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.

It’s really shit seeing your child upset/left out etc but you cannot force a young child to behave in ways that they can’t fully comprehend yet. You also cannot expect another parent to ask their young child to placate another young child’s feelings. Even if an apology was exchanged at that stage, it would be forced and completely pointless.

Three year olds can’t grasp feelings and behaviours in the way we’d expect. They don’t have the same logic. Their empathy is barely emerging at this point.

You don’t really have any control over anyone else’s behaviour. All you can do is continue to teach and guide your own child. Fill them with love and reassurance so that these inevitable friendship differences get less upsetting as they grow. This is all part of their learning. Nobody is born perfect. We all have to make mistakes to get the hang of what it means to be a friend.

Sounds like you dealt with it well to be honest. Its just the over thinking / worrying after you need to change!

1. Taking an over stimulated child outside to calm down makes perfect sense. Remove her from the situation and give her some space.

1. As for the phone, I would have done the same. There is nothing wrong with using the phone or a tablet to distract and calm her down from time to time when you are in a situation like that.

Think you are over analysing and being hard on yourself. As for your friend not stepping in, my best friend and I often didn't step in with our children unless it got physical. We preferred to let them work it out themselves, and they always did! Maybe your friend is of the same mindset. You could try stepping back a bit with your daughter. We all want our kids to be gentle, polite, kind ect but it doesn't come natrually. Let her work things out herself a bit while she is little and can get away with making mistakes and learning from them.

And dont be so hard in yourself

Over tired and you seem to be making a lot of excuses about your child’s behaviour. She had form for having tantrums so I think a morning out plus a party was just too much. It’s not up to the other mother - who DID try to get her DD to include yours but your DD was not willing to share her it seems.
You need to reduce your expectations around what your DD can cope with and also how other kids act.

I know it's heartbreaking to see your child upset like that, but it's all normal behaviour for that age. And I didn't see any instances of "crappy parenting". Not from you, nor your friend. It sounds like you did the right things. It's a shame the day didn't go the way you and your DD imagined it would, but that's life.

Even though you'd already arranged to stay over, I don't think the other mum would have been offended if you'd have said, you know what, DD is exhausted, were gonna head home.

Plus you're 35 weeks pregnant too!

This sounds really hard, and honestly I don’t think you did anything wrong. Your DD isn’t being naughty or spoilt, she’s a sensitive, intense almost-4 who had built this friend up in her head and then got overwhelmed when it didn’t play out how she expected.
Big, busy parties + rejection + tired kids is a recipe for meltdowns. You comforted her, removed her when she was dysregulated, and found a way for her to stay calm. That’s not bad parenting, that’s damage control.
I do think this particular friend/child dynamic just doesn’t work, especially when you’re always the one stepping in and your friend doesn’t. The fact this only happens with this one child says a lot.
Also… 35 weeks pregnant? Anyone would feel deflated. Be kind to yourself. Sometimes the best solution really is fewer playdates with people who leave you and your child feeling rubbish.

Is your DD neurodivergent @Mumoftwo8519 ? I'm asking because my DD is and I recognise so much if this behaviour when she was younger - not understanding and therefore not respecting social cues, difficulty shifting from one state or focus to another (eg your DD hyper focused on the friend), becoming overstimulated easily and subsequent meltdowns, and the pushing me away when inconsolable.

About that - as an adult now my DD has said that she would want me to comfort her and stay with her and she doesn't understand why she made it so difficult. She's laughed about it now how I couldn't have won, that it was an impossible situation for me.

So my advice would be to not leave her alone despite what she's saying, stay near and tell her you're staying near and not leaving her.
She's too young to handle those big emotions on her own and you need to step in sooner rather than later to remove her from the situation and help her regulate her emotions.

Don't give her so much credit, she might be emotionally intelligent for her age but there only so much EI a 3 year old can have.

Also just want to add that despite my DD being autistic she also has empathy and emotional intelligence. But she also struggles managing those emotions because she feels everything so deeply and fully.
And sometimes she has great self awareness and other times she doesn't.

The pub example, you didn’t take anything for your child but your friend did, so her child had to share and didn’t want to, as is her right!

I disagree with this. If it were my child with the toys and their buddy didn’t have any, I’d be encouraging him or her to share with their friend.

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.

And OP, stop being hard on yourself - what you describe here isn’t judgmental at all! If it were my child I would have gently encouraged them to include the child who didn’t know anybody, so long as they wanted to and the other child was respecting their boundaries (which to be fair to the other mum, sounds like it wasn’t the case here).

Dear me, is this girl friendship dynamics? 🤣
My nearly 3 year old doesn't even have a paticular friend
He just plays around everyone lol

That day was too long and over stimulating for small kids. Taking their meltdowns and behaviour as a result of being tired and overstimulated (and little) to heart is a bit silly, and something you probably need to work on.
It's not that deep, simple and easy activities in small doses. End the activities when behaviour is deteriorating, behaviour is communication. She is telling you it is too much, time for rest and quiet. Nothing that happened here is a personal attack.

