My 4 Year Old Is Rude to Her Friend

Just a thought, but did you ever think about recording them? Then talk to her the way she talks to him. Ask her how that makes her feel.

Any time you see your child behaving in a rude or disrespectful way you need to step in and correct/redirect them, it's how they learn.
This is exactly what preschool teachers do all day:
-we don't talk to our friends that way.
-we ask our friends what they like to do, we don't tell them what to do.
-how do you think that makes your friend feel, when you say that?
etc.
Also, talk to your daughter about these play dates, does she really want this boy coming over? Make sure it's something she's happy and excited about, it's supposed to be fun after all.

The way to 'correct' it is to.... TELL her, she is being rude to her friend and as a 'host.'

When kids are young like that, long explanations and skirting the issues type reasoning, gets lost on young kids.
Therefore, you need to keep it, short/simple/direct.
That is rude.
That is wrong.
That it not nice.
It is embarrassing to act that way to your friend.
And tell her "redo that...." or she gets reprimanded or no more playdates etc.

Many times, kids act different at home, than they do at school.
It is a different "venue."
Kids are not always, acting the SAME exact way, they act at home and at school.
I work at a school.
I also have 2 kids.

Your daughter, needs to be corrected.
That is how you correct...the problem.

Or maybe the 'every Wed. after school' play date is just, not needed anymore. Maybe your daughter would benefit from not having it. Maybe she just wants to come home to her own house and be herself without any company and needs her own, time to deflate after Preschool.
MANY kids, need that. To deflate. After school. Without being crowded.

You need to correct her every time. As a preschool teacher I do it all day long. If she doesn't correct it then she can go sit out, move away from whatever activity until she is ready to be pleasant. You tell her not to talk that way and tell her why. "That is not a very nice way to talk to your friend. If you talk to him like that it will make him feel sad. Do you want your friend to feel sad? (Never had a kid say yes) Well let's make better choices then or we will have to have a break". I also think it is ok for kids to say no thank you when asked to play if they don't want to. I guarantee you she cannot be rude and bossy at school so she is not. Kids really step it up when they need to.

Do you correct her every time you see/hear this behavior? Do you punish her when she fails to correct this behavior after being warned? If not, how is she to understand just how rude she is being? Kids her age still have a hard to empathizing with others, their little brains simply have not developed enough for them to truly be able to put themselves in the other persons shoes. So, she needs the behavior to have consequences for her that she can feel directly to help her remember to not do so in the future.

Have you tried role-playing with her at a time other than when her friend is over?

She plays the part of the friend, and you play your daughter.....

Hold a pretend conversation, and you say the same things that your daughter has said to her friend...

Then talk to her about how it felt to have someone tell her things like that.

She needs to be taught WHAT to say, and how to behave when she has friends over to play.

A 4 year old does not have the ability to understand abstract ideas such as "rude" or "disrespect". You have to make the abstract concrete. Mom B. gave a perfect example of how to do this. Just saying "that isn't nice" or "stop being rude" sill not have any real meaning for her. You can teach her what it feels like and then she will be able to start to learn. Role playing is a wonderful teaching tool. Preaching, lecturing, telling, and punishing are not effective teaching tools.

Also, our children learn their behaviors through modeling. She has learned those phrases from somewhere. She has also learned her attitude from somewhere. Taking a good look around and observing who in her life is she imitating would be a good first step. Who in her life is "bossy" and/or "a mean girl or bully?"

Also, maybe some of what she is doing is just boundaries. If she really wants/needs to be alone, it is a good thing that she is willing to state that. Observe more closely when and why she is making the statements that she is. Maybe you are misinterpreting good self-care because you have messages about "being a nice girl" and "nice girls don't say things like that." That may also be why other's aren't reacting to her behaviors the same way you are. Too often we don't take the time to listen to the messages running in our own heads that interfere with seeing our children clearly.

It might be a good time to inquire into your own beliefs and see how you may be filtering your daughter's behaviors through those beliefs. After all, she is only four and just learning how to behave and doesn't quite have the capacity to fully understand all the things we, as adults, do because we have a ton more information and life experience than she does. She really doesn't, at age four, have the capacity to purposely be rude and disrespectful in the same way adults do. She is imitating, role playing, and repeating what she has seen and heard. There isn't a lot of intention behind what she does, she is simply mimicking the outside world she sees.

Congrats to you for this honest post. Children at that age have to be reprimanded at the moment, they don't recall very well.

Teach her empathy by role playing so she can experience how it feels to be spoken to that way. I don't believe she is "learning" it from anyone; it's how she feels. She's four and doesn't have a filter.