Reply to 3rd grade daughter dropped by former bestie

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think you get really blunt messages like "Go away" when other methods of communication have failed. It's happening because your DD is persisting even though you're trying to help understand.

People say that there's no such thing as a part-time friend, but really there are different tiers of friends closeness, and different contexts for friendship. As an adult I don't expect that my friends in one context will be a friend in the same way in another context. Like how I have work friends but I would never expect them to make time for me regularly on the weekends. It doesn't mean we aren't real friends. It's just different types of friendship contexts.

There's a Lisa Damour piece about how a friend group is like a molecule, and how when kids form a stable molecule they will try to prevent it from being disrupted. Your DD, for whatever reason, is not the kind of atom that's working with the new molecule right now. It doesn't mean anyone has done anything wrong. It's just not a fit.[/quote]

This. "Go away" sounds mean but if it follows the kid saying "no thank you" or "I am going to play with a different friend today" or "I just want to play on my own today" over and over and over again, and that not being respected, then "go away" isn't mean anymore. It's clear.

Context matters a lot here, and I don't think OP has all the context.[/quote]

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