How to help 11 year old socialize and make friends

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
OP here.

He's not lonely, but then he doesn't know what he's missing. He has never asked to hang out with friends after school or on weekends, which to my mind is necessary.

Mostly what I want to teach him is that even though making and keeping friends may be hard work sometimes - because you have to compromise and think about others - it's worth it in the end because you have a network and a community who can help and support you when you need it.
Obviously he doesn't understand that now, but hopefully one day he will.

I just enrolled him in the after-school chess club, but I'm afraid it's not enough.

What area are you in OP?

[Anonymous]

would he like boy scouts? martial arts? a cooking class? does he go to sunday/religious school? I agree with the others who say he should follow his interests.

And if he doesn't have deep/lasting friendships out of the activities, that's really ok. I didn't have friends over much or get invited a lot of places in middle/high school. It was enough to see everyone at school and extracurricular activities all day, and I had siblings and hobbies i enjoyed outside of school. In college, I made some deep and lasting friendships. People are different in terms of how many friends they want. My dad basically has one friend, who he's had the past 20+ years. I don't think he's sad at all about it--he spends time with coworkers 40-50 hours a week, enjoys being with family, and also likes time alone to watch movies and read and stuff. So I wouldn't push your son too much. Just ask him what he'd like to do, and of course if he wants to invite a kid someplace definitely say yes! But don't ask him every time you go out if he wants to bring a friend. It could get annoying or make him feel like something's wrong with him if he doesn't have someone who wants to come with him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
OP here.

He's not lonely, but then he doesn't know what he's missing. He has never asked to hang out with friends after school or on weekends, which to my mind is necessary.

Mostly what I want to teach him is that even though making and keeping friends may be hard work sometimes - because you have to compromise and think about others - it's worth it in the end because you have a network and a community who can help and support you when you need it.
Obviously he doesn't understand that now, but hopefully one day he will.

I just enrolled him in the after-school chess club, but I'm afraid it's not enough.

What area are you in OP?

Bethesda.

For the past several years, he has refused offers to do extra-curricular activities on the grounds that he gets stressed out when he's always busy and that none of them are really interesting. He spends his time reading or asking to play video games.
Sports/dance are very difficult for him - he has a motor planning issue and that will unfortunately not go away. He likes building games, but again, working with his hands isn't easy.
In addition to his physical limitations, maybe there's underlying anxiety here, or a fear of failure?
And I definitely understand that he needs a longer time than some other kids, to recharge and be quiet by himself.

All this is fine and dandy, but, like a PP understood, socializing will be important down the road and he needs to have some basic conversational and socialization techniques.

We tried a social skills group one year, but it didn't really help. Agree with PPs that I mustn't make him feel bad or pressure him about this.

[Anonymous]

Have you tried summer camps like at Lab School or Auburn, e.g.,: http://www.theauburnschool.org/domain/51

There are also things he can participate in sporadically. Many of the local library branches offer chess clubs.