Is this behaviour a bit strange? From a 5 year old?

[Kingcyrolophosarus]

DS and I at small soft play place.
He spots a friend, his best friend from school.
He went to his house last week, all good
This friend is completely blanking him
So much so that I thought he got the wrong child
His mum isn't here, there doesn't seem to be any adult with them, he's with another kid a bit smaller

Really bizarre

DS is nearly in tears

sounds like the other child was just totally engrossed in what he was doing.

I think at five they're too young to be blanking kids for spiteful reasons.

What do you mean by there's no adult with them? He's 5?

Although odd and upsetting I think this is departmentalisation - and quite common as they learn about friendships.

My son when he was 5 made a friend at school. They thought each other was brill. Then the friend decided he would only acknowledge my son on a Friday and would pretend he didn't exist for the rest of the week.

My son was so sad but I started to invite other school mates to play and encouraged him to join in with others at school.

The friend did drop this a few months later. It reared up again the following school year but the friend seems to have outgrown this behaviour and they are good friends - not just on Fridays.

I'd be more concerned about the fact he's unaccompanied by an adult to be honest

Yes again no adult??? Wtf!

My son does this - less now at 5.5, but almost always when he was 4ish. It comes across as very rude to the other child. DS is not doing it to be spiteful though - it's more something like an inability to process the feeling of shyness and surprise at seeing someone out of context.

It is strange if there's no adult with them though! Maybe the parent of the other child is there, but you don't know them?

He must have had an adult with him.

It's not uncommon IME for kids that age to separate school friends from out of school friends when they suddenly bump into them in play areas.

I'm sure things will be back to normal on Monday.

Of course there's an adult, just not an obvious one. What did he say when you said hello to him?

I bet there was an adult there, just not one you know. No soft play centre lets in children unaccompanied.

My DS used to do that to his best friend from nursery, when out.
And when the girl and her mother went to our house to say goodbye when we moved.

He also replied no to this girl who came to him and asked him if he wanted to play with her in the park, yesterday.

He is just too shy and I'm working on it. He did go to play with her, BTW.

How did this boy blank him? Did your DS go to him and spoke to him?

Maybe he didn't recognise him out of context?

My ds does this :(

He is just painfully shy and doesn't seem to know how to react when he bumps into a school friend in an unexpected place.

Some 5yr olds are just better at the whole socialising thing than others. Sorry that your ds was upset, it is extremely frustrating!

I'd say 5yr old was there with friend, cousin, someone else (ie. not mum) and felt either awkward seeing friend out of context, or in his small brain he was there to play with "other child" not your DS.

Poor social skills, slightly odd, but probably not deliberate.

Was all a bit strange, but figured it out
There was a kids holiday club thing there and I was concerned that he had escaped and had been overlooked. Eventually he went into a kids club(not the day one) so I spoke to the leader. The mum had left him with her, and she was watching him.

I spoke to him and he wouldn't speak to me either!! I think he was just in a silly mood, or was playing a funny not speaking game.
But it wasa bit weird that there was no initial acknowledgement or hello.

This is quite common IME. As others have said, it's about compartmentalising their lives. At this age, DS1 often had to be prompted to say hello to school friends in the street, and would not automatically play with a school friend if he bumped into them in the park, especially if he was there with another child.

Surely you have encountered small children who are embbarrassed to say hello, especially if they aren't with their parents? It's not deliberate rudeness, just under developed social skills

embarrassed

I was a CM, and have worked in Nurseries and TA'd in Reception.

If I met children I looked after out of the setting, they would often not speak and blank you. I wasnt in my right place

Worse still if I went to their house, totally threw them.

My DS would have done exactly the same at 5, nothing spiteful just lack of social skills.

My son is 12 and still does that! He is borderline for aspergers and he just pretends he hasn't seen them. He will also happily sit in the car with his best friend and not utter a word to each other. They only recently actually manage to say goodbye to each other and not always. I don't think it is that uncommon to act the way this boy did at 5, especially without his mum there.

He is only 5 so social skills are still immature in some children. Don't think anything of it. My neighbours 9 year old blanks me when I say hello, in fact teir ASD teenager has better social skills than this nt lad

I know my neighbour really well, we go to each others houses so it's not like we don't know each othet