Sometimes rather than taking items from a friend, she actually just blocks them from an item or an area. She’ll put her arm or hand up and it may or may not touch the other child. She’s not necessarily pushing, more like blocking. In that instance would you just tell the other child/parent that she needs some space right now? What would you do?

The other question is, a couple times she has gotten upset when another child “breaks a rule” and ends up snatching or blocking. For example another baby took a pinwheel out of a neighbor’s yard that I always tell her to leave there or another friend went up a slide when she knows she’s not supposed to go up slides because other kids are often going down. She ended up taking the pinwheel and putting it back where it goes but the other child got upset. Or got very upset about the slide but I couldn’t do much except tell her that the other mom lets her baby do that… any suggestions?

Thank you,
Danielle

In situations like that, if the other child is ok with it, I with make some eye-contact and a smile with the parent, kind of getting their OK. There’s also been times that I’ve said something like, “Oh that belongs to him. Do you want to ask if you can play with it?” Or I’ll just ask the other child for my child, if that makes sense.

Janet I’m wondering what makes you think the teachers are not calm and empathetic towards this student? That they are too overwhelmed to respond to him that way? That they are not comfortable handling the behavior? I don’t see any of that being stated in the comment. It seems to me the preschool is keeping open communication with the parents as to a change of behavior in the last two weeks and concerned he may need additional help to turn it around. Why does that mean the solution is too change schools?

Thanks so much for your reply Janet, I should add she has struggled with this particular friend for 6-12 months but doesn’t have this struggle with any others, which is why I’m confused as while I totally understand there’s a lot going on (we are also currently in covid lockdown), I don’t understand why it’s just with this one friend that my daughter has a hard time – she’s like a different kid with this friend compared to all of her other play dates.
On the one hand it feels like what you’ve said – this social setting in particular is too much for her (and has consistently been for the last year) – and as a result I feel I perhaps shouldn’t put her in the situation where she’s almost guaranteed to ‘fail’ (in that it’s currently just too hard for her to succeed in this situation) which would mean not catching up with this friend.
On the other hand the Mum and I are great friends, and her daughter and my 2 year old get on great so it seems… unbalanced to stop seeing them when 4 people enjoy the catch up and 1 struggles… (I don’t mean for that to come across as lacking empathy for my 3 year old, but as you know with multiple children it’s a constant juggle/balance to meet everyone’s needs and my 2 year old gets a lot of enjoyment from the play dates).

Would be amazing if you could please share your thoughts on how to go forward!
Thanks

Hi! No, I would definitely not block her mouth. We can’t control the words that come out of our child’s mouth. However, I would notice that my child is indicating that social situations are too stressful right now. And considering the difficult (and also wonderful) transition your family is facing, this makes perfect sense to me. It is asking a lot for her to be in a generous, social mode when she’s dealing with the birth of a second younger sibling and all the emotional adjustments that entails.

My 3 year old really struggles with one particular friend when they are together – constantly telling her she can’t use any toys, she needs to go home, she’s not allowed XYZ, she’s not her friend, etc – I try to prepare my daughter for the play date by putting special toys away, talking through kind words, saying she can come to me if she’s having a hard time, etc., even before this friend comes over my child will tell me she’s going to snatch toys and not let the other child play with XYZ and I acknowledge those feelings, thank her for telling me and say I will help her to be kind.
However ultimately she says a lot of ‘unkind’ things (plus occasionally physical actions like snatching toys) and we end up having multiple time ins where she can vent everything to me, then go back out to play.

How do I follow RIE in this instance? I don’t want to hover and I find it difficult to ‘block’ words like I can with physical actions, but equally I want my daughter to be successful in this setting and she clearly needs help at the moment. When she is saying unkind things do I gently cover her mouth (blocking), say “I won’t let you hurt feelings with unkind words” and remove her for time in if these 2 steps aren’t enough?

I’m at a loss as the behaviour is consistent and play dates with this particular friend are more stressful than anything else.

Thanks!

Thank you so much, dear Ruth!