What are your 7 year olds "into"?

[drspouse]

DS has SEN but to us, he's capable of holding a normal conversation. He tells us what he'll do when he's grown up and how we'll feed his dog, ask "what's college? How many years are there in school", tell us about funny things he saw on the TV.
At school apparently the other 7 year olds talk about football and Xbox. I don't really think even if he was neurotypical DS would be into those.
Apparently he talks to the adults about our cat and not to the other children at all.
With our DD who is 4, he plays pretend things, tig, he'll play running around games at Beavers. I can believe he doesn't have actual conversations at school but I'd like to help him to talk about things the other children might be talking about.

My DD is 7 and lives for art and creative things. She loves to watch tutorials on YouTube showing her how to draw 'cute things' and copy them. She also loves slime and science things such as space and experiments. I let her have tablet time on a Friday after school before she goes to a dance class. When she is on the tablet she likes to play Roblox.

I understand what you mean and why you worry, but I have four kids and they just talk utter shite to each other most of the time 😂

Is your son actually worried about it? It's not unusual for kids to not really relate to their peers. I know parents worry so much about lack of friendships, but I think these days there is less emphasis on kids making friends and more on just general happiness.

Anyway, sorry if I've misunderstood.

See, my impression was also that children this age play not talk (I used to do Brownies too) but the SENCO says he can't talk to the other children like his peers do. She admits they play tig etc but says he can't or won't join in, or maybe the other children don't or won't include him.

I am a little worried about him not having friends, as the number of friends he's able to name has gone down.
But the SENCO seems more worried about his lack of interaction and that's what she's said.

DD and her friends (7 and 8 year olds) are mostly into Littlest Pet Shops, Minecraft and watching youtubers play Minecraft, Youtubers in general, and slime.

The girls seem to talk more than play from what I've noticed but the boys still mostly play

She admits they play tig etc but says he can't or won't join in, or maybe the other children don't or won't include him.

Ok but there's a huuuuge difference between those situations and if she can't tell the difference I'd be asking other staff how they see things.
Wanting to join in but others not letting us on a totally different level to him not wanting to join in (does he e.g. not see the point of the game?) or not being able to join in.

Is the SENCO a naturally chatty person?
Is DS bothered by his lack of conversation? Does he rather do activities alongside others than with them?

He likes tig and will play with DD or on playdates.
School have said he needs his 1:1 at break time and he tends to cling to her. I need to probe more but school appear to be in crisis mode and trying to get us to send him to a special school. But there he will also need to play.
SENCO is indeed very chatty and has a similar aged DC.

They don't have to have watched StarWars or played fortnite to talk about and act out those things in the playground.

Only 2 children in my 7 year old's class of 7 and 8 year olds are allowed to play fortnight, although a few more (like my 7 year old) have seen older siblings play it. That doesn't stop all the boys in the class "playing fortnite" in the playground as a running about pretending game.

Star wars is the same - my 7 year old has actually watched it, but he plays starters with kids who's entire knowledge of StarWars comes from Lego StarWars or just from. Playground talk.

Mine does play Minecraft and talk about it, and has read some of the books.

At the same age my older DS only played football solidly at each and every opportunity, pretty much nothing else, but they're very different and also birth order makes a huge difference to what they're aware of.

Current 7 year old doesn't like or play football but will role out second hand football stories he's heard his brother tell if he feels the situation demands a football story.

At home he does watch too much TV but often prefers programmes which his friends don't watch (or don't admit watching) so doesn't talk about them with friends. He also tells ling rapid stream of consciousness annecdotes about butterflies he once watched or trees he sat in, and goes off into flights of fancy.

He "works out" with a pull up bar and does sit ups and press ups when restless, he is quite sporty and can't stay still but not a team sports player.

He plays Ninja Games which he acts out to a story inside his own head.

A lot of what 7 year olds talk about to one another is pack identity and fitting in, they don't necessarily spend their time alone at home doing the things that they talk about at school.

Mine were both big "chatters" in Y3. One (NT) was in a group who wanted to "hang out" ie chat instead of playing. The other (autistic) does play too but the need for social skills is no lower. My DS gravitated towards races or games with defined rules like Tig, rather then open ended pretend play. Any game meant endless disagreements about cheating and fair play, and someone gets bored or wants to put their own stamp on the game and adapt the rules. NT playground games do not mean playing exactly the same game week in, week out, with everyone sticking to the exact same rules and never pushing the boundaries or moving on to something new. They absolutely require social skills, both to kick off and maintain the play. How do you agree what to play, how you agree a method for choosing who's 'it', what do you do if you don't want to be it, what to do you do if you have a race with someone and you think they made a false start?

