Girls friendships..

[rideyourbike]

My Dd is in year 1 and generally having a great time at school. She has lots of friends, girls and boys, and one particularly close friend I will call Zoe. My Dd says she and Zoe are best friends, but then the next week Zoe will say she isn't my daughters best friend and won't play with her, as she is playing with her new best friend. This changes week to week and it's obvious to me that these 3 girls should all hang out together! When do girls settle into friendships that don't cause too many tears? What are your experiences?

Never! I distinctly remember the switching and changing of friends way into secondary school. It did settle down alot by yr9 onwards, but then all changed again in 6th form. Us girls !!!

Oh no. I was thinking that I'm not really friends with anyone I knew in primary. My Ds just plays in a big group of friends, no problem. Girls are complicated eh?

My sister seemed to settle down with it in year 4 and at the end of year 5 she's still best friends with the same girl I say hopefully coz I've had enough of reception DDs friendship dramas already

My 8yo has a couple of friends who she is always friends with... but the rest of the girls are either her new best friend, or she doesn't like them at all. I don't try to keep up.

DD2 (yr 5) has a best friend that she's had since Reception, and a handful of other good friends in a pretty stable group. DD3 (yr 3) has several girls in her class who do the whole 'you're not my best friend today/if you want to be my friend you can't be her friend' etc etc. DD keeps out of all that but it does seem to mean she doesn't have any particular friends and no one ever chooses her for a partner etc . Makes me sad sometimes but one thing I've learned over the years is that you can't make their friends for them. The funny thing is, with all my DDs, if they ever meet one of their schoolmates outside of school for whatever reason, they get on very well, even if it's a girl they never play with at school.

I try not to fret too much because IME it's the friendships they make at secondary school that are more lasting - I'm not in touch with any of my friends from primary school (though my mother is still friends with some of their mothers :) ), but I've known my best friend since we were 11.

It's not just girls. DS falls out with his best-friend-since-Reception pretty much every other week (and they are in Y5).

DD and her group of friends don't seem to do the best friend thing so much, they just tend to play with whichever friend is currently in favour and cycle round the group.

It's constant with my DD (yr2) She does have a 'best friend' but they fall out quite a bit and DD will often say she's being mean to her (which I do take with a pinch of salt knowing how DD can be!)

I'm fully expecting this to continue as I have quite a few friends with older girls I just try to be supportive and help her to work through friendship issues. It's a tiny school though and DD only has 4 girls in her year so there is nowhere to go when they do fall out with each other!

Agree the friends made at secondary school tend to be lasting ones.