Reply to How does your kid join a group of kids to play together?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think this is so normal. Heck, if I'm out and about without any friends somewhere, I have a very hard time entering conversations! And I'm someone who appears to be at ease socially. I don't think he's doing anything wrong?

Does he friends and is otherwise OK at school? Are you just wondering what he should do when you go to the park?[/quote]

I think OP can see that her son really wants to join the group and that is why he is lingering at the fringe, hoping to find a way in. I don’t think you are going to parties and watching groups of people, listening to their conversations and inching closer and closer in hopes of joining!

I have seen this happen with my son’s group of 4 or 5 friends last month. Another boy was following them and not saying a word. The group sat on the grass to talk and the other boy stood a few feet away, watching. It was a weird dynamic - the group of boys, including my son, just completely ignored this kid and didn’t even look at him. I asked my son to include him, and he shrugged and said, “he’s always following us”. It wasn’t nice at all. This happened at school, but not during school hours, so I was the only adult there. I ended up trying to have my own conversation with the kid and eventually he left to join his parents. I should have done something else, but I couldn’t think of anything in the moment. As a minority kid in the Deep South, I was usually on the outside looking in, so I have a lot of empathy for kids who just want to join a group. I understand OP’s concerns. [/quote]

That's so nice of you PP; you have great empathy, but I know it's hard to just make your child be friendly or nice to someone if they are not interested in doing so. We moved to a new neighborhood/school during the pandemic so it was tough for my DS to meet/make friends. Our nanny is in her mid 20s and was great about bringing him to the playground and really *playing*. She would come up with games that made him laugh like Zombie Tag or Simon Says. Eventually other kids would see them having fun and ask if they could play too, and that helped him break the ice with other kids. [/quote]

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