How should I feel?

[Justrollingalong]

My 9 year old daughter keeps getting left out with after school play dates, she’s been getting so upset thinking that her friends mums don’t like her because when they ask if my daughter can come round (on her own not with other friends) they always say no, we will arrange it another time, and that never happens…
but today her two best friends were having a play date, so I walked off from the mums and the my daughters friends because my daughter was upset we sat in the car for a while and then I saw the mums talking and another girl in the group also went to this play date leaving my daughter to be not included. Not sure how I should be feeling? I don’t really want to talk to the mums again to be honest because I can’t be bothered with drama and hate the fact they keep upsetting my daughter.

This can be so tricky. But the kindest thing you can do for your daughter is not force others to be friends, but to gently tell her it has nothing to do with her, but how people in general choose.

It is sad because your 9 year old is going to internalise and think its something she is doing, but most of the time its just a tale as old as times. Others should not feel obliged to invite over, and quite frankly, would you want your DD to go to someone's house where they are like this? I would not. It can potentlially leave your DD in a situation where she gets ostracised at someone else's house, where there is very little she can do about it, and risk feeling even worse.

My DD had a similar situation at her school when she was around 10, its tricky, but having good conversation about friendships and what they look like, rather than force things.

The best thing weve done for my girl similar situation is to let go. School is just school and youre stuck with whoever happened to be allocated the same one which sometimes turns out to be unfortunate.

Instead we gave her more social spaces. We choose and let her choose to do different group activities with hopefully like minded kids after school and on the weekends, lessons like horse riding, scouts etc. She has a whole timetable which is expensive but she has built friends from that and gets invited to playdates with them instead. Has done her confidence wonders and she is not so worried about the other girls at school anymore and who's her friend and school and who's not .

I know as mums we would love to protect our children from any kind of sadness.
However, it's incredibly important for our children to learn how to use healthy coping mechanisms when we feel upset.
You can't mould the world around her to be a happy place without any change of disappointment or sadness. What you can do, is teach her to express her emotions, find support where she can, and find ways to move on.
Yes, this will upset her. Yes, it may even have a lasting impact on her. But even more importantly so, you should trust in her ability to cope.

By trying to control the world around us and to shield our children from hurt, we're actually teaching our children that emotions are very scary things that should be avoided at all cost. We're telling them that we don't think they're capable enough of managing these emotions.
And that right there... That's far more damaging than being left out by your friends.

Trust your daughter. Teach her how to feel her sadness, process her emotions, grieve... and heal. Show her how it's done. Show her that sometimes you have to work through the things that hurt, but you trust her and believe in her and know she's strong and resilient enough to find a way through this.

Because there will always be another friend who excludes her, a boss who doesn't like her, a boyfriend who cheats on her. You can't keep her from having those experiences. But imagine if you can help her, guide her through those things with an unwavering belief that she can handle them.

You can’t force friendships I’m afraid, my eldest struggled with friendships throughout school, it’s only now she’s in college and with people who’ve the same interests that she’s making friends.

Really sensible messages and advice from others. I think this is a tricky stage.
I have also worked hard on not showing her I’m upset - which is hard! But separating my own social anxieties (we all have them I think) from how I support her in the situation has been important.

Have you tried hosting a play date?

Isn’t it awful OP, you feel so helpless and it is often just plain nastiness unfortunately- agree with PP - get your daughter involved in out of school groups and it will be less important

How much have you tried to get to know the other mums.

In my experience parents tend to invite the children of the parents they know best over for play dates, not necessarily the children who the child is most friendly with.