Feeling deflated after crappy parenting

[Mumoftwo8519]

like the title says, had a horrible parenting incident on Saturday which have left me feeling like a horrible mum.

For context, my DD is almost four. She’s always been hugely confident and very strong willed. She’s very sociable and makes friends easily. With these traits, I find she can get overstimulated really easily, where she struggles to listen and can become oblivious to her behaviours. But she’s also incredibly empathetic and kind hearted - shes very helpful, and can’t bear to see anyone upset and will be the first to cuddle and comfort them. Preschool have said she’s very emotionally intelligent. She has always been the best and most developed talker in nursery and preschool for her age group.

The incident happened on Saturday. We were staying with my old school friend, our daughters are 5months apart (hers 4 mine almost 4). We don’t see them a lot, maybe 3/4 times a year but my DD is obsessed with her daughter and talks about her most weeks! We had planned a Christmassy day out on Saturday at an attraction and all had a great morning. In the afternoon my friend had got us tickets to her local village hall Christmas party, I assumed there would be lots of her daughters school friends there but this didn’t bother me as my daughter will happily play with anyone. As soon as we got there my DD was super excited and holding hands with her friend running around. It didn’t take long for my friends daughter to spot her friends and started playing with them. My daughter was trying to play with her friend and hold her hand but my friends daughter was then shrugging her off and playing with other friends. My DD then went into complete meltdown because her friend wouldn’t play with her. Cue this triggering feelings of being left out when I was little so I felt so sad for her.
She was sat on her own crying on the side. I wouldn’t expect my friends daughter to understand that leaving my daughter out and not involving her in play would be upsetting. My daughter was then trying to grab her hand and play with her, at which point my friends daughter ran to her mum (my friend) to say my daughter was trying to pull her around. My friend sat her daughter on her lap cuddled her and asked her to play nicely. I said to her daughter that my daughter was excited to play with her that’s all and could she play with my DD as well as her friends.
My daughter was still inconsolable and literally wouldn’t go near me. (Why does she go extremely independent in these situations and see me as the bad one when all im trying to do is console her??)
It was heartbreaking to see her so upset. I said to my friend i think she’s upset because her daughter was leaving her out and that im surprised it was affecting her so much as usually she will just make a new friend. She replied saying yes it’s really weird her daughter was like this and that her daughter was usually shy.
My daughter continued crying for another 5 minutes and I eventually couldn’t bear it so took her outside to help her calm down. She was hysterical wanting to go back into the party. I practically had to drag her around the corner of the village hall to explain I would be fine with that if she would calm down and stop crying and asked her what was upsetting her so much. Through screaming and crying i explained to my DD that her friend could play with other children but to reassure her that it wasn’t kind for her friend to push her away so they couldn’t all play together.
we eventually went back into the party to exactly the same situation so I got my phone out and for the last hour my daughter was happy just watching cartoons. My friends daughter was then getting upset that my daughter wasn’t wanting to play but obviously I wasn’t letting that happen again so said nothing.

I feel upset my friend didn’t get up to help manage the situation when she could see what was happening, but appreciate she can’t force her child to play with mine. But I feel worse that my daughter was the one who got taken out of the party which probably made her feel like she was the problem.

That evening the girls played fine together on their own, but my friends daughter would cry intermittently when she didn’t get her own way or would ‘tell’ on my daughter for silly things. My friend just blamed this on tiredness and being an only child, but I don’t feel like the only child thing is an excuse because we have plenty of friends whose children are the only child and this sort of thing never happens. (My daughter has an 18m old sister). She also never corrected her daughters behaviour which im acutely aware of as I feel im always overcompensating in these situations and correcting my daughters behaviour.

when I think back to the last time we met up, I ended up taking my daughter outside in hysterics at the pub we were eating at because my daughter went into full on emotional meltdown. She had been playing with her friends toys and her friend was crying and saying my daughter wasn’t sharing (she was, we just didn’t take any toys with her so they only had her toys to play with). My daughter was made to feel like she was the one in the wrong, and got really upset because she thought she had made her friend upset and went into a full meltdown. Obviously i can’t leave a screaming child in a pub so we had to go outside. My friend made no attempt to tell her daughter to share or reassure my daughter.

