My son (5yo) was at a birthday party yesterday and normally he gets along really well with the birthday boy, "B", and they've never had problems in the past. Something happened at the party though, and when I came to pick up my son, he was upset that B didn't want to be his friend anymore. I have no idea what happened, but I did see that B refused to say thank you and goodbye to my son, which made my son even more upset.

When we left, my son asked me why B had been mean to him and didn't want to be his friend. I'm not automatically assuming that my son is completely innocent, and I imagine it has to do with too much excitement, too many kids and someone got their feelings hurt somehow. I remember this happening to me as a kid and being really hurt by it. I tried to tell my son that it was just the excitement of the moment and things will be fine at school again and B didn't really mean that they weren't friends anymore. But that didn't really convince him. How do you console your child in these situations?