Playing with more than one child

[Daphnesmate]

My dd (5) has befriended another child at school and I think she sees her as a sort of special friend. Anyhow, another child wanted to join in and my dd was a bit unkind because she wanted her friend all to herself.
I'm not sure how to approach this. I have had a chat with dd and told her I used to have a group of friends (naming them) and how we used to have fun because there was four of us and on each day we took turns in deciding what game we were going to play: x would chose to play tag, then y would choose to play hide and seek the following day, you get the picture.
The thing is even as adults, and I have seen it here on mumsnet where people moan when a coffee is set up with one particular friend and then another is asked to join them, doesn't go down too well and tbh might annoy me a bit on occasion but obviously I need to encourage inclusion. Sometimes children have asked her to play and she has said no. It seems like a difficult thing to do with this age dc, to teach them things like this, especially when dc sometimes only sees in black and white as it were and can give answers to her actions matter of factly. Anyone else experienced this, any advice greatly appreciated.

It sounds like a possessive relationship and I would try and talk to the teacher about it. Especially if DD has been unkind to another child. The teacher/TA might be able to set up play where other children are involved and monitor play time. It’s lovely to be friends but you must explain that children need lots of friends. It is, of course, quite a difficult concept when you are young! If this special friend rejects your DD at some stage, it will be devastating. Invite other children round to play? Broaden DDs horizons a bit.

Thanks Bubbles. Yes, I am in discussions with the teacher. I have explained to dd that it is great to have a few friends - there is always someone to play with if a friend is off school (and she gets this, she told me this was a reason for having a few friends). I also explained that it is possible to play lots more games with a group of friends, I'm unclear why dd has honed in on this particular child at the moment as I'm not sure what they have in common.

My daughter could also have underlying issues, we are awaiting an assessment to check this out. Most of the posts on here are about how to deal with the 'awful' possessive child whereas I could do with hearing from a few people who have been on the other side of this...was there a diagnosis for your dc or was it something that your dc matured and grew out of, it is difficult to tell at this age.
I am much, much better in 1:1 situations, I'm not keen on group situations where there are anymore than 3 of us, so it is difficult to tell whether it is a personality thing or something else. Meanwhile dd is getting into trouble (with other parents complaining) about the way dd is handling interactions and as her parent it is so stressful because you obviously want what's best for your child too and you want them to be happy. Unfortunately, at the moment dds teacher sees her as very confident and not that it could be the reverse. DD is brilliant with children both younger and older than herself, it is children of the same age that she struggles with. Teacher is closely monitoring but I just want an assessment to take place a.s.a.p., every day is like, okay what's going to happen today then and it is never anything particularly bad but enough for other children to complain and then I get the latest update. However, it is only recently that these issues have started to be addressed, so hoping there is some improvement soon.

I feel for you and I do hope she can be helped via the school. I think monitored play might help. Can the school actually observe what is happening?

My DS is the same age and although he's not possessive as such (as far as I'm aware) he definitely hones in on particular people to be friends with (even when they're not as keen as him) and seems to only play with that person. I think it's fairly normal at that age, but I often talk to my DS about the importance of being friends with lots of people so there's always someone to play with. The school also has a 'no best friends' approach, i.e. encourages children to be friends with everyone, so that helps I think. I try to encourage DS to play with someone different every day, and will ask after school who he played with, other than so and so.

Thank you, it's work in progress, so difficult to work out what is 'normal' behaviour and what isn't at this age.

@MumUndone my older son is exactly the same at nearly 5 and it really worries me. He seems pretty resilient to brush offs but I do worry he's going to get hurt if it gets too one sided. It definitely seems to be a lot less emotionally charged than some of the girls' friendship triangles I've witnessed however, which seemed to start being problematic right from about age 3! OP you sound to me like you are doing all the right things.

Thanks, I have to say although the teacher is monitoring the situation she hasn't been any good at putting strategies in place...more like telling the dcs to be kind, play together etc. whereas dd needs some specific things to say, for example if she doesn't want to play, perhaps a quiet place to go to etc.

