To worry about the social skills of my future child?

[Strawberrycream123]

I’m an only child, and my husband has siblings but we’re are estranged from them. The whole of his family are shunning us and we are no longer invited to their events (long story).

I’m currently pregnant with our first child.

I don’t know if it’s the hormones, but lately I’ve found myself fully consumed with guilt and worry that my child will grow up very isolated. He won’t have cousins and a big extended family to spend Christmas with. He won’t be surrounded by children at family gatherings, because we won’t be invited to any! He won’t have many loving adults in his life at all.

AIBU to worry that this will affect him and his success in life?

Yes - you are acting irrationally, and this is just some form of anxiety coming into play here.

No - this is a valid concern and you need to take action

Thanks for taking the time to read!

What about friends? Do you have friends who are having or will have children around the same age?

Toddler groups, nursery, pre school, school, activities of various kinds are all opportunities for meeting people with children around the same age.

I suppose that the action you take is to make sure there are chances to socialise with others and to have play dates when the child is older.

I don't think you need to worry about this at all. Do you have a good support network of friends? If not I'm sure you will in the future. Just make sure you attend baby and toddler groups, make friends with other parents at school/nursery. Enroll your child in extra curricular activities such as rainbows, beavers, cubs etc. We have a very large extended family but I don't really like my children spending too much time with them as they are really right-wing and not very intelligent to be honest. I prefer to expand their horizons through friends with similar interests.

Children who come from big busy families can also grow up to be socially dysfunctional. You are being irrational. Take your child to playgroups, activities, pre-school and when they go to school that’s another long term opportunity to hone social skills.

If you and your partner are very introverted and don’t like socialising or are autistic, then I would say the chances of your child being similar would be likely though.

You create your own "family". You start by meeting people at baby classes, then primary school, clubs etc. Life with a child is busy and involves meeting lots of people.

Our children only have 2 biological cousins who they saw maybe once a year growing up. We live 250 miles from both of our families. We have created a lovely group of friends around us in our town and our children have thrived growing up with lots of friends in a lovely family friendly town.

But I do understand your worry and it's natural to want "the best" for your baby. X

Also if you/your child are introverted, that's not really an issue either. I'd look for clubs like Chess or Pony riding. We don't all have to be over the top extroverts with big rowdy families to have good social skills. In fact introverts make much better friends through their shared interests that most superficial extrovert friendships that are often fickle abd short lived.