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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Fixed the OP for everyone.  YOU'RE WELCOME.

OP, my advice: your DS has plenty of social opportunities.  He's 6.  DCUM may have you convinced that the whole world lives with organized regular playdates, but that's just not true.  If he's in in-person school right, he's getting plenty of socialization, and he will have plenty of time to make friends with his new classmates in 1st grade.  Groups aren't bonded forever once they turn 7.  The pandemic has been weird for everyone, he won't be an outlier.

For what it's worth, my 4th grader has just 2 really close friends, and my 1st grader says everyone in her class is her BFF.  There is a huge range of what's typical.  Bottom line, your DS is happy, so don't obsess over this.  There are certainly many other real issues that are more worthy of "eating away" at you every day.
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This is eating away at me every day and even though I try to tell myself this won't always be the case, it still makes me sad on a daily basis. My 6 year old son really has hardly any friends right now. He doesn't have a group to hang with and I can't help but think of my older DD who made a super close group of friends in kindergarten that she has stuck with now through MS (and this has been great for her during COVID times), and I was hoping the same for him before quarantine hit and well, that's just not the case.

I have a tight group of mom friends from his preschool, but they all happen to be moms of girls. There were only two boys in his preschool class and while I was friendly with those moms and he was friendly with those boys, those relationships drifted apart during COVID times. Plus he never asked to see those boys after quarantine hit, so I didn't push much to try to see them since it was sort of frustrating with trying to figure out ways to safely see each other I kind of gave up. The group of girls, however, were his main summer pod group since the moms and I are close and it was more natural to get together. We took sport activities together, met up at playgrounds, got together quite often and they do all love him (one wants to marry him when she's older) but in reality, he's not their main go-to. They all happen to go to the same neighboring ES and they're girls--so they're getting together to play barbies, AG dolls, etc., and they are all in girl scouts together, so I get it having a daughter myself that they're kind of doing their own thing.

[b]We enrolled in private K, not our ES this year because he hates zoom, and while he is super happy in private K and has lots of friends to hang with during the school day, we haven't made inroads to set up play dates etc. There's no opportunity to meet parents, etc. and yes, I could try to reach out, but I just have not made the effort. I think part of me feels like, they're all going to go their separate ways next year (hopefully if school is back in session) that what is the point of trying? It's my own fault--I should try, but I know those kids won't be his longterm friends circle, so I haven't made the effort. [/b]

I have tried to connect with moms of other kindergartners at our neighborhood ES and have enrolled him in fall sports (and will do the same for spring) that I know typically kids from our ES participate in, but we only connected with one kid and my son and him didn't really hit it off (my son is really outgoing--this kid wasn't as much so I think my son was a little bored by him), so that sort of fizzled. None of my daughter's friends have younger siblings his age, so that's a dead end.

I know that this is not the end all be all and he will have that opportunity to make friends, but it is hard right now with him being so socially isolated. I am hoping if we can be in ES next year, we can start building relationships, but part of me worries it might too late and maybe those kids already have found their groups.

The good news is that he doesn't seem to notice--he's happy spend time with me on the weekends--we go hiking a ton and spend a lot of time outdoors together going on various adventures. But, I'm basically his only friend and maybe since I spend so much time with him, this gnaws at me. I keep reminding myself he's only 6--he's got a lot of time to make friends but I just feel like he's lost out on an entire year of making social connections. It just sucks. Just wanted to vent and share and see if anyone else is coping with this. [/quote]

Thank you for doing this because it allowed me to see that her child in private K in-person school and has friends in school but OP wants him to have playdates BUT she hasn't reached out to any parents for playdates. So she's complaining that he doesn't have any friends even though she says he has friends at school and because she hasn't reached out to anyone for playdates. Also we are in the middle of a pandemic where her kid shouldn't be having playdates anyway. So...WTF???

OP is nuts.[/quote]

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