Year 1 best friend leaving

[Catherinezzzz]

It looks like my very shy 5 year old DD's closest friend will be leaving her school soon. She has a couple of other friends but is very much on the periphery of a group of girls. Many of the girls mums know each other really well outside of school and although they are friendly enough don't seem too interested in reciprocating playdates so I have sort of given up. Any ideas? Feel so worried and sad for her!

I would make a big effort with the other school Mums. I would also do more play dates even if they are not reciprocated. Can you join the PTA?

We had that in nursery (twice) and despite my agonising over it, in the end our DD made other friends and was totally fine. We also made a massive push to host play dates at our place. I hear your concerns, ours were not reciprocated either, but they worked for my DD which is what I was focused on.

We're now in year 1 and her best friend told her last week that she doesn't want to play with her any longer because she spent enough time with her in Reception and now she wants to hang out with two other girls. She came home very upset for a couple of days (said she "really wanted to cry at school, but tried very hard not to"... really hard to hear your child say that, right?). But now again seems to be forming relationships with other kids and we've made another big push with play dates to help her along.

Unfortunately there are no nuggets of wisdom with this stuff, all I keep telling myself is that this is life, they are getting important lessons about how to form and maintain relationships and ultimately despite always wanting to protect your child, unfortunately you can't shelter them from everything.

Keep up the play dates and hope for the best would be my advice!