Anonymous wrote:Following. I am really not sure how much to encourage/facilitate socializing for my introverted kid. Debating signing her up for Girl Scouts because it would be more interactive than her current activities (dance and gymnastics), but when I talked to her about it, she did not seem enthused. She is like OP's kids -- it's not that she can't or won't play with other kids, but more that she doesn't seem super interested in it and would generally prefer to hang out with our family. Age 5. Her peers definitely seem more social, but I'm just not sure if she's simply on the more introverted end of the spectrum or I need to to worry. I am also an introvert for sure, but I have worked hard to make sure we have family friends with same age kids so that my introversion doesn't impact her negatively. But she's never taken to those play groups that much (and honestly talks to the parents more than the kids when we do socialize).
OP here, your daughter sounds just like my boys. We tried camping with friends and they spent very little time with the other kids and mostly just hung out together. When I asked them how they liked it, they said they had a great time though and want to do it again in a year. I sign them up for all sorts of things and they go through with them, but 99% of the time if it’s a group activity, they’d prefer to basically just hang out at home with family. My boys also much prefer to talk to the grown ups as well. We had a play date with a neighbor today and her son, my youngest left about 10 minutes in to go do some craft in the house and my oldest begrudgingly rode his bike around in a circle for a few minutes while sighing like I was making him do chores or something. He managed to coax the neighbors kid into the house, got him set up with some markers and paper and went upstairs to go see what his brother was doing. There was zero actual playing with the neighbors kid.