skippy Posted May 1, 2012 Share Posted May 1, 2012 Hello In my nursery we have been having issuse with children telling other chldren they are their best friends then saying I'm not your best friend! it has become a daily saying and although children do not always understand the meaning they are still upsetting others. Any suggestions to help deal with it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mps09 Posted May 1, 2012 Share Posted May 1, 2012 Do you work in my setting? We get this in waves, and I believe that it is best to acknowledge that perhaps they don't want to play together at that particular time.... but we don't want to make anyone feel sad.... "you don't have to be everyone's friend - but you do have to be friendly - and that is not a friendly thing to say". I try to avoid the "we're all friends here" approach because acutally even I don't think we are! There are parents I can't stand - children who sometimes annoy me - :blink: and colleagues that get on my nerves :huh: ..... they are NOT my friends all the time... (but I might play with them later.... 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zigzag Posted May 1, 2012 Share Posted May 1, 2012 We have never had this problem until now and it is driving us mad!! I do sometimes wonder if the children are copying parents, I know a lot of our parents facebook each other and can be quite clicky (don't think it's spelt that way but you know what I mean) Just wondering if children are learning from that? mps09 I think you are correct with the way you deal with it, I have heard myself saying "we are all friends here" and thought that it's not the right thing to say and it is a lie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mps09 Posted May 1, 2012 Share Posted May 1, 2012 We have never had this problem until now and it is driving us mad!! I do sometimes wonder if the children are copying parents, I know a lot of our parents facebook each other and can be quite clicky (don't think it's spelt that way but you know what I mean) Just wondering if children are learning from that? mps09 I think you are correct with the way you deal with it, I have heard myself saying "we are all friends here" and thought that it's not the right thing to say and it is a lie. Yep, individuality and choices!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skippy Posted May 3, 2012 Author Share Posted May 3, 2012 Thanks for your replies, for some reason I'm not getting the notifications?!? I'm just really struggling to know what to say really! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoneyPancakes Posted May 4, 2012 Share Posted May 4, 2012 HI Skippy, I think we need to click on the 'follow this topic' on the right, up the top. I very much like you're 'not friends, but friendly' line. I often use, 'we don't have to like everyone, but we do have to get on', but I think yours is better. Honey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lashes2508 Posted May 4, 2012 Share Posted May 4, 2012 yep we get it in waves too , and usually the girls !! surprise surprise i try to be honest too as none of us as adults like everyone all of the time, so tend to say it's ok to not want to play but say it nicely and do not try to make someone feel sad . or you can have lots of best friends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rachelllps Posted May 7, 2012 Share Posted May 7, 2012 Yes we have had the problem of "i'm your best friend", 'I'm not your best friend" and although we recognise that in the real grown up world you don't get on with everybody I don't think it is a concept that you can explain to the average three and four year old whose friendship groups seem to change day to day. It's also difficult to explain that although you don't like playing with that child you still have to be friendly. We decided to make a friendship web and introduced it as getting together children who liked the same things. (Done as a focused circle time) We then naturally found that all the children liked something that other children liked and got them to link themselves together with a long length of string. We then put this onto a board as a web and got the children to take photos of each other (some pulling faces if they wanted to) This is now a display and most of the children can explain that they are "all friends when they play here." R Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 8, 2012 Share Posted May 8, 2012 love the friendship web idea rachellps, we have several little groups of friends who, depending on the children who are in, include and then exclude different children. I think your web idea will help them to link all their friend groups into a 'whole'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rachelllps Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 Thanks for the comments Max, we have found that recent children joining us have wanted to be added to the web, sometimes because they know certain children or because they just want to pull a funny face for a photo! It seems to be working well and we can point it out when friendships are a little tense that "oh look you are joined to so and so on our Friendship web" Rachel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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