Group of 3 girls friendship problems

[Mummabear04]

DD is 5 years old and coming to the end of her first year of school. She has been joined at the hip with a friend from nursery and they've had a lovely little friendship. Another girl joined their group but was for a period quite nasty to my DD. Saying mean things to her, spitting in her face and even choked her. When this happened I contacted the school and they dealt with it very well and the ill behaviour stopped. Fast forward to a couple of months later and both these little friends have been excluding my DD. She said that they left her by herself during lunch and then are picking on differences like she's not lost a tooth yet or doesn't have the same keyring etc. I feel so bad for my DD and have encouraged her to play with other friends but I'm not sure if her confidence is low or if she goes back to them because her 5 year old brain can't quite navigate the situation. She has been so sad all week and I feel awful for her (not letting her see that though). I've tried saying that it's important to have friends who are nice to you and to play with other friends but I'm not sure how to navigate this? I remember groups of 3 girls from school and it's always a bad mix.

I had boys so I'm not too familiar with girls friendships but isn't 5 awfully young to be going through this?

It seems more of a pre teen treatment.

No @DinaofCloud9 it's definitely a primary school thing IME. It happened to my DD twice in primary school (different threesomes!). In primary school there tends to be more of an emphasis on having a "best friend", so there can be two girls who both want to be "best friends" with the same third girl. Whereas in secondary school it's more about groups of friends.

How have you navigated this when its happened to your girls OPs? I need advice!

Hi OP, I think you are handling this well. My advice would be: have a quiet word with the teacher - you've done this. Encourage your DD to make other friends - you're doing this. Beyond that, I'm not sure how much you can do. You may just have to let your DD learn this for herself. It's such a hard part of being a parent, but to some extent we do need to let them make their own mistakes. We can't protect them from everything! It's painful to watch, but your DD is learning about how friendships work and that will be useful for her in future. It was for my DD, whose friendships in secondary school have been very good and supportive and drama-free - I think this is partly because of what she learnt from some tricky primary school experiences.

Why do people say ‘this is a girls thing’?

I have boys and I can assure Mums of girls, that I have experienced mean, name calling, ostracizing behaviour in my sons’ friendship groups too. All of the behaviours in fact, that popular imagination likes to think is ‘girls’ behaviour.

I agree. If a child does that in reception class I would not be encouraging any friendship with her as she gets older - it will get worse (and the original friend will soon find that out for herself).

Get your dd involved in outside school activities that build her confidence and encourage her to make friends with others in the class. She doesn't need a best friend...just friends - the more the better.

Really? I also have boys and this wasn't a thing at all.

A couple of mean comments and a bit of showing off but not leaving someone out and ganging up on one person.

Absolutely need to encourage more friendships - in and out of school - 5 yr olds don’t need best friends they need a wide circle of different friends that they spend time with. Builds confidence and self esteem which means she won’t rely in future on other people’s attention to feel good about herself.

My ds has had more friendship issues with jealousy and possessiveness of other kids etc than my dd ever had.

Yes really. Its the dominant, bigger boys in my experience who do this to the smaller or less dominant boys. You get the social ostracising bullying and then also the physical bullying. Boys get both.