They Told My Son: "You Can't Play with Us"

When the girls are older and they are lonely, looking for a date for prom... you remind your son about this moment and warn him NOT to ask them out for dates!! Ha!! ;-)

This happens sometimes with my 5 yr old son when we are playing with lots of girls (most of my friends have girls) .... and the girls will group up in their own clique and intentionally leave my son out of the games/toys/playing in general. And yes, they have said "we don't want to play with you. No boys allowed." which, yes - hurts my son's feelings.
It's a shame because my son is NOT like this when there's a majority of boys around.... he's inclusive with everybody and loves to play with everyone. I love this about his personality. It makes me hopeful that'll he'll be sensitive to others who are lonely, hurting, feeling bullied or rejected so he can help others and be inclusive.

I mean, that is the Golden Rule that we should all teach to our children from day 1, right? Treat others the way you would want to be treated.

I always try to teach my son.... "How would you feel if that was done to you?"

I don't think teaching children that it's Ok to join cliques and to build elitist little groups, excluding others, is right. That's why bullying is so out of control these days (school shootings? hello!?) -- especially online bullying with teens. They think it's Ok to do this. It's not. We live in a community and we should all try to get along and know each other. Learn about each other and our differences. Celebrate our diversity and our similarities.

We should encourage our children to step out of their comfort zones and learn about others who they otherwise might not play with. That builds strong personality characteristics that carry into adulthood that will help them in the workplace -- they have sooo many business workshops about learning how to deal with different personalities. It's something we should encourage in our children from the time they are toddlers !!! So it won't be such a foreign concept in adulthood.

So long story short... not all parents have this viewpoint so I just try to tell my son that not everyone will be nice and play with him. So we just need to learn to play with something else or someone else. It's one of those disappointments in life ... the feeling of rejection. I know, I didn't think he'd learn about rejection so early in life! But it happens.

When someone is rude to my son, I just tell him that there's nothing wrong with him. People who are rude to others for no reason have something wrong with themselves...and they want to take it out on others.

The girls (especially the 9 year old) are probably going through that "boys are icky" stage. That's not much comfort to your son, but I wouldn't make too big of a deal about it with him. I'd just explain that sometimes girls just want to play with other girls and that's okay because sometimes he'll just want to play with other boys. I don't think forcing the girls to play with him would have made the situation any better. They'd just be resentful toward him. I think, in situations like this, he needs to learn how to play on his own or find someone else to play with. Next time, be sure to bring an activity book or other toy/game that he can have as a standby in case the girls want to exclude him again.

I've seen this happen many times when you get an older girl in a situation where she feels she is in control of the group. You didn't say how this affected your son. Did it really bother him? If you are around and hear a child act this way, I think it is only natural to tell them to play together.

As for your son, he's probably better off not playing with them if you don't hear it. The less he acts interested in what they are doing, the more they will want to play with him. I would always make sure you take something with him when going into situations like this so he has his own entertainment if necessary.

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We teach our students grace and manners. How to join--may I play with you---how to politely say yes or no--how to gracefullyaccept and respect the choice of other people--we do not make them all play together--everyone is entitled to a choice--but they should decline politely. FYI--as teachers we notice more and more children who are not learning how to accept no as an answer to what they want . It is very important to learn to deal with disappoint as a young child in order to be a sucessful grown up.

We spend so much time obsering and teaching that most are very accepting of others.