I must confess our experience is of our DD having a possessive friend rather than being one, but our son is autistic and has had his own friendship issues. I'm assuming you're angling towards autism or something similar for your DD. If it's something else, disregard my comments below. Of course you may disregard them anyway

My DD's (excellent) teacher pulled about 7 of them aside and gave them all the task of trying to play with different people each lunch and break. The idea was they'd swap within that group - they were all nice kids trying to do as the teacher asked them, so they cooperated to fulfil the task set. It had some success. It wasn't a magic cure but it helped. If your daughter is autistic, a task-based approach like that might play to her strengths. The solution wasn't about one child changing their behaviour, it relied entirely on collaboration.

It might also help to push the kindness angle. Even if her social understanding is a bit behind, she may well be able to take on board that including other people is kind and therefore we should do it. You can even role play and put her in the role of a third child wanting to join in. My autistic child is a fantastic sharer and he is kind. He just has a rather more structured approach to showing these qualities than the more intuitive NT approach. He's been taught the "rules" and he takes them very seriously.

Each child is different but I can see your arguments not working on my DS. You say a bigger group is better for the days the preferred friend is away. DS would think yeah, but generally they're here. Why should I share my friend every day, just for the once or twice a term when they're away? Much better to keep them to myself 99% of the time and put up with the odd day of loneliness. Also, you suggest a bigger group means different games. My DS would just say he doesn't want different games, he wants to play "Game X" which only needs 2 people, therefore he should play in a 2 every day and never invite the extra child. I can totally see why you're bigging up what's in it for her in sharing the friend. Ordinarily it's a great tactic, but take care with unforeseen logical consequences. Whereas all child need to be encouraged to be kind and look after their classmates. Sorry for the essay.

Anemone.

Thank you for your comments, all this stuff is very useful to know. Autism, is one of the things that I am looking out for.

The teacher observed dd is a group of girls - 5 to 6 of them and noted no difficulties yesterday. It is so hard for me to get my head around what is actually happening especially unfortunately because I suspect a bit of a witch hunt is taking place with one main antagonising parent (whose child, and I shouldn't say this isn't the brightest) whereas my child is. I'm not saying dd is blameless - she has a lot to learn, especially in groups (she has never been good at sharing) but she is trying to take things on board bless her and she is only 5. I have done a bit of role play and telling her how I used to play with my friends when I was a girl, she seemed quite taken by this.

Thanks once again, I would be interested to know if anything else comes to mind, it does sound like my dd might be similar to your ds. DD seems to have good days and bad days, I feel extremely stressed by all of this at the moment but at least it is being monitored.

I think you might need to step back from this a bit. Friendship issues can loom large at this age but they also get resolved and forgiven quickly. At 5 (and all through primary, really) it's not usually appropriate to apportion blame. They are all still really little and still learning their social skills, and unfortunately they will be on the receiving end of their peers' immature social skills for some time. The playground can be a bit brutal in infant school! That is not to say we sit back and do nothing - we do need to help them learn - but I think teachers tend to be more able to take an objective stance and suggest a way forward that is fair to all, and not about apportioning blame.

It is really difficult when parents get over-invested in their children's friendships, and it sounds like you have another parent doing that here. I'd suggest a grey rock "yes we're trusting the school to deal with it" type approach, and continue to take any problems to school rather than talking to parents direct. Parents, I think, find it difficult to appreciate how different another child's side of the story will sound. 5 year olds will rarely lie, but they have their own very particular ways of looking at the world.

I think that's what is happening here, a couple of parents are getting over invested. I have a much older child and with that comes experience, I was probably like it with my first but is hard when parents are complaining and whinging over very minor things. I hadn't thought to report any of these kid like interactions where others people's children have done some minor indiscretion but unfortunately, I feel compelled to in order to point out that it isn't just dd, it is others too. Tricky when you are dealing with gossipy, immature and inexperienced parents, I would never approach anyone directly, the teacher should no better though, I think she does really because she didn't report these incidents to me at the time because she believed them to be so petty and minor. I am having to drip feed how to deal with different scenarios with dd and I think she is taking stuff on board, I don't want to squash her confidence or personality, I think it will stand her in good stead later in life, the main difficulty is, she can be quite blinkered in her thinking and knows what it is that she wants to do without considering anyone else usually.

Our family rule is "always be kind" and part if that is being open to letting people join your games. The school promote this too. I generally think it's best for kids to have a range of friends rather than focusing on only one best friend.