You’ve been told by nursery that your Dd is very emotionally intelligent and you can see that for yourself too as she is empathetic, kind and helpful.
But still, at four years old, she can’t always be expected to consistently perform at her very best. She’s still practising her social skills and will be for a long time, so it’s best to expect the odd blip and slip up, where you have to confidently guide her along to a new understanding and acceptance of other children’s behaviour.

You admit also that she has big feelings and sometimes feels overwhelmed. All in all I would say she is a typically behaving child trying to find her way socially through play dates, special events, and parties as a guest. etc. And her little friend sounds much the same….both lovely children. is a very steep learning curve at that age.

Your Dd did well on the day to enjoy a lovely day playing one on one with her friend but expected total exclusivity at the party and was then puzzled and disappointed that it didn’t naturally work out that way.
It was bound to happen OP. it’s hard for a newcomer in an already stablished cohesive group. Even as adults, we may find those situations daunting.

Maybe your expectations were a little too high for both children.
Nobody did anything wrong. And you dealt with it well, as best you could.
Nothing at all to be concerned about so don’t be upset about it any longer.

You should have asked your friend for the house keys at this point. Your daughter was clearly over stimulated from 2 activities.

Oh god, you have a long parenting road ahead of you if this has taken up so much headspace. Would you like someone grabbing your hand and pulling you around? Your daughter sounds lovely, but completely overwhelming for the other child. I'm not sure what your friend could have done - force their child to play with yours in the village party? She didn't want to and needed space.

Happens with boys too, they just get there later.
Also there’s a big difference between a nearly 3 year old and a nearly 4 year old in terms of friendships. Not a sex thing, an age thing.

You both need to become a little more resilient when things don't go your way.

Sounded like your daughter needed some space but you nearby for when she was ready. 2 things to remember is that there can be a lot of difference between nearly 4 and a few months over 4. The girls ages maybe out of sync atm, but will realign again soon. And your friend is also a first time parent so you can't expect her to be perfect.

Nails it.

Also be kinder to yourself, you tried different strategies to help your daughter and did the best you could!!! Your What emotionally intelligent for a 4-year-old but she's still a 4-year-old and sometimes there is no reasoning with them 😅 Also, I do think it's harder when they don't want you when they're upset. One of my children was like that and as a mother your first instinct is to try and give them a hug or something and it's really hurtful when they push you away so that's property making you feel worse. I don't think you need to feel bad at all.

Many years ago I facilitated some parenting classes as part of a programme I did whilst training to become a counsellor.
I don’t remember much of it but I do remember’ you can’t reason with an emotionally flooded child’ .
That applies if they are having a tantrum or a meltdown. You have to allow them to vent You say something like ‘I can see you’re upset/ angry’ ( ie validating their feelings) , and then let them be ( removing them from any environment where they may be causing a disturbance.

OP my first reaction to your post was that you were massively over-reacting and over thinking the entire situation.

Then I cast my mind back to when my first DC was 3/4 years old and remember stressing over all kinds of issues when she was on play dates (different ones to you as my DD was very shy and would not easily play with others which made me incredibly stressed as my friends DC were very sociable and similar to your DD) She is now 12 so I had to really think back. She’s now absolutely fine socially, has no issues making friends and eventually became quite the chatterbox. Just to say that issues that loom large when they are small and dominate your thoughts quickly disappear as they get older.

You’ve had some great advice and you’ve taken it all on board so I won’t add to it. I think you’ll find it easier with your second. I didn’t worry at all about DC2 and these kind of play issues as I knew any issues that arose were temporary. And truthfully this is also because as is common with the poor neglected second DC, he wasn’t taken out as much on play dates etc!

I wonder if your DD can sense that you are anxious about the whole situation as well and that's why she ran away from you? Maybe she misinterpreted it as you being upset with her or just not being a calm space to go to. Not a judgement on your parenting but I'm just guessing here as this is why I rarely wanted my mum (and still don't) when I'm upset because I felt she made the situation worse by pitying me or just getting anxious and making me feel worse.

A key learning for you would be that you now know your DD is not as socially confident as you think she is, and you need to avoid putting her in situations where she might feel overwhelmed, left out or jealous. This is the adult's responsibility to their own child, to know their limitations and set them up for success.

The other key here is you need to teach your DD that she is not to touch someome else without their consent. Her friend was within her rights to refuse to be held.

Sometimes distraction is the only way & to show them that there's other fun things to do if a friend starts doing their own thing. You have to be proactive and distract yours - get her interested in something else equally adventurous and don't focus on how upset she is.

I had to learn the art of distraction & it really is a useful tool (even for adults), you have to lead them by the hand and be curious about everything x