they get older.
Things flux and change.

At any age tell her that it's normal to play with other people and that it's good to have lots of friends.

They're four! Don't overthink this

4???? Calm down, it is going to be a very long life you are this invested in friends that are not yours

I find after further probing, Jack didn't want to play with me generally means Jack wanted to play Farms with Jamie and I wanted to play cops and robbers and then had no one to play with because I didn't want to play farms. Or I'll get, they wouldn't play with me, or they left me out. But it really means we wanted to play different things.

Our Nursery uses ‘We have good friends’ rather than ‘best friends’.

Try not to attach adult meaning to young children's behaviour. The other child can choose to be with other children and that's OK. If she struggles to join in with others ask staff to help her with this rather than being reliant on one person. Perhaps don't use language around best friends or special friends.

I'm probably overly invested and definitely worry about it too much (though I've not said anything to reveal that).

@Aurora5 , the fact you’re posting about it at all shows you definitely worry too much. They are both 4. Next week one might have a new soul mate for all of 3 hours and then be an airplane for the rest of the week.

They aren’t rational, they are elemental beings who live in the now. Everything is wonderful or heartbreaking or scary or too bright or where’s my teddy?

Perhaps after a play date this wee lass’s DD level was full and needed a couple of days with other friends to want to top it back up again.

Help your daughter be resilient and don’t overthink things.

You need a spreadsheet to work out who is friends with who at that age. Until 5 minutes later when it all changes.

I'd encourage your daughter to play with a range of others - it's not great that she's so reliant on one child. Although 10 is a very small group (which is why small groups are not the idyll some people think they are).

Thanks all. I'm not really the mad neurotic mum I appear, I promise! Maybe it's unusual that she's adopted one-on-one friends since she was a baby, but school will encourage more flux and groups. She does get on with everyone but they're always seems to be one girl that she 'loves". I guess my main concern was whether or not to talk about this friend if she brings it up, as I worry that washing over it can be confusing, like saying it isn't real.

That’s quite controlling.

I was the same as was my mother and my daughter is the same too. No need to apologise for it and in the end, she’ll make incredibly close and special friends in her life that outweigh all this popularity and having lots of friends banter. She sounds sensitive which I believe is a good thing though it’s easier to feel hurt. Be there for her and encourage her to enjoy herself.

It's ok to talk about it if she brings it up, and I agree with you not to pretend it didn't happen. But be breezy about it - "that's a bit disappointing DD. Maybe tomorrow you can play with Sophie instead."

Thanks very much both - really appreciate it

Today when I took her in, the girl ran up as though nothing had happened and grabbed at her to come and play. My DD went really quiet and clung to me. I felt that she was confused by the affection suddenly coming back.

You are reading far too much in to this. I've taught four year olds for decades.

As a pp has already said, 'someone doesn't want to play with me' more often than not means that they want to play different things at that moment in time.

Honestly, you need to back away from her friendships. You will implode when the year three shake up happens.

Strap yourself in. It's going to be rough. Girls and friends are a minefield. It gets bad in y5/6. At least at this age their intentions are pretty innocent!

Sorry I just realised that's not reassuring at all!!

You need to teach her that it's better to have a group of friends rather than 1 and that it's perfectly ok to not play with you every single day.

We talk about our “friendship boat” and how theres lots of space for all our different friends on it, sometimes one of our friends gets off for a bit but thats ok because there are so many still on the boat to play with. There was an issue with Dd only playing with one child at a time, one of her friends got quite upset with her. I try to encourage her to include groups of kids and whoever wants to play, I really don’t like the idea of her being overly attached to one person.

Yikes. I’ve always had one special friend and I prefer it that way. What’s all this group business?

@PinkyPonkyLittleDonkey having group of friends hopefully helps prevent too many fall outs. If one doesn’t want to play one game you can play with someone else. Stops things getting too intense