Lond post-girls friendships again!

[colie]

Sorry Dinny-know you have a thread going at the moment along a similar line. Hope you don't mind me posting as well.

DD is in yr2 (nearly 6 and a half).
She has always played with a group of about 7-10 girls. The leader I will cal X and a newly developed right hand man B. B has been on the scene for past 6 months or so.

Anyhow, dd invited her friends including X and B to her birthday party last June. X then had her party in Sept and didn't invite DD (second year in a row).

End of Sept I had B back for tea, stupidly thinking it might help their friendship. B's mum stayed and we chatted. All seemed fine. Then in October dd started complaining to me about B, saying she was always telling on her etc. Thought typical girl stuff. One day whilst they were playing after school all the telling started and my dd ended up in tears. The next day B's mum and I had a talk to the girls and told them to be nice to each other. I was surprised when B's mums said "you's don't have to be frineds but be nice" . The way my dd acted and spoke about B I thought they were friends.

Eg. If they see each other on way to school they hold hands and chat excitedly going in. Apart, from that day, they seem to play nicely together after school. ACtively looking for each other to play with.

When X is on the scene then, dd is dumped a bit and I see her having to sort of stand a bit more outside the game.

Anyhow, now B has handed out her party invites to all the girls that play together apart from my dd. Dd says they are the "girly gang" yet all in the "gang are invited apart from her.

I am just upset for her because both of the people, whom I know she classes as her best friends haven't invited her.

Has anyone any advice, do I presume that these two girls just don't like my ddd and let her play with the "gang" because they would get into trouble otherwise.

School has policy that you are not allowed to tell someone they can't play with you. I have began to think, maybe she is a nuisance to them and they are just tolerating her. Also, surprised then that the parents let them go to Dd's party back in June. If this is the case then I would actively encourage her to make friends outwith the gang. I am also thinking maybe she hasn't learned the same etiquette's as the rest of the gang. The rest of the gang invite my dd to their parties. Just not these two.

I was thinking of acting daft to B's mum and saying to her "dd has lost her invite to B's party, what time is it on at?"
Not to see her squrim as such, though would be good. But just to hopefully get a feeling on the situation.

Sorry to go on, and well done for reading all this.

Has anyone simmilar experiences, or can give me any words of wisdom on this.
By colie on Fri 14-Nov-08 11:28:07

Oh another add on, X's mum and B's mum have become quite friendly over past couple of months. having both girls back for tea and taking them to the pictures etc.

Hugs to you and your dd - Sorry no very good advice, party invitations are very difficult and as a parent, you cannot control which parties your child is invited to. I would leave it, and not say anything to B's mother.

You could perhaps encourage your dd to formulate a closer friendship with some of the other girls in her class. If X and B are showing signs of becoming toxic friends, then that is not good and your dd should look wider than her current circle.

Poor you and dd. My ds had a rotten year one year with two appalling twins, who were technically his friends, but whose idea of friendship seemed to revolve around spitting on him, urinating on him and thumping him with a plank. They were generally like this. It was a different situation, admittedly, but what I tried to do was really work on building relationships between him and other members of the class. it was a single-form entry school, so I looked to widen his network to include children out of his year-group to. I'm afraid I was very instrumental about it. I asked him who he liked and invited them + others over. In the end a new child moved in and they bonded. Hope something similarly good happens for you.
By the way, I think the mums are a bit horrid. I used to squash attempts at exclusion for both dd and ds when it came to birthday parties. They were told it wasn't nice to leave out so and so. Even if I found them a bit of a handful.

Thanks for replies. I think I am taking this much harder than her. She thinks this is how people behave, you have parties then don't invite your friends .

Dougal3-I think this is what i find most hurtful. The fact that I tell dd she has to invite the children who have invited her to their parties. That X can do it twice and now B is in on it as well. Dd asked X why she wasn't invited and X told her because she had to invite a girl who had invited her. .

I have desperately been asking her if I can invite this one and that one back for tea (deliberately girls not in the gang). She is not interested.

I had this with my dd in Yr3. There was one v powerful girl in the class who controlled all the others, who was "in" and who was "out" etc. She would choose one or two girls per day to go off with, but the others didn't play with each other they just hoped to be chosen. Things got so bad my dd wouldn't go to school for 3 weeks. I knew the girl's mother, we got on quite well, and she would talk to her, and then say that everything was fine, the girl just wanted to play with different people...I talked to the teacher, the head of year, I had other children home for tea, friends outside of school, but my poor dd was a nervous wreck (so was I). In the end I moved her to a different school and she is a completely different child, I don't know if this is an option for you, and I'm sorry it isn't v helpful if not, but sometimes it's the only way.

Hi Colie - Went away because I had to do school pick-up followed by music lesson followed by bed.
I just wanted to say that it is unlikely that your daughter is a nuisance or doesn't understand the etiquette. It's more likely that these two have bonded and that your daughter is a kind of sacrifice; they both like her and so, in order to prove their friendship, they both have to exclude her. It's kind of one step on from the dreaded threesome-friendship situation.
It's a downer for you and your daughter, especially because it sounds as though you're going to get no support from the other mums.
When I said I was instrumental with ds, I mean I was really interfering - there's something about walking your son home smelling of another child's wee that helps you cross boundaries. I invited loads of kids over, I just did it, taking non-contradiction as assent. I made myself cringe.
Good luck.

Dougal3-I lol at "I made myself cringe". Thanks for taking the time to reply to me.

Hopefully I will be making myself cringe soon in an attempt to get some "real" friends for dd. I know they are only 6 and 7 and friendships won't last but it would be lovely for her to have friends who actually like her.

Tomorrow I am asking a girl who is not in the gang back for tea. I have my "potential" friends list now and am going to be going at it hammer and tongs.

Thanks everyone for replying. I have had myself in a state. I -bored- spoke to friends this weekend about it and feel much better, that I got it all off my chest and got advice from others.