How to handle dd excluding others?

[nathansmum]

I've worked really hard on ds not doing this to dd and tried to empower him to not allow his female friends to do it to dd either (or to at least stick up for her) - the girls still do it* and ds isn't confident in going against their word (but if I'm in ear shot I will intervene). However, in the past few days I have noticed her doing this to one younger friend who has come over (dd be 3 in about 6wks).

* when ds was excluding dd it was more in a way of getting his own space or possession over items, so we've worked through that quite successfully. However, with these girls is it mean talk "I'm not going to be your friend!", "you can't play in there, we are!", "that's not your hut, that's N's, you can't go in there!" when in fact ds never had an issue of her going in there and she knows it. Is this a girl thing?

Any tips on what to do? It's really important to me that this isn't treated as ok. I don't want her to be given the opportunity to have a separate play area or set her friend up somewhere else or distract her friend or whatever which is what all of my friends with girls seem to do - or are they onto something and these things are the best? I want to encourage playing together inclusively. Anyone faced this and achieved it? Am I being unrealistic? So far all she's doing is holding up her hand and saying no to them coming into her area of play (or if there are several other children in there with her she'll try to stop another child joining) - I don't think this is about sharing as such.

Thanks.

[LuckyMommaToo]

From what DS's preschool teachers have said, this is a really common 3 y.o. girl phase. Here's what I would do:

"We don't talk that way in our house. A, tell B that you don't like what she's saying. (wait for A to say, 'Don't talk to me that way!' or whatever). B, let's think of a solution. What game can we all play together?"

I would just also be sensitive to the fact that sometimes kids are overstimulated and may need space, so it may not be a good idea to force them together. If I thought that were the case, I'd engage the second child (A) in a fun activity.

-e

[nathansmum]

Thanks Erin.

Problem solve a game they *can* play together - thank you for the reminder, I'm always suggesting to others to come up with alternative ideas. :

Yes, I am mindful of her needing space, but the two scenarios that occured the other day seemed to be different.

There were 3 kids sitting in a wardrobe all in a row (it had two doors) and another little girl who has just turned 2 came to join them (there was dd, my ds and the little girls bigger sister), my dd wouldn't let her in. So in this instance I don't think it was about needing space, but seemed that she just didn't want to let her in. We ended up just distracting the 2yo, but it kind of felt unfair and like it was enabling my dd to just continue on that way.

My dd isn't verbal enough to come up with much in the way of dialogue at the moment, and this wee girl wasn't really old enough to say a lot either. I guess, if it continues, I can talk to the other girls mum and get her to dialogue for her dd and I can do it for mine to just model preferred responses. They play well other times, so it's not like they don't like each other.

[famousmockngbrd]

At DS's preschool they use phrases like "Everyone can play at Co-op" and "I see J. wants to join your game. Can you explain the rules to her?" They really seem to help.

I think your instinct that it's not OK to allow your DD to exclude the other kids is right on target. If the child decides she'd rather do something else, that's one thing, but if the child wants to play, I think the other kids should make room for her.