Helping my daughter prepare for friendships changing when she starts school

[Confusedgirlmum]

Hi I'm after some advice. No hate please. First time momma who is permanently confused.

DD4 is starting school, she's going to the school attached to her playgroup. She will go with known peers.

She has one bestie who she adores.

At some point her bestie will want to play with other children and that's natural.

She has friends outside of playgroup and is quite sociable.

I want to prepare her for when the time comes that she will need to go and play with someone else and give her bestie room, but she doesn't seem to be able to separate her from her bestie given the choice. It can be both ways.

I've organised play dates with other children and she gets on fine and I've enrolled her in clubs (or will be ) she enjoys playing with anyone really. She's not a nasty character nor a dominant one.

Any tips on what else I can do?

I would just let her work this out herself when she starts rather than making a thing of it now.

Just let it happen. She may be the one going off with others! But don’t make her anxious in advance. Children work it out

They're 4, stop putting adult layers over everything and let her learn by doing. If she talks to you about it by all means comment. But until then, let her crack on.

I wouldn't mention it at all.
There's no point preparing such a young child for this. It'll probably upset her.
But do be ready to help her with her emotions if it happens.

Really?? Sounds like you’re expecting her to lose friends! Do you always expect the worst for her? My mum was always doing stuff like this because she thought no one would love me .

I wouldnt do or say anything to her about it. She sounds lovely and sociable and will be fine.

DS is only 7 but I’ve realised that I could spend every hour of every day worrying about him and his friendships. So I don’t (well, I try not to). Children learn and develop by navigating this kind of stuff themselves.

Are you a terribly anxious person? Just let it happen and advise, if necessary, at the time.

You're overthinking this.

Just go with the flow. It's a normal situation for children aged 4-5. They will work it out.

I think this is a situation where you wait to see if there’s an issue before you assume there will be. Friendships shuffle around and rarely how you’d expect. My daughter is still besties with her nursery bestie and I wouldn’t have guessed that 10 years ago. Unless she’s upset or struggling just let her figure it out.

You do nothing - let her work it out for herself.