Friendships at primary school

[Grellbunt]

Frustrated by kids in my son's class (and a few adults tbh) who cannot seem to countenance a normal child friendship between a boy and a girl, leaping to "oooh, you fancy her" or "X has got a GIRLFRIEND"... in a jeering/giggley way. I just can't be doing with it and have reassured my son that it is perfectly possible to be friends with the opposite sex. This started probably around age 7. They're now 10 and the latest nonsense is for one girl to announce that she is a lesbian, having previously "fancied" one of the boys for months.

I know it isn't AIBU, but AIBU to silently scream "FFS, you haven't even started puberty yet, why would you even think about sexual attraction let alone which sexuality you might eventually end up as??!!" It feels to me that by framing everything in these terms - the language of romantic/ sexual relationships rather than just bog standard paldom, you are inevitably "othering" the opposite sex and messing with the heads of children?

@ArabellaScott

I think this has always been part of children's socialising and growing up - experimenting with identities, trying things out, even words, feelings, it's a kind of play, really. Marriage, love, romance, relationships, all are quite fascinating to children, as clearly an important part of the world but not yet something they can actually understand.

YANBU, but equally I think it's standard for kids to explore these things - mostly in an abstract, playful way.

I agree with that - I remember taking part in a pretend wedding during break when I was about 6.

There is a difference when its adults imposing it I think. My DD is nearly two and goes to nursery. Because of covid we can’t go in, they bring the kids out to us when we pick them up. One day DD came out with a little boy, purely because me and the boy’s mum had arrived at the same time. And the mum said to her son “ooh is that your girlfriend?” and then to me “you’d better not let her daddy find out”.

I actually remember I did have a 'boyfriend' when I was about five, where we'd kiss each other (not properly!), but obviously it wasn't a real 'boyfriend'. I think it's a normal part of play - like the other pp said, fake weddings and the like. It was just really annoying when you simply had a boy who was a friend and there was a big fuss made of it, it was really embarrassing and uncomfortable - why would you want to make your kids feel like that?

@AugustRose

DS2 is 10 and since nursery he has played with anyone from his class but his closest friends were girls. From around age 8 most of the boys in the class stopped playing with the girls preferring football, or more recently, standing around talking about their consoles/games, etc. DS is not part of that and as we approach year 6 he is very aware of how different he appears. Sadly, I know with some of the boys, their attitude to not spending time with the girls comes from home - I have heard comments from their dads, it's a rural very mysoginistic area. It's really sad to see DS's confidence drop and him start to question who he spends time with, although the person he spends most time with is a girl.

It's developmentally really normal for boys and girls to separate out at that age.