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Concern About Making Friends

My daughter is in grade 1 and seems to feel excluded.  She wants to play with other kids.  She is polite and asks to play but someone might say no and she goes away.  She is very timid and does lack some self-confidence when it comes to friendships.  What should I do?  I feel like my hands are tied.
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973741 tn?1342342773
Hi!  What a great mom for wanting to help your daughter.  I think I would talk to her teacher and school counselor to see if they can help.  Our school has "friendship" groups that the counselor runs in which small groups of kids are brought together and activities are given to promote friendship and social skills.  Since the other kids in the group are in the same boat, it works nicely for making connections.  There may be another girl in the class that your teacher thinks would be a good match for your daughter and she could pair them up to work on something together.  
What are your daughter's interests?  She could join brownies, ballet, gymnastics, or soccer or whatever floats her boat.  There she would meet girls of the same age and they would have something in common.  And then, you as her mom do the extra work of promoting friendship and setting up a one on one playdate  It only takes one best friend to feel connected.  
I'd also help her with any social skills that she may lack.  Some kids need extra direction in that area.  You can get involved with her play still without it being too awkward.  That age loves to play with mom and someone else's mom is fun too.  My son is almost 6 and in kindergarten and all his friends love me to be involved.  We play chase, hide and seek, board games, etc.  I'm even the bad guy when we play super heroes sometimes.  All the kids love it.  It helps him fit into a group sometimes.  Anyway, good luck.  I was a shy girl once too. . .
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Avatar universal
Hi specialmom.   Thanks for your advice.  I was thinking about talking to her teacher but just wasn's sure how to go about it.  I think that is a wonderful idea of the friendship club and the idea of matching someone that might be in the same boat as my daughter.  My daughter is in gymnastics and jazz.  I was thinking about brownies because it seems like it might provide more opportunity for my daughter to work one on one or in a small group in providing a stronger friendship base than gymnastics and jazz provide.

Parent teacher interviews are coming up so I will discuss it with her teacher then and if anything else pops up for you on things i might want to try, please don't hesitate to let me know

Thanks once again specialmom

from NOT A MOM but a DAD with full-custody, thanks
Helpful - 0
973741 tn?1342342773
Yikes, sorry.  See how assumptions can be wrong!  What an awesome DAD for caring so much for and about your daughter!  I was a brownie and girlscout and I met my best friend there  . . . I love to write and she loved to draw and we would makes books together in our spare time.  We were happy to have found each other!  Good luck to you and  her and I'll try to think of more ideas and if I do have any, I'll get back  to you!
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Avatar universal
I sympathize with you.  I have a daughter who just turned 8.  She had many friends last year, but since she has been friends with this one girl, alot of them have begun to leave her out.  It hurts to see this happen, and I can tell you what not to do.  I overreacted with a few of the parents and not only did this isolate me from them, it isolated my daughter from those friends.  This year I went to the teacher and the school counselor instead.  Things seem to be a little better, but not enough for me to not worry.  My daughter blames me for these friends going away, and perhaps she is partially right.  So now I will back off and try to help from the sidelines.  My intention was to help her, but I got too emotional and went too far.  Try not to do what I did.  It's a lousy feeling.
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