childhood friendships

[lovetomom]

Hi Mamas,
I have a lovely, creative and quirky DD who is five. She is in kindergarten and seems to be doing better socially (in some ways) and enjoying her time at school.

I am noticing a bit of a trend with my DD and I'm wondering if anyone can relate and advise me through it.

My DD always picks a friend she likes best. It's almost always not the friend who likes her best. Or her other friends who want to play with her. She then clings to this friend and the friend doesn't reciprocate her desire to want to play. DD feels rejected. and I feel bad for her.

I wish my DD would play with all of the lovely kids that want to play with her. I'm not sure how to respectfully teach her that being clingy is a turn off. We've talked about how the children who want to play with her must feel when she isn't interested in playing. But the pattern continues.....

What would you do?

[MommytoTwo]

Hmm. My son is 5.5 and will just be starting kindergarten in August. He also sort of chooses one friend and sticks to that one for quite some time. In his case, it does seem to be reciprocated as far as I can tell.

In your case, as far as her attaching herself to kids who dont want to play with her, I would probably talk about the other kids in her class, maybe invite some over (one at a time) for play dates. Other than that , I dont think there is much you can do. One of the things they learn at school are all the aspects of social relationships, and sometimes that does include hurt feelings. Trust me, I know it isnt easy to see your child's feelings get hurt but it is going to happen once in a while.

As far as her rejecting the kids who do want to play with her, again I would talk about them, invite them over and explain how their feelings can get hurt when she doesnt want to play with them. My son was doing this to his close friend for a while. We talked about his friend's feelings, how he would feel in that situation, and how he didnt always have to play with him, but he had to be nice and offer to include him in whatever the boys were playing on the playground.

Good luck.

[pranamama]

you could try to reframe her feeling of rejection, try to give her the idea that she needs to spend a little time with someone else and so does her friend everyday. Help her figure out that it isn't an Either/OR situation at school.