I won’t be arranging anymore play dates with her as weirdly it’s only this one friend who brings out this side my daughter ( we have lots of play dates with friends whereas my friend doesn’t do play dates) which I absolutely am clueless on how to manage.

can someone help me to switch my thinking up, what am I doing wrong?
How can I help my daughter manage these big emotions?
how could I have handled the Christmas party situation better?

Im also 35 weeks pregnant so feeling extra sensitive at the moment, I find these situations overwhelming to say the least.

OP, I’m still trying to find the bad parenting moment - it just sounds like it was a full on day, and you got through it. I’ve got nothing but reassuring fist bumps over here. Please be kind to yourself - you’re doing great xx

I had a two year gap between my children and I remember finding incidents like these incredibly stressful when I was heavily pregnant and had a toddler.

You are tired, growing another human being and trying to parent a 3 year old - of course it's exhausting!

You do not need to think about this at all and you don't really need to avoid this child or parent either. Unless you honestly think the other mum is annoying in how she parents - but I would not judge her too quickly.

She is three. Little kids get tired and emotional over nothing much, and don’t understand social etiquette or placing other’s needs above their own. This is all very normal. Nobody did anything wrong and sometimes parenting little kids is like this. I’m not sure what your DD’s language and emotional skills have to do with this - but it sounds as if she is developing normally. Part of normal development is being over stimulated and having tantrums and at this stage your job as a parent is to help her balance her emotions. You did this by taking her away from the situation and letting her watch cartoons. All good. Rest and chill.

This is all very normal for the age and context of a highly over stimulating environment with novel competing friendships.

The only way you are handling it ‘badly’ is by overthinking and over managing the situation as well as taking it all too personally.

Catastrophising isn’t helping, Nothing bad actually happened to anyone in this scenario.

Your DD may not want to be babied when she’s upset, part of establishing boundaries to exert her autonomy.

Your friend also behaved fine IMO.

I'm not a fan of all this labelling of 'big feelings'.

She's just a tired three year old who didn't get what she wanted. I'm not saying that in a bad way, it can be anything from 'she won't hold my hand ' to 'you gave me the wrong coloured spoon' that triggers the same reaction in these circumstances.

I much prefer distraction. Pick her up, take her to the side, outside, toilet. Anything to provide a bit of space. Be level and calm. 'you can all play together. You've seen her all day, it's someone else's turn for a little while but she's still your friend. Let's get some cake'.

I think you are being completely unfair on your friend. You should have stepped in and made up something you needed her to help you with when it was clear it was all getting a bit much. But it's not a big deal or anything to dwell on. It's just one of the many things we learn from.

Thank you everyone, genuinely. I didn’t post to Mumsnet to hear what I wanted to hear, I needed perspective and appreciate the time you’ve taken to help me realise a few home truths.

My DD is my eldest and Ive no idea how to navigate these situations. I’ve never had to deal with the politics of 3/4yr olds clashing or situations on play dates where one has left the other out so it’s new to me, and thank god Im learning now before school starts.

I can see how Ive overreacted. Definitely expecting too much of my three year old, or that there was ever going to be a resolution to the situation at the party. Because there obviously wasn’t one.

I was expecting more from my friend to help the two girls play with each other and for her to ask her daughter to includmy daughter and I can see now how judgmental that is. It’s good for me to say that out loud!! This is me projecting my expectations on others but I’d be upset if someone thought the same of me. Im so used to my usually overconfident DD being full throttle and reining her in, but that’s not the experience other mums necessarily have and I need to really get on top of that - and my emotions.

Also, it should have occurred to me that too many activites would lead to this. It’s way too much for both of them, and especially when they don’t see each other that much. I was staying at my friends house overnight so we didn’t have the luxury of making a polite exit. At the party i had said to my friend we would leave the party and head to the pub earlier with my DD, but she was insistent on coming - I felt bad for making her and her daughter leave early too which is why we stayed.

