Socializing--kids

[brachysira]

When you go to the park or some place, do your kids make friends?  What have you told your kids about how to behave with others?  For quite a while, at the park, DD finds other kids and will play tag or the kids will just follow each other around and do the same things.  Kids as young as 18 months will play with her sometimes.  She tries with just about anyone, but doesn't always have success, but she is usually unfazed.   We have playdates.  She is friends with a boy a few months younger and he really isn't up to cooperative play but they still talk and make suggestions to each other, but they don't really plan out anything or do pretend together.  With kids who are older, she does light pretending.  But making friends is hard.

She has two friends at preschool but one often won't play with her.  I'm sort of worried that she is being pest-y to her.  She says she tries to play with other kids but they won't play with her but I've sort of assumed that they don't even realize that she's trying to play or they don't even really play cooperatively yet so they're not being mean.  But today at the library there was a girl who seemed a lot older--maybe 5 or a tall 4--and DD asked if she could play.  The girl ignored her.  DD stood there.  The girl ignored her.  DD said, "my name is DD" and the girl ignored her.  This girl was bringing her mom things and engaging in a pretend play narrative with her mom who was texting, so it wasn't a verbal skill or development issue as far as I could see.  The girl could have said, "I don't want to play because I'm playing with my mom" or "sorry, I'm playing alone right now" if she didn't want to play.  Or she could have included DD.  I told DD that she could initiate play more.  Like, say, "are you making a pizza?  My dog likes pizza?" and I have also told her to give up and find someone else to play with if someone doesn't want to play, but she doesn't heed this part of the advice.

Any other tips to give kids?  What is the nature or your kids' relationships these days?

[dc2london]

Aw your poor DD! I would not be happy if my child ignored another child who was trying to engage her in play. That's rude

My kids are social butterflies. They assume everyone they encounter is their new friend. They approach other kids by saying, "Hi, my name is DS. What's your name?" I also often encourage them when they invite other children to play with them . It sounds to me like you and your child are doing everything "right." That's how most children interact here, at least.

[brachysira]

Thanks. Last time we were at the library, a very nice 5 year-old played with her, so I think her expectations were high. This girl's mom told the girl that she had to respond when someone spoke to her, but she wasn't exactly encouraging her child to play. If my child won't play with someone, I tell her that we include everyone, but she usually doesn't do this unless she's trying to exclude a younger sibling. Weirdly, at this library, most of the parents are actively playing with their children to some degree, so the kids tend to want to play with their parents and do not seem to expect to interact with other children.

[pinkie]

Oct 25, 2016 13:14:14 GMT -5 brachysira said:

Thanks. Last time we were at the library, a very nice 5 year-old played with her, so I think her expectations were high. This girl's mom told the girl that she had to respond when someone spoke to her, but she wasn't exactly encouraging her child to play. If my child won't play with someone, I tell her that we include everyone, but she usually doesn't do this unless she's trying to exclude a younger sibling. Weirdly, at this library, most of the parents are actively playing with their children to some degree, so the kids tend to want to play with their parents and do not seem to expect to interact with other children.

You can encourage your kids to interact with other kids but you can't force them to.  Our son is very shy/comes across as standoffish with kids he doesn't know.  He is coming around a bit.  I encourage him - if a kid is asking his name and he doesn't answer I'll try to prompt him but I also don't want to make too big of a deal/force it.  I'll also sometimes talk with the more social child and hope that over time my kid will try to mimic my behavior.

Some kids are naturally shy and some naturally outgoing.  I think being so young that many are still learning social skills and it may not have anything to do with if the child is nice or not.

[brachysira]

Yeah, that's good perspective. My kid is rabidly seeking peers at all times, so it's hard to remember that other kids might be too shy to even reply. My child needs to do more parallel play and draw kids in rather than just saying, will you play with me and standing there. But she really doesn't have the skills to orchestrate too much. I probably should do more pretend play with her.

[seadragon2013]

Oct 25, 2016 21:07:00 GMT -5 pinkie said:

Oct 25, 2016 13:14:14 GMT -5 brachysira said:

Thanks. Last time we were at the library, a very nice 5 year-old played with her, so I think her expectations were high. This girl's mom told the girl that she had to respond when someone spoke to her, but she wasn't exactly encouraging her child to play. If my child won't play with someone, I tell her that we include everyone, but she usually doesn't do this unless she's trying to exclude a younger sibling. Weirdly, at this library, most of the parents are actively playing with their children to some degree, so the kids tend to want to play with their parents and do not seem to expect to interact with other children.

You can encourage your kids to interact with other kids but you can't force them to.  Our son is very shy/comes across as standoffish with kids he doesn't know.  He is coming around a bit.  I encourage him - if a kid is asking his name and he doesn't answer I'll try to prompt him but I also don't want to make too big of a deal/force it.  I'll also sometimes talk with the more social child and hope that over time my kid will try to mimic my behavior.

Some kids are naturally shy and some naturally outgoing.  I think being so young that many are still learning social skills and it may not have anything to do with if the child is nice or not.

This has been my experience too.

[pinkie]

Oct 25, 2016 21:24:25 GMT -5 brachysira said:

Yeah, that's good perspective. My kid is rabidly seeking peers at all times, so it's hard to remember that other kids might be too shy to even reply. My child needs to do more parallel play and draw kids in rather than just saying, will you play with me and standing there. But she really doesn't have the skills to orchestrate too much. I probably should do more pretend play with her.

I'm a very social person so it kinda kills me when my kids refuse to interact with others. I figure over time they will learn the skills or I will become BFFs with a bunch of little kids

[sagen]

That's sad. In that situation I usually just say " hey come play with mom, or come show me whatever." Hopefully that will lessen the burn.

[brachysira]

Yeah, I guess I should have told her to play with me--that's a good solution. At summer preschool, with different kids, the kids told DD that they would never play with her again. It was a very small group and she said 2 kids were nice but 4 of them said she couldn't play in their group and would never be allowed to... So now every day she tells me that her main friend at preschool didn't want to play with her each day. And all the time I'm thinking that probably these instances are minor and DD just cares about them a lot and overemphasizes them, and that she isn't meeting other kids at preschool because she doesn't try or know how get involved with them. But then I see her doing exactly what I told her to do with zero results, and I'm wondering if there's something she's missing. Or if maybe this preschool is just a bad fit--most of the kids seem to know each other--I think a lot of the moms went to high school together.

[sagen]

it's hard as a mom to here that. I would be talking to the teachers to get their take. It maybe something small, or more. The teachers can help to actives that would involve interaction and help friendships grow. When that has happened with my kids (they feel left out at school) I go volunteer or eat lunch with them. I try to ever so smoothly talk to the kids and try to facilitate sone common ground. Like at lunch ask the kids what toys they like, oh my kid likes that too. Also what games they play and hey my kid likes to play that too. I don't push it too hard of course, and also when they are older I would never do that

[dc2london]

Does it work better if she invites another child to join her in a specific activity? E.g. , "Want to help me build a castle with these blocks?" Vs, "Can I play with you?"

[brachysira]

dc2london, that would definitely help. My child is terrible at "playing" so this is not something that occurs to her. She probably really just wants someone to sit around and talk with. She literally can discuss a book with 10 pages for an hour and so that's mostly the kind of stuff we do--or we do exercise-focused stuff, and she's much better at playing outside due to that. But she's coming around to some activities she has previously rejected (e.g. duplos), so I think maybe working with her on some traditional play will help.