Falling out with friend over childs development

[2under3inkent]

Good afternoon.
My friend has a son who is close friends with my son they both attend pre-school together. We were both told they had some speech delay at around 2 and a half. Today I spoke to the teacher and she said my son is progressing really well and blossoms when he is not around my friends son. My friend has been told that her son has made no progression. They have made a decision to split them apart as they also both share a key worker. I just feel awful. It sounds bad but I feel an element of guilt that my son is progressing. And my friend now seems really angry that my son has improved. I just don't know how to handle it. I am so proud of my son but the look my friend gave me when were told made me feel terrible. They get on so well so thats why we were both called in to explain the change.

They probably shouldn't have had you both in together to deliver that kind of news. I can see why friend is annoyed, it sounds like her son was demonised a bit! Did they actually say that your son is blossoming when her son is not around?

Splitting them up sounds like the right thing to do. Give her some space, SEN is such a hard thing to come to terms with.

Yep that exactly what they said and I thought it was just wrong to say. I would have muched rather have had seperate meetings.

The nursery handled it wrong. I'm not surprised your friend is upset but she shouldn't be upset with you. It's likely that the two dc were becoming over reliant on each other and perhaps one was communicating for the other. By giving them more independence it is likely to have a positive impact on their communication as they will have to communicate more with others.

When my DS2 was at nursery I always knew which day he played with his friend "Fred" (not real name) because his speech suddenly became incomprehensible to me. But it was only for 1 morning a week, and I knew the cause, partial deafness due to repeated ear and throat infections, which was fixed with tonsillectomy, trimming adenoids and grommets, and then speech therapy afterwards for the developmental catch up afterwards.

Even the nursery staff were unable to understand the pair of them if they squabbled, not an understandable word between the pair and would just take away the offending toy which seemed to solve the problem.

I suspect if they were together every day then they too would have been split up. It does neither child any good if they bring each other down. Hopefully her son can start to make progress soon.

If she says anything just push back to the staff, "they're the experts and I'm sure want the best for both boys."