Discussing Feeling Left Out

Hi everyone! I am looking for advice on how to discuss feeling left out, and friendships growing apart with my 9 year old daughter.

My daughter met her best friend in kindergarten. They were inseparable up until this year, where I noticed it seems her friend is starting to outgrow her. She stopped wanting to come play as much, or inviting my daughter over. She has a very large family with lots of cousins and others to play with whereas my daughter has no siblings or cousins unfortunately.

It has been really hard to watch, but I don’t think my daughter has noticed it as much simply because we do other things on the weekend, and I don’t always tell her when an invite is declined, rather I say she’s busy or something similar.

Today, we were at the friend’s brother’s birthday party, and her friend was very clearly leaving her out. She was playing with another girl there. My daughter played with other kids & kind of ignored it for a bit but eventually it was clearly upsetting her so she asked to leave. I told her I knew she felt left out, and that I would be upset too. I suggested she tell her friend how she was feeling, that maybe her friend didn’t realize what she was doing. My daughter, unlike myself, has very thick skin & bottles things up, so she did not want to talk. I asked her “if you were leaving your friend out, would you want her to just leave, or would you want her to talk to you.” She was upset & still wanted to leave so I said ok. I told the parents goodbye & why we were leaving, and of course they spoke to the friend who then came & asked her to stay, which my daughter did. However, it was very obvious to me the friend was only playing with my daughter because she was told to, and was exhibiting some pretty “mean girl behavior.”

All this to say, I feel I need to discuss friends growing apart with my daughter as well as being left out, but I am a really emotional person so I struggle to speak in an unbiased or emotional way. I am looking for some suggestions on what to say that won’t come across as me placing blame on her friend.

Sorry this is so long winded & if you read it fully, I really appreciate it.

Sincerely, an emotional mama whose heart strings are being tugged a bit hard today.