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[quote=Anonymous]This sounds very much like my son - he will do playdates and all but most loves being with older kids (cousins, friends older kids etc).  For the first time ever he made a very close peer friend at camp last week, it was so fun to see

My son does have minor pragmatic communication issues (this is all the non verbal part of communication).  My understanding is so many kids this age group do bc so much of their early socialization was during covid (can’t see facial expressions, have to stay distanced so harder to tell body language, playing close together was discouraged so didn’t learn how to enter play / navigate what to do etc).  I was shocked bc he’s soooo outgoing, charming, and delightful to talk to from an adult / big kid perspective.  What the speech therapist explained to me is that peers are actually a really skill set.  Adults and older kids are very indulgent in our conversation (we talk about whatever they want, we show enthusiasm, we don’t expect it to be reciprocal, we stay on their topic and ask appropriate questions).  Peer are super tough - they don’t indulge what you want to talk about if they don’t want to talk about it, they can say things that are confusing or hurtful (proposing elaborate games that don’t make sense or just saying a hard “no, I don’t want to do that” to an elaborate game you propose), entering play, proposing play, negotiating what’s fair when play changes can all be super complicated and full of unspoken rules

My 6yo made huge progress this year with once a week coaching from a speech therapist during recess.  His teachers said they saw no issue and didnt quite understand why I pushed for it, but from my perspective he is social and has so much to share (wanting friends and connection, loving people generally) and I wanted to make sure he could do that well with peers versus defaulting to adults and big kids which isn’t a good long term strategy

Just a thought of something to consider[/quote]

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