Also a child may say "we don't talk, we play" but they likely do speak to each other quite a bit through the day - over lunch, in setting up time between lessons, getting changed for PE, on transition between classroom / lunch / playground.

Totally agree that not wanting to join a game is very different to other children not wanting him to join, but also not wanting to chat to his peers is very different to him not wanting to do so. My son was desperate to chat to his classmates, he just didn't know how to do it. Football cards were a good currency he could use.

I agree with OutdoorApathy, how does he feel? What does he say? That's what's most important.

Like I mentioned, my daughter was quite happy playing by herself at pre-school. She just wasn't interested in playing with the other kids much and liked to do her own thing. She is still like that. She can play with other kids happily, she can chat to them when she feels like it, but mostly she just likes to be by herself, and that is ok too.

There's a huge difference between a kid who wants more social contact, but is excluded, and a kid who is happy doing their own thing and interacting when they feel like it.

They do talk to each other though - D's age 7 and his 9 year old friend talked without pausing for breath for an entire car journey yesterday. It was mostly nonsense, though They do repeat stories, tell other people's stories, and repeat annecdotes about things which happened when both of them were present - so stories they both already know. They also discussed their respective parents working hours for some reason My ds also told some not completely accurate annecdotes about pets we had before he was old enough to remember...

I'd say he wants to have social contact but wouldn't admit he finds it hard so might say he doesn't want to.
He is good at pretend - he's currently in the back of the car directing DD who is 4, in a game involving them pretending to be other people, possibly their teddies.

drspouse my very talkative 7 year old's best friend is at a specialist speach and language school, and until he was 5 didn't have many words I could understand. He now has a lot of individual words but puts them together in non standard ways and isn't especially fluent.

This didn't stop him and my 7 year old playing and according to my son talking together even when he didn't have many words. Possibly because they complimented each others strengths and weaknesses and seem to have a telepathic connection... They're an odd pair in some ways but they work.

DD is 7.
She loves music (foo fighters, George Ezra, white lies, feeder n whatevers on radio 2).
Dancing (ballet tap n modern but makes her own up at home)
Writing and making up stories with her story dice.
Spirograph.
Make believe/role play activities with her Enchantimals/dolls house/Playmobil.
Coin master on her tablet 🤦

Son was 7 in Feb.

He likes the xbox a lot (probably bedause I'm so strict with when he's allowed on it)
Games: Plants VS Zombies, Minecraft and Crash Bandicoot

He likes colouring/drawing - that comes out first thing in the morning
Playmobil, trains and cars
He's obsessed with Horrible Histories and talking about Titanic (hasn't seen the film)

He loves football and plays it at playtime
He loves riding his bike

my 7yr old son is into Roblox, Minecraft, Morgz, Dan TDM, Fortnite to a lesser extent, Ethan Gamer. It's actually mostly Morgz videos he watches on You Tube at the moment.

As for TV, I can drag him away from the computer to watch Bake Off. And Titanic. He's a bit obsessed with the Titanic (this follows from watching the film and from Roblox). Not into sports at all.

Conversation in the back of the car deteriorated into "she hit me" "no he hit me" followed by DH stopping and having Words.
Then DS decided we were all in a game and that he could lift 160000 Mummies and 60000 DDs.
So not short of imagination or topics.
I think the sticking point may well be when he feels stressed (e.g. he does dance routines like mad at home but either sits down or runs around at lessons).
So maybe some practice will help. Who knows.

In a game = inside a computer game.

Can he jointly play an imaginative game with someone else, as opposed to directing a younger sibling? Does he include DD's ideas in the he and play her imaginative games sometimes, or does he have to call the shots? Peers at school won't tolerate just being directed in someone else's game like some younger siblings will.

*in the game, not in the he

He tends to suggest the game but take on board her ideas. I'm not sure what he does with friends because e.g. I've seen them play pirates on the pirate ship at the park so any one child have suggested it!
He's not great if she says she doesn't want to play at all (he just keeps asking again and again).
It's possible he's given up on joining in after his ideas have been rejected if it's been too stressful for him. As I say, school don't report he tries to join in but isn't successful but that he doesn't try, or something vague about the other children not understanding him when he tries to join in.

Does he like numbers? My older DS is a bit socially awkward but loves numbers. So football sticker albums are right up his street because they have match stats and player ages etc in the albums. He can recite all kinds of nonsense about football. It got him interested and now he actually follows it. (But is still Statto!) He feels able to join in conversations about it.

Not that much, though he's enjoying a maths app I got him to help him catch up, he's more of a words boy - he likes learning new words including in a language we are learning as a family.

Lego
Harry Potter
Scooby-Doo! (Weirdly)
Pretending he’s in an online cooking show (might just be my 7 year old!)