My child has no friends and plays alone. Is this normal?

Question

My son is 4 years old next month and due to start school in September (he will be the youngest in his year). He's been attending nursery 3 days a week for the past year and stilll hasn't made friends. He seems happy to go to nursery and enjoys playing alone when he's there. Recently he's said (on more than one occasion) ''mummy, the other children don't like me''. I talked to my son about why he feels this and he said they are too noisy for him. I also reassurred him that the other children do like him. This makes me feel sad and I hope someone has advise for me. We are quite new in the community where we live and only recently did I feel comfortable to ask other mum's for play dates. He's been on a few, but the other children are more boistrous than my son and he soon came to me saying he wanted to go home. Any one out there who've been through similar experiences? Any advice?

Answer 1

It is ok he will eventually make a friend

Answer 2

children at first will watch other children play first then as their confidence grows they will join in, dont worry its normall

Answer 3

I think some children are just naturally more intro-verted. As long as your son enjoys nursery school and doesn't cry when he has to go or react oddly, he should be OK. I grew up much like him. I was an only child without many friends in school, but slowly I opened up more and now I'm a social butterfly. Sure, it took.....years, but I"m sure everything will be ok! Good luck to you & your little boy!

Answer 4

his fine,.. he meet friends when he start to school,..

Answer 5

I have twins, only two, mind you..

One twin will go off to the side and play by herself..the other will plunk herself merrily down with a gaggle of other girls of various age and offer her twinspeak-eese opinion to the conversation.

At home, they seem to reverse roles. It seems the less children there are in a room, the more even the playing field happens to be. Some children are introverted, some extroverted. It's not a frailty, just a personality difference. I was one of the introverts growing up!

Try and find other parents with kids who like to tuck themselves off to the side and engage them in one-on-ones. If the chemistry clicks, go with it. If not, then don't pressure. If he thinks the other kids don't like him, there may be other reasons to it than just that they're simply 'noisy'. Speak with the workers at the nursery and gather their observations. Pushing a child to socialize who feels the social world is as alien as Pluto will only make them feel more out of place and unacceptable in society. Honestly, those with an introverted, intuitive personality often have more difficulty growing up than most children...But, they're some of the brightest, most rewarding kids to parent.

Best of luck to you.

Answer 6

My son was just like that...he's 8 now & hasn't changed much but I assure you that he is happy. Some kids are observers. We feel more emotional over issues than neccesary in most cases. Give him love and accept him exactly the way he is.

Answer 7

Mine wasn't the quiet one but went thru a similar thing. My best help was to volunteer to help in the class and be able to watch him with others and maybe meet some of the children I though might be a good friendship match-to arrange playdates. I didn't do this as much with my son as with my daughter and I learned so much! Plus youre observing their education too andcan interact about that-I wish I had done so much more! You can be there round the clock though-thats not good either-we had one parent that did that-I thought it was crazy! They have to be independant.

Answer 8

i remember when i was seven and my sister was four. I think it was my first God job and so I said to my sister a number of times cause i felt like she was not striving in the social realm. I said Clare read us a story from the side of the box of cereal. So she would pretend to read a story on the side of the box. Made her feel special and outgoing.