What do your male preschool age boys chit chat about

[Anonymous]

I know...sounds like a crazy question, but I have a quirky child. He taught himself to read and do all sorts of other things, but the poor boy is socially clueless though he wants good friends. He's lonely. Yes, we get ST for pragmatics and we're looking into social skills groups, and we go to the playground, but I just thought I'd find out what is normal chit chat for this age group so we can practice it at home. I am assuming dinosaurs, trucks, cars, superheroes, etc are considered "cool." He likes those things too. He seems to have picked up that others comment when something is "yucky" or "gross." More ideas?

What do you hear your kids saying to their friends? (comments they make, questions they ask). I know it sounds pathetic, but he learns well through scripts and he wants friends. He's well behaved so the preschool and camp teachers/counselors are happy, but he wants buddies and if left to his own devices he might try to befriend people by reading a book to them or sharing his extensive knowledge of every type of fish, or he might recite his favorite children's book or perhaps try to impress them with the fact he can name every state and every president (No we did NOT teach or encourage this-he learned it from a gift he got)-you get the drift.These things will and do probably make the other kid find him odd. I am all for letting him be himself, but he's happy to make chit chat if someone would teach him how. So uh give me some chit chat from your little boy. TIA!!

[Anonymous]

Star Wars - My son is 5 and he and all of his friends love Star Wars. The movies, Lego Star Wars video game, which character they will for Halloween, etc.

Sports - Whatever sport they're playing that season and how much they love it. Swim team is in right now.

[Anonymous]

We went through a phase where they were making up a lot of knock-knock jokes that made absolutely no sense at all. That was a few months after turning 4.

[Anonymous]

OP, there are several books on helping Aspie kids with social skills, they might be helpful since they also focus on intellectual interests as your little guy does. The more you can practice the better and the more you can be around other kids the better - my DD's comfort zone was adults and that just made her less like a kid. That he is picking up on the gross factor shows that he is paying attention. A good social skills group, In Step is one that also "trains" the parents how to help their kids, can be really life changing. Good luck to you and your boy, he is lucky to have such a caring mom.

[Anonymous]

Hmm, my quirky 5 yo son wants to discuss Apollo 13 (the movie that retells the failed mission to the moon) with anyone in sight. He also sings opera tidbits from The Three Tenors (DVD I got for Christmas). He plays cooking because he loves Pixar's Ratatouille. He also grabs my Victoria's Secret catalogue and points to all the bikini bottoms, whooping... OK, that last is not a good sharing subject

Don't just feed him "boy" subjects, and do not assume his favorite subjects will make others avoid him. Maybe a playdate with a girl will produce interesting conversation... I have noticed with my son that his girl friends accept his interests much better than his boy friends, who just want to run around and scream.

[Anonymous]

Whatever is on their shirt is usually a good opener. My son is 4 and has never seen Star Wars but could have a long conversation about it.

[Anonymous]

I agree with the shirt thing. it seems that my boys (4 and 6) could where a shirt straight out of a dumpster for a month if it had something "cool" on it. Tractors are cool. As are race cars or anything on fire. Not just my boys- all of them bring it up. Maybe your son could be convinced to try one of these? Sounds weird, but others might approach him and he would be ready to talk about whatever was on his shirt.
Also, any type of physical humor is a HUGE hit on the pre-school circuit. Running and sliding, making faces, rude noises made with mouth. But these take timing to get the crowd on your side, so it might not be a first move for your son.
It is ongoing, but the oldest has actual friends now and the youngest is starting to figure things out. Still, Oldest doesn't understand why no one else wants to talk about rocks and minerals for an hour, and the youngest cant' figure out why he shouldn't kiss and hug everyone who listens to him for a minute.
My kids have worked through a wide variety of social awkwardness and I'm sure some of this early rough-going will abate with time and practice. The development that happens with time and a conscientious mom like yourself will serve your son well.

[Anonymous]

How old is your son OP? There is a big difference between a 3 yr old and a 5 yr old. My 5 yr old is a tad bit quirky too and loves talking about insects and dinosaurs when most of his friends love Legos, Wii (esp those w/ older siblings), Star Wars, etc. My son has zero interest in any video games (for now at least) and isn't into Legos that much. He has seen parts of Star Wars and has some of the action figures. I'd work on the back and forth of conversation at this point. My friend's son is turning 11 and starting middle school next year and still hasn't learned how to have an actual back and forth conversation. He'll talk and talk and then when he pauses and his friend says something, he won't actually answer that question but will go back to his monologue (which may actually be about something that his peers like such as Wii games, baseball, etc). He only has 1 or 2 friends and they are younger than he is.

[Anonymous]

At least with my ds, pretend play is big. Most of my ds's conversations with other boys seem to go along the lines of: "OK, pretend I'm (Luke Skywalker, a T-Rex, elephant, etc) and you're (Darth Sidious, Triceratops, gazelle, etc) and we're (unfortunately, usually, fighting, but other scenarios occur), Go!" Legos are huge, and they'll build whole cities, fleets of boats & spaceships, etc together. Plastic dinosaurs and animals are also big -- they set them all up and play safari. I also second the suggestion about playing with girls. My ds also had sort of "nerdy" interests for his age when he was smaller, and he seemed to do much better playing with the girls then. I was beginning to think he would never have any male friends, but now he's in kindergarten, he hangs out with the boys.

[Anonymous]

My son is 5 and that is exactly what he sounds like PP. Every other word is "pretend." Even with the girls who can be as "violent" in their play as the boys. The dinosaurs are always killing each other and chopping off each other's heads.

[Anonymous]

Another one here with a 4.5 y.o. who fits right into the descriptions in :36 and and 7:06. We have a lot of superhero vs bad guy fights. Buzz Lightyear is the latest and greatest thing he ever met and he'd befriend any kid who had anything Buzz or could just talk about the guy.

[Anonymous]

My son is turning 5, and I wouldn't say he chit chats all that much! Whereas big sister would introduce herself to people (Hi, I'm X, and I'm 4 1/2 years old! What's your name? How old are you?), he hangs back a little. However, if he has something cool that he just found, like a cicada shell or interesting rock, he'll initiate conversations with anybody. He's also really into shooting at things and playing tag--either of those would be ways he'd initiate play with other boys he doesn't know well. As people have said, dinosaurs and Star Wars are always popular topics of play.

[Anonymous]

Boys just don't talk that much. Especially in preschool - more like grunts, nods, that's cool sort of thing. Then by 5th grade, they tell each other jokes.

[Anonymous]

This is all great thank you. OP here. He's almost 4. Good stuff...off I go to discuss superheroes, star wars, cool t shirts and so forth and we will work on our grunting and nods. Somebody told me burps and farts are the discussed as well. hmmm. Might skip that. Will work on the female friendship angle-good ideas.

[Anonymous]

If he had a good burp noise that he could drop on command that would be a big hit with the 4-6 year old set
(Yes- I know it is sad/ awful/ will condemn them all to a life of frat-style jokes, etc- but it is also reality)