My 4 year old son has been really excited to go to daycare the last few weeks. He made a new best friend there and they love to play together. She would always be the first one to greet him when I dropped him off and she would always ask me why he was leaving to early when I came to pick him up. It’s cute.

This very same friend has recently been hitting him and also was really mad at him at times if he didn’t play the way she wanted him to. This made my son feel really sad and confused. He brought it up a few times and I wanted to keep reminding him that his time was valuable and that if people weren’t treating him well, they didn’t deserve his time. He should walk away and find someone else to play with until his friend settled down and realized they need to make better choices. He understood it each time I spoke to him about it and luckily, he took action every time this happened afterwards.

My son ended up playing with different friends if there was ever hitting or arguing happening. He learned quickly not to tolerate that behavior and I’m glad he isn’t mimicking the behavior back to his friend. He has a good attitude about the whole ordeal and he now has a group of friends he rotates through whenever he needs to play with someone new. I’m glad he took everything in stride and he kept his spirits up even though he was sad after school at times. It shows a lot of emotional maturity for a 4 year old and I’m glad he is learning how to deal with these types of situations early on.