Reception child’s friendships

[SereneDeer]

Is it normal to feel very invested in your kid’s friendships? I think I’m probably more invested than he is 😂my almost five year old has a ‘best friend’ in reception that seems to be a bit fickle and my child will often say this boy was ‘playing with his other best friends today’ and not him. Which is fine - obviously I want to encourage my kid to have lots of friends anyway and not just one best friend he spends all his time with. But I feel like I’m too worried about this, that his best friend is pulling away and that my child will be sad. I like the other kid and they are very cute together. They used to play together every day. I’m a bit of a control freak which is probably where this is coming from. But I just want my kid to be happy and I guess I liked the idea of him having a ‘best friend’ because it meant he was settling in well and happy.

I would say that what you're feeling isn't unusual. But it's also not particularly healthy.

Your DS will have so many friendship ups and downs in his life. It's really unlikely that he and his current BF will stay BFs for life, let alone through school. What might help is building faith/ belief that your son is able to cope with these ups and downs, including the sadness that might come with feeling left-out or a friendship ending.

Also worth exploring where these feelings come from. Because, as they get older (mine are now 10 & 12) the friendship stuff plays a bigger and bigger part in their life and for your own sake, as much as his, you need to figure a way to not take it all to heart!

I don't think I gave it much thought at that age really. From my own memories from primary school, friendships were very fickle at that age and school populations are transient (especially where we are, in London). I've seen parents put tons of effort into play dates and making friends with the other mum, then the friendships change if another child joins and becomes firmer friends with one, or the family move away and all that effort has been for nothing.

I found it more useful to build a variety of social networks through lots of different activities so my dcs had a range of good friends in different contexts, that gave them flexibility to mix with a broad range of people so they could make new friends anywhere.