Reply to Four-year-old mean girl -- wwyd?

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[quote=Anonymous]Hi, my DD has developmental delays and is in a county preschool program so we don't do a lot of playdates because she has to work so hard at all the social and other stuff at preschool and always seemed to prefer having down time on the weekends.  Plus, we've never had neighborhood kids her age to play with.  Anyway, DD has always been extremely shy but recently seems to be blossoming in terms of being more outgoing and initiating friendly interactions with other children, which truly has been amazing and such an exciting development given the challenges she's faced.  So, we recently met a family who is new to our neighborhood and happily invited their four-year-old child over to play while the parents ran errands and did other things to get settled.  Admittedly, I was so excited about the prospect of having a nearby friend for DD and making a good impression on the girl and her family that I went overboard and you seriously would have thought the in-laws were coming over for the first time or something the way I stayed up all night cleaning, setting up toys, etc.  Unfortunately, it turned out that the little girl was mean to my daughter, controlling about what they played and how they played it, refused to play with my DD (e.g., she would get on the swingset but tell DD that she didn't want DD to swing on the other swing), pouted and stomped off if she didn't get her way, and engaged in sophisticated efforts to psychologically and physically exclude my DD.  My DD was so excited about having a playmate over but completely puzzled by this child.  The final straw for me was when the little girl made a big production of taking my hand in a very queen-bee way and saying "YOU and ME can go off an play together" and made a big show of trying to totally exclude my DD.  I was pretty shocked by this behavior since she's only four.  The end result is now I don't really want my DD playing with this child and, frankly, I'm not sure my DD wants to play with her anyway, but I'm not sure what to do now that I've befriended the family and set up multiple playdates.  I don't want this bad experience to hamper my DD's early efforts at initiating friendships but I also don't want to assume the worst of a four-year-old.  I guess I'm wondering whether you would just try to coach more and make it clear to the little girl that meanness is not tolerated or would you mention the behavior to the parents?  TIA![/quote]

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