Help us have a better playdate (almost 5 year olds)

[northerngirl]

Dd just had a playdate today with her schoolmate who is almost 5 as well. We planned on from 10-1 based on previous playdates.

Dd has had a total of 4 playdates with this girl, two at our house and two at her house. For some reason things start off really well and Dd is SO excited for her friend to be here that it almost seems as if she'll explode (this excited), like talking a mile minute and lets do this lets do this, lets play with dolls and literally 10 seconds later, lets go see my room. Then after lunch at 11:30 it started. She didn't want to share. She wanted everything the other girl wanted, then started pouting when she didn't get her way and saying I don't want to play with you. Then the little girl said "I don't want to play with a grumpy girl". I wouldn't want to play with her either. I felt bad and tried to get dd to snap out of it, which didn't really happen. Then her mom came a dd started crying bc she didn't want her to leave.
What can I say to her or do to avoid this situation again? She always asks to have playdates with this girl and others but if this is going to happen I really want to say no. Is this just an age thing? Thanks for any input.

[ElliesMomma]

nm

Edited by ElliesMomma - 5/28/11 at 11:29pm

[madskye]

DD has a great friend with a similar dynamic.  They have a GREAT time for an hour, and the second hour is usually fraught with disagreements.  The mom and I are good friends, too.  What we do is:

Don't assume the date will be longer than 2 hours.

Try to get together to DO things.  We'll go to Chuck E Cheese or the little gym on a Friday after school, or meet at the playground, or to the park.  Being in no one's "turf" cuts down on a lot of their disagreements.

Get together to specifically DO things at one of our houses--make special cupcakes, do a special craft.  It just seems like they are better when they have more direction.

DD definitely has friends that she can play with peacefully for hours and hours--but it's just not this girl, no matter how much we all like each other.

[northerngirl]

Originally Posted by madskye 

DD has a great friend with a similar dynamic.  They have a GREAT time for an hour, and the second hour is usually fraught with disagreements.  The mom and I are good friends, too.  What we do is:

Don't assume the date will be longer than 2 hours.

Try to get together to DO things.  We'll go to Chuck E Cheese or the little gym on a Friday after school, or meet at the playground, or to the park.  Being in no one's "turf" cuts down on a lot of their disagreements.

Get together to specifically DO things at one of our houses--make special cupcakes, do a special craft.  It just seems like they are better when they have more direction.

DD definitely has friends that she can play with peacefully for hours and hours--but it's just not this girl, no matter how much we all like each other.

It seems like dd has all this energy at first and everything goes well then she runs out of steam and that's when things go downhill. Yes, I agree that maybe 2 hours is enough time. Another thing is that they attend Montessori school together and attend daycare afterwards, so they are pretty much together or in the same building Monday-Friday. They also both attend ballet class on saturday mornings. And at school they are apparently attached at the hip and do their work together/near each other all the time.

Last time the play date was at the other girl's house, it was the other girl that was melting down in the end.

I tried to explain to dd that when you go to someone's house yes you want to check out all their toys and are excited to play with them and that the owner of said toys should be ok with that since they get to play with them all the time and the friend is just their for a short time.

We did take the girls to a halloween outing this year and again things go very well at first and then they run out of steam and it's "I don't like you" and "I don't want to be your friend". That is never easy to hear. Then after some tears, a snack, and some time apart things were better.

On one hand I want dd to figure it out herself, but on the other hand I want to tell her what to do and what not to do with friends.

This morning I told her to tell her friend thanks for coming to play yesterday and that she was sorry for being grumpy and that it was bc she was tired.