With Ivy in her third year of preschool and me not teaching this semester, I have a little more time to hang out with some of the other moms and kids. We’ve had a couple play dates and some informal meet ups at parks. Ivy has enjoyed hanging out with the boys from her preschool this year which involves a lot more dirt-based play.

Today after preschool, we tagged along with some other moms that were walking over to a local park. There were four little kids, three boys and Ivy. Apparently two of the boys’ moms had planned to make it a play date and me and the other boy’s grandma just happened to be along. Before we knew it, one of the original boys and the third boy had paired off leaving Ivy and the second boy. The second boy’s mom got hurt because original boy was playing exclusively with the interloper child. The first mom tried to encourage her child to play with second child, but he was more interested in playing dinosaurs with the third, and the other boy didn’t want to play dinosaurs. As a temporary fix, the second mom busted out snacks, but after everyone ate, the kids went their separate ways again. Ivy volunteered herself to play with the excluded boy, but he was inconsolable. So the jilted kid’s mom scooped up her kid, and made a show of leaving and told the other mom that they couldn’t be friends anymore. That left me and the grandma standing there awkwardly and the other lady trying to explain and justify her kid and herself.

My interpretation of the situation is that you can’t make kids be friends with other kids. Even if you do set up a play date, it doesn’t mean that the kids aren’t going to have their own feelings and opinions about it. I try to tell my girls that sometimes people aren’t interested in you and to not take it personally. But we’re all humans and we all take being left out personally. Even as an adult, I don’t know if there is a surefire to make some one like you.

I have gotten along well with some of my kids’ friends parents and I have gotten along poorly with others. That’s my deal and I try not to put it on my kids too much either. You shouldn’t take your own emotional cues from your kids’ emotional roller coaster. I make an effort to not allow my children to be intentionally mean to other kids, and I try to remind them what it feels like to be excluded, and that goes for us moms as well.