Reply to 6th grade DD is being excluded from social events with longtime friends

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Reply to "6th grade DD is being excluded from social events with longtime friends"

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[quote=Anonymous]I have 8th and 6th girls and I am still very close friends with their preschool and elementary friends’ moms. The kids have NEVER had an instance of falling out of friendships or anyone being excluded.

How did I manage this? Simple, we moved to a different country right after preschool, and again to another country after elementary. None of the kids ever went to school together after preschool and only a couple of us live in the same city.

I agree with the pp who said not to become best friends with moms of your child’s friends. My advice to moms about to enter the school social scene is not to get married. Be friendly, get coffee and dinner, but don’t commit to deep friendships simply because your kids play together. If your kids don’t move on to different friends, you might move on yourself  once you actually get to really know them. I have seen money lost in real estate (two families decided to buy vacation homes next to each other and then had a falling out), an actual physical altercation between two moms who were running a Girl Scout troop that had to dissolve or split, and two families who shared a ski house rental until one mom caught the other husband spying on her in the shower.

I haven’t seen this mentioned, but obviously, our kids see our friendships and learn from them. OP, I can tell that part of your difficulty is that these moms are your friends and it hurts to see them not trying to help your daughter. From your daughter’s perspective, she can clearly see that you have a close friendship with these moms, and it’s natural for her to think that her friendship with their daughters is assured because all of the moms are friends. It adds to her sense of confusion and makes it more difficult for her to move on with other friends.

The problem is that when kids are in preschool and early elementary, it’s really beneficial for moms to be friendly with each other. Kids with more outgoing and friendly moms have more playdates. If you check the boards, you will see plenty of shy/introverted/recently moved posters asking how they can get more play dates for their kids because they are not friends with the other moms. But once the kids hit middle school, they don’t need their parents to be best friends. Being friendly is helpful, but having parental friendships influence their own too strongly can be complicated. I don’t know what the solution is, other than the one that fell into my lap - move. Hope things continue to improve. And I’m sorry that you might be moving on from your mom friendships. That is hard too. [/quote]

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