Hi,
My DS is 7 in year 2.
He is the most gorgeous little boy. He's kind, thoughtful, sensitive, chatty, has a great sense of humour and is incredibly interested in all sorts of things to do with his environment; the world we live in; geography; history; science; the animal kingdom. He adores his little sister, they are the best of friends, and he adores me & DH too, he is affectionate and loving and fully engaged - he is a joy to be with.
However, none of the boys in his year group are friends with him. They don't actively dislike him, but they don't play with him and he's not invited to any of their parties or round for tea, which is really upsetting me.
Having done a bit of finding out why, it all appears to be based on football. They are all absolutely crazy about football. It is a small year group, about 50/50 mix of boys/girls, and all of the boys are football mad. They play football at every break and lunch time at school. They all go to football club after school and at weekends, and meet at the local park to play football. But my little boy hates football. He loves swimming, cycling, running, enjoys PE, is good at sports day, but he really hates football. He says that to him it's really boring, and that he doesn't enjoy team competetive sports. He fully understands that other boys like football, but he himself just doesn't.
The problem is that it means there isn't a single boy that he's friends with in his year group. I talked to him about how you can still be friends with someone who has different interests to you and he told me he knows that but it's them that don't play with or talk to him. He calls them 'football boys' and says they define who they play with and who's part of their group by whether or not someone plays football with them at school.
I went on a school trip with his year group last month and saw for myself that all these boys were best friends, all playing & laughing together and putting their arms round each other every time they sat down. It was a no uniform day and every one of them wore a football kit (it was not a football event, it was a trip to a national trust place). It was blindingly evident that none of them spoke to or played with my DS. They appeared to not even acknowledge that he was there on the trip. Yet these children and my DS have all been in the same year together since reception.
He is friends with lots of the girls. He has really good friendships with them, and they are lovely girls. He gets invited to all their parties, gets invited round to their houses to play and has a great time playing with them. The girls he is friends with are the type of girls who like running around, being physical and inventing role play games, they are not into playing with dolls or fairy games. Their mums all say to me "my DD just loves your DS!" or "my DD doesn't like any of the other boys but she thinks the world of your DS!". I'm really pleased he has girl friends as I think it's important to have friends of the opposite sex, but the trouble is he has no boy friends.
He has tried playing football with them a few times at school break as I think he'd really like to make friends with them, but he said he got bored of it so stopped.
I can't force him to be in to something he just isn't enjoying.
I'm worrying so much about this because he's going to be with this same year group all the way through primary school.
He spends his break and lunch times playing with his girl friends or his sister.
He himself seems happy, but he is a deep thinker and often only tells me about something that bothered him a year or more afterwards, so he may be bothered by this and not telling me.
I'm worried he is going to spend the next 4/5 years at school feeling excluded from the rest of the boys in his year.
It was his birthday party recently and we invited a few of the 'football' boys, even though he's never invited to theirs, and their mums all declined the invite.
Any advice would be appreciated as it's worrying me enough to keep me awake at night.
Thank you.