Please or to access all these features

Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

Improving DS' social skills, any advice welcome.

3 replies

solidgoldbrass · 31/07/2012 21:12

He's 7, and he's OK some of the time, but have just had a fairly ghastly half hour in the park with him and his friend from up the road. There's also been a bit of low-level bullying at school.

Basically DS is terribly set on having everything his own way, talks over other kids, invents new rules for games on the spot if he appears to be losing and has stomping tantrums if the other kids won't co-operate. He's my son and I love him to bits; he's not a bad kid and in fact he's usually very good with children who are younger than him. Any hints on how to gently-but-firmly convince him to play along nicely?

ANother problem is I know I was a bit like this myself as a kid and his dad is one of those people who is always right and a bit socially clueless. My teenage years were pretty gruesome and I'd like to spare DS the worst of that sort of thing - I do OK now as an adult because I can just walk away from things that wind me up and I have plenty of friends who don't get across me, but I'm worried about DS.

Yes he is slightly dyspraxic, which may be part of it as well.

OP posts:
strugglingwiththepreteenbit · 31/07/2012 21:41

is it bad enough for you to consider there may be a bit of autism in there, too? If so you might be able to access some social skills training for him. Other than that, if you've explained your expectations of "playing nicely" and he doesn't stick to them he needs to go home. Hopefully the school should be able to offer time out and teamworking activities for him to practise, too.

solidgoldbrass · 31/07/2012 21:46

Struggling: I don't know, I really don't. The school have given him a bit of extra social support and at present they are not bothered about him (the bullying seems to have occurred at the after-school club and mainly down to one or two older kids), so I wonder if it's partly that DS feels he can misbehave for me the way he wouldn't at school.

OP posts:
An0therName · 31/07/2012 22:01

have you come across the book playful parenting - lots of ideas that might help

New posts on this thread. Refresh page