Are you my friend?

A curious thing happened today. We were invited to a fall fest at Little Bear's school. The event was in the school playground- there was music, food, lots of games for kids and we had the opportunity of witnessing the kids interact with each other.
Little Bear is definitely opening up and getting 'socialised". It was a pleasure seeing him play with other kids and occasionally come up to me and point and tell me (introduce) that so and so was in his class.

One thing is clear. The boy gravitates towards girls..he follows them around... All the kids he pointed to (aka introduced) were girls..At one point he positioned himself at the top of the slide and proceeded to question each kid (girls) as they waited to go down the slide -' Are you my friend?" If you answered with a "Yes/No", you were let through and allowed to slide down. If you did not reply, he blocked their way and asked you again ..I thought it was sweet and some of the parents watching this also thought it was hilarious!

One of the girls in his class, a 4 year old said "No, you are not my friend". He let her through but she came up again and he asked her again. This must have happened atleast half-a dozen times. It probably bothered Little Bear because he asked me why she said she was not his friend. Sadly, I really did not know what to say to him.

I was deep in conversation with another parent when a beaming Little Bear came to me and said "Amma, she said yes. She IS my friend". Persistence had paid....

When I tucked him into bed tonight, I reminded him of the wonderful time he had had at school today. "Amma, why did that girl say that she was not my friend?' asked Little Bear. "Not everyone needs to be your friend", I explained. "Its ok if some one is not your friend. You have so many friends." I hope this was the "right" answer to his dilemma. What I really want to tell him is that this is a lesson life will teach him through experiences, some good and some not so good.