am I worrying unnecessarily about my sons school friendship

[liveforhols]

My son is in yr 1. a class of 30 kids predominantly boys. Most of the boys play in groups of which my DS 'used' to belong. However DS has become friendly with boy x. This child has attached himself to DS and wants to play with DS all the time. DS has on occasions told this child that he wants to play with the others but boy x is determined to come between any other playmates telling DS that he is not allowed to play with anyone else - only him all of the time! DS is a kind, lovely boy who wants to please every body. He doesnt want to upset boy x but recently DS is not being asked to parties from his class mates even from the group of boys he says are his friends. I am concerned he is not mixing and could really do with some advice. Has anybody had an experience like this? does it sort itself out? my sister had a similar experience (30years ago) and went through school with no other friends.

ouch! No real advice I'm afraid. Could you invite some of the other kids over for a playdate , even including boy x if need be?

Sounds like the other boy may be dominating him a little - would having a word with the school to try to encourage separation help at all? It would bug me too so I don't think you worrying unnecessarily

my friends dd had this same problem and the friend would get nasty when her dd wanted to play with someone else, even to the point of calling her dd etc..i would speak to teacher and ask her to keep them seperated as much as poss as its causing concern to you and for your ds

The other boy obviously wants a special friend because school may be freaking him out and he doesn't want to lose that special friend which is understandable; however he may not tell your ds that "he is not allowed to play with anyone else". That's not on and I would take that comment to the teacher asking her if she could bring that up and if she could place ds in a position (via seating, group work, joint monitoring tasks if your school has jacket monitors and so on) to build up relationships with other boys.

I would also work against it outside of school by sending him to sport or similar activities together with other boys he likes from his class (ask the mums to find possible joint activities).

I think you do need to try to invite others over. my ds1 was witha friend like this, and then ended up completely on his own once the boy in question moved on to another friend a year later.

This has happened twice with my DS - a child he knew from nursery being very jealous and possessive and telling DS he wouldn't be his freind if he played with xy and z etc, and a child who tries to ply him away from other friends.

I have coached him to be direct and assertive about it, and say 'I am friends with you AND friends with xy and z. You can play with me AND them, but if you try and tell me not to play with other people, you are not being very friendly'.

Recently he has had to ask a boy not to physically pull him away from his other friends - he said 'stop doing that please, and never do it again. We can all play together'.

It seems to be working.

That is a very good approach blu, I like that

Thankyou all for your thoughts.We are trying your approach Blu but DS is not that confident in this sort of thing.Boy x also will physically pull DS away. The other thing is he does seem to enjoy boy xs company and he has the approach of 'any thing for an easy life' although he complains about the situation when he gets home. I have been into school about this before about 6 months ago although it does seem to be more of a problem now. Are schools able to separate children at play time?

Oh dear this is sounding horribly familiar

Dd is now in yr4 so I'm going back a bit here, but when she was in year1 a girl did exactly this with her.

Dd is sweet and didn't want to hurt the other girl's feelings but she eventually beacame isolated and very sad about being at school.

The friend was physically bigger and quite domineering and kept saying she wouldn't 'let' dd play with anyone else and that she could make her do as she wished . Dd began to lose touch with other children.

I started off thinking it would sort itself out and gave her confidence boosting talks on how to deal with the sitauation. Nothing worked and on reflection I really do regret letting it go on for so long. Please do have a word with your ds's teacher. I used to think oh this'll blow over but it didn't and every day it got worse.

I went to chat with the teacher and they said that dd was to go to a teacher or dinner lady in the playground if the friend started preventing her from seeing other people when she wanted to. The teacher also said she would place them apart in class.

I suppose that might have worked, but as it turned out the girl suddenly left to go to another school. Relief all round but dd has never allowed herself to become so intense or monopolised again.

DS went through this too in Reception with a boy he had been friendly with in Nursery. Was compounded by the fact that he when asked he said he wanted to play with X anyway. I spoke to the teacher as there were other issues with this boy also - some low level bullying of DS by him and I was aware from others that he was in constant trouble for fighting. His poor mother was at the end of her tether and the teacher was a bit weak but it did seem to sort itself out in the end. DS developed a passion for football that this boy didn't share so there was a natural separation for a while.