Also, some have said how they’d hate it if their child was being pulled around by the arm. I would too! My DD was asking her friend to hold her hand. Every time the friend said no and ran away from her, my DD would get upset. I spoke to my DD plenty of times to tell her she only needed to ask once, let her friend go and play and we can play together etc. Only once did my DD take her hand and go to run to the other side of the room which is when the girl ran to her mum. She was probably very fed up of being asked if my DD could play with her and her friends, I can see that.

My crappy parenting comment came from the fact I absolutely could not console my daughter. I literally couldn’t talk to her or reason with her and she would run away from me if I approached her. She was more upset than I’ve ever seen her before, constantly crying in floods of tears for probably an hour. That’s why I felt like I had to take her out to help her calm down, but she was literally dragged out and that felt really rubbish to have to do that when she hadn’t misbehaved. It does still make me feel sad that in that situation I couldn’t help my daughter.

My DD didn’t know anyone at the party, but really wanted to play. My friends daughter kept running away from her and a few times pulled her friends into an adjoining room and shut the door behind her so my DD couldn’t see them. I was definitely helicopter parenting(!) so could see what was happening. This went on for about 30mins before I took my daughter out. I have no doubt my DD has done the same to her friends at some point as all three year olds do.

Finally, the pub and toys. I don’t really take toys to a pub. My daughter is usually content to sit and colour and play on the play equipment. It wasn’t a play date in that respect as I wouldn’t do a play date at the pub we were just in the area and agreed to meet up. The idea being we’d eat and after food my husband would take the girls to play on the pub park leaving me and my friend to catch up, which we did. My friends DD took a toddler handbag with bracelets and rings and a handful of small plastic animals. My friends DD was playing nicely with the animals and my DD, then got upset that my DD was playing with them. My DD couldn’t understand what she had done wrong and got upset that she’d upset her friend.

Oh, and I didn’t make a fuss out of this with my friend. She was pretty much oblivious and no crossed words were said, it was all very amicable and blamed on their age and tiredness. We had a lovely evening as we had planned to and she would not expect me to feel the way I have felt about this.
I will be more conscious about future play dates though, and keep them short and sweet and on mutual grounds if/when they happen again.

Its hard, especially with our first kids, to understand how best to handle these different situations. We are all just learning as we go.

Don't be too hard on yourself!

OP your a wonderful parent - look at your self reflection - wow!

your daughter is lucky

don’t dump the friendship

Oh my god I couldn’t make it through the whole post 🫠

I cannot imagine caring this much about the social dramas of two 4 year olds. Let it go OP and try to be less invested in shit like this. You and your daughter both sound intense.

Sounds like a nightmare and a lot of expectations from two 4 year old children, especially two who have different personalities and mothers who get upset.

My son is two, and his "best friend" has two other friends he sees less. I don't let him try and monopolise her and drag her around, she's a whole other person!

Funnily enough the 7yo next door is, in turn, obsessed with my son, and was upset at his birthday party because he was running around with the other 2yo ignoring her. Her dad took her home when she was clearly miffed by it.

If anything, you need to head off the "rejection" at the pass by encouraging a more moderate relationship!

It sounds like you’re trying to do way too much with an emotional child. With my DD we just did one activity all weekend. We’d never do two big activities in a single day, it would just end up with loads and loads of tears.

There’s nothing wrong with you or your DD, she’s just a child with big emotions that needs less stimulation.

You’re not a bad parent at all, it does make you feel sad when your child has no one to play with.
by the sounds of it, it was a very busy over stimulating day. They are both still so little, how they were both behaving was completely normal. Don’t write off play dates all together but next time I’d keep them maybe shorter and more chilled ❤

Your comment about my DD not wanting to be babied when she’s upset is really interesting. My instinct was to try and distract, console, cuddle, etc but Im clearly the last thing she wants. As I said, this is only the second time she’s got this upset and it’s just never occurred to me that to help her best is actually leaving her alone.
Im definitely learning to understand how to be the mum she needs rather than the mum I think she needs/wants.

