Reply to Do you force your kids to play with certain kids?

Forum Index » Elementary School-Aged Kids

Reply to "Do you force your kids to play with certain kids?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have three kids, two boys and a girl in ES.  My daughter is in 3rd grade.  A parent I know (just from school, not socially) came to me to tell me (in a very nice way!) that my daughter was excluding her daughter (let's call her Mary) in school and he daughter was very hurt by it.  It was awkward.  They have been in the same classroom for two years straight and the little girl is sweet and well behaved.  My daughter has never been friends with this little girl.  She has three best friends (similar sports, lots of playdates, all the parents know each other very well).  She also talks about a few other girls in class, but never this particular little girl.  I set a conference with the teacher to get her perspective.  The teacher said DD was kind to everyone in the school, worked well with Mary, but that she didn't believe they were friends.  I spoke to DD and she told me that Mary is nice, but that she doesn't like playing with her as much as she likes to play with her friends.  She also mentioned her friends think she is annoying because she follows them around.  So my heart broke for Mary.  I told DD that she should speak up for Mary, that her friends will like her if they play with her.  She came back from school and told me she asked Mary to join her in their "club".  She said Mary didn't say a word the whole time and that they voted as a club that they didn't want Mary in.  Did I make it worse for Mary by trying to help?  I spoke with my mom and she was adamant that kids need to deal with their social issues (that she never got herself involved in mine).  Sigh.[/quote]
From what you said, it doesn't sound like your daughter is excluding Mary.  I don't get the urge to include EVERYONE; friendships are discriminatory by nature because we all get to choose our friends, and we want to be friends with some people but not others. There is no entitlement to friendship of a person of your choice. It's a two-way street. If your daughter doesn't like Mary and doesn't want to be friends with her, it's silly to force her.  From what you say, it doesn't sound like she's mean to Mary, just that she doesn't want to befriend her. That's her right. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics