Advice needed, 5y DS low confidence and easily knocked back

[daisycat01]

DS is 5 (august birthday so very young for year). He recently seems to get phased by things really easily, I am quite worried about him. He seems to lack confidence at school and at play. At home is is very comfortable with adults and happily plays with our friends. But with other children he will be very quite and seem lost. For example, I dropped him of at chool the other day and he went into the class room to find that a child was handing out invites. I watched him from the window, and he didnt have the confidence to go up and see if he had an invite, he just stood still and chewed his sleeve and looked down at the floor.
I am thinking of having a chat with his techer to see if there is anything thatwe can do to boost his confidence.
Can anyone suggest anything that I can do to help him?
I wonder if it is because I had him when I was quite young and didnt have any friends with children so he grew up with losts of adults. HE went to nursery and toddlers though??

[Elephantsbreath]

bless him. We are not all born with bags of social confidence but it can be aquired imo.

Does he have one or two special friends? His teacher should be able to help in this way, help him to break the ice as it were, find suitable children for him to play with. Because he plays happily outside of school suggests to me he needs a little more gentle encouragement within school, and a kindly teacher should provide that.

perhaps as the weather improves you could engineer some simple playdates...swings after school etc?

Good luck to you both

[Elephantsbreath]

tbh at 5 I'd have rather chewed my arm off than risk not getting an invite

[NormaSnorks]

Oh Daisy - I sympathise. DS2 is an August boy and is VERY similar!

I suppose I have 'worked hard' at helping DS build his friendships with his peers:

• always accepting EVERY school -related invitation (even if it wasn't very convenient)

• organising playdates with other children in his class on a regular basis

• befriending the mums of other boys in his class

• finding out where his classmates play football/ have swimming lessons/ play tennis , whatever and enrolling him (and going along)

The other thing is constantly reinforcing, reinforcing and reinforcing AGAIN his strengths/ what HE is good at/ how much you (and other people) love him etc etc

At this age they can all be quite obsessed with height and age as a competitive measure, and DS2 regularly used to come home in tears because someone had said "I'm 6, and you're not" etc.

I developed all sorts of responses for conversations about this e.g.

• Ah yes, but if you're only 5 and in the same class, doing the same work, you must be bright?

• yes, but you're lovely and tall, have lovely eyes/ face

To be honest - the birthday party thing is a nightmare anyway - I wouldn't expect my son to go to ask if he had an invite - I wouldn't after all!

Good luck - it does get easier!

[daisycat01]

Oh Thanks for you comments. I went to see his teacher and he said that he had noticed that DS seemed a bit sad...that made me well up just sitting there!! The teacher is going to move some of the seating around so DS is sat with boys he gets on with. He is also going to remind children about the friendship stop at playtime and do some PSE topics about being friends and playing nicely. The teacher said that he thought that there were quite a few children who played quite babyish games and that he thought DS was quite mature for his age and so just didnt join in.
I have always accepted invites, and have invited all the boys over to play, but with a few nver recieved an invite back. I am encouraging him with sports too, and he does go to football after school each week but I am thinking abouit starting him with swimming. His younger brother is totally opposite, I dont think I will have the same worries about him!!