Why did you get the phone out? Just take her home! She clearly wasn't enjoying the activity anymore and both girls sound really wound up and highly strung.

The OP and her daughter were staying at the friend’s house that night.

There is a period in time (from around 3 to probably 9/10 in my memory) when trying to merge groups of different friends doesn’t work!

School friends often take priority because they see them more but also you need to ensure your place

I realised this after Dd 4th birthday party. Another friend persevered with trying to mix school friends and her NCT friends for awhile and it didn’t work.

it comes back by the time they hit high school it is much easier

@Mumoftwo8519 also I suspect she may be distinguishing herself from her younger baby sibling

I couldn’t. We were staying at my friends house. All our stuff was there, and I didn’t want to not stay over i just wanted to get my DD out of the situation.
My friend was having a good time and when I said we’d head to the pub and have a few drinks there until the party finished, she was insisting she would come with me. I didn’t want to stop her or her DD from enjoying the party so got my phone out and my daughter was fine with that as a distraction.

Are you not making the play dates last way too long?
they were getting on fine to start with and then got fed up is how I would interpret it.

also you should have taken toys, it is unreasonable to expect the other little girl to share tbh they are only little and sharing is a skill made easier if both kids are sharing

This is so so intense to me.. you have done a seriously deep dive into your daughters social skills etc. She really is just four. It’s normal to be overprotective but honestly in your shoes I would have taken her outside to calm down like you did, then I would have gone back in and played with her myself, and then when the other kid was more social I would’ve let them get on with it. I find it strange she mentions this one child so often - is this child slightly older?? I don’t think your friend did much wrong although agree she could’ve encouraged her child to involve yours and been forceful about it. Another trick I’d do in your shoes it’s to take an epic toy in my bag to any group social events so that if your child is left out or not wanting to join in, you have something else they could do alone or with your help, something like this would diffuse the situation completely.

You sound very intense about social interactions, and it’s all linked to your dds personality by the phrasing of your first paragraph whim I find odd. I also have a nearly four year old and I’ve never seen things in the way you describe. If there’s someone who won’t play nicely, I would say to my son let’s go and look at this and I’d literally pick him up and take him on a wandering tour of wherever we are. I would guess you are also socially quite nervous and worried about what other people think- don’t be and especially not at 4. Don’t be too hard on yourself, your friend could’ve been a bit more help! Xx

Exactly this
you live and learn
we had these sorts of incidents at that age, sometimes we had to adapt the activity or keep visits short and sweet with some friends. They are still very little. I think a lot of it improves once they start school and get a lot more practice playing with other children and learning some give and take.

Agree aswell with all the comments saying you’re doing too much. Big effort from you to stay over at a friends - honestly with a four year old I feel they need consistency and that makes your life so so much easier aswell! Plus in situations where they cannot go on, you don’t have to give in to social pressure to stay etc but can put her first and say ‘thanks see you soon’ and head home x

I have a kid the same age and think all you described is normal behaviour. I don’t think the other mum lacked action, sometimes you have to let kids figure it their own dynamics and navigate these type of situations by themselves. Kindly OP, you come across bitter towards the other girl, who is also so small. I personally wouldn’t tell my kid that another child was “not kind” in a situation like this because there is clearly no malice. It just aggravates the situation.

it’s also clear that you and your friend have different parenting approaches and that rubs you the wrong way. Perhaps she thinks that her kid shouldn’t share her toys or involve your child if she doesn’t feel too - that doesn’t mean she is a poor parent.

It might help to reframe it from “punishing” her by taking her out to taking her out of a situation in which she was overwhelmed so she had the space to calm down - there’s no need for guilt about that. You as an adult needed time afterwards to reflect on the situation and go through the emotions surrounding it. She’s 3 so she’s just doing exactly the same but way more intensely and immediately.