5-year-old playing with older kids

[capecath]

My extremely social and energetic 5-year-old DS has started school recently and keeps talking about the older boys and girls he has been playing with at break times. I know he is very chatty and well-liked in his class (he seems to be a little leader!), but he just seems to gravitate towards the older kids (whom he seems to easily befriend). Any idea why this might be? Should I encourage him to rather stick to kids in his class (for some reason this would make me feel more comfortable, but not sure why I feel like that), or do you see no problem?

No problem. Playing with older children at after school club really helped ds mature at 5 going on 6. He was 7 earlier this week, and his best friend is 8.5 - ds behaves much more sensibly with him than some of his year group peers.

It is probably because he is intelligent, and can engage in conversations, and the older children may be more on his 'level', despite the age difference.

What sort of things is he interested in, and does he do any activities?

Probably not a problem, but he also needs to have SOME involvement with his peers. Does he have siblings?

When I was at primary school, it was completely normal (and encouraged!) for the younger kids to 'buddy up' with older students. I remember spending a lot of my first year with one of the big girls, who looked out for me and became a really special friend. After she'd left for high school, I used to write to her & she'd always write back -- I think I still have the letters somewhere! I guess the big kids tend to enjoy looking after the younger ones as it makes them feel grown up . I wouldn't worry about it OP, just so long as he does have friends his age too, he'll be absolutely fine

My ds who's also 5 does this although he tends to gravitate to the naughty older kids!!!

Thanks all for the feedback! I am probably stressing unnecessarily.... Thinking it through, he does have friends his own age too, we even had one over for a play date today. He has two younger siblings who he (generally!) plays with very well and who adore him. He is pretty well-rounded but loves anything active, most notably at the moment football, riding bikes and gymnastics. I notice he always wants to join in with football going on which is often with older kids, and he has found some older friends who also ride bikes to school. ffffedup hah! Yeah perhaps that is my concern, but I don't really know tbh....