2.5 year old making friends?

[Nbtz]

Hi. My 2.5 year old is at nursery and was happy away. Always naming other kids at nursery and seemed to be loving it. However they've now told us his behaviour has not been too good (which it hasn't) and also that he only has one actual friend that he plays with. The rest of the time he plays on his own. Is this normal at this age or should I be worried? My concern is that he's lonely.

What are the Nursery doing to encourage him to play with the other children? Do you have any other concerns about his behaviour and how's his speech?

This is totally normal at this age! Toddlers play alongside each other and observe what others are doing. For them it's hard to communicate exactly how they want to play with things (usually in a different way to the child next to them), so this can then seem as though a child is misbehaving, where actually they are playing and being a typical 2 year old!

I would ask the nursery what they actually mean by his behaviour not being good - when it happens, what he does, the situation surrounding it... they should be offering you some guidance and ideas on how to best support him too.

Another way you can encourage friendships (again he is still very young) is to see if any of the other nursery children would like to do play dates in a different environment (Park, your home etc).

Good luck!

Thanks for the advice! I did think friendship groups were young for his age and other parents I've spoken to thought it was too early to be thinking about this. His development there has been good and his speech has improved no end. He will happily play near others so it's not like he feels that he doesn't want to be near others. I think nursery have confused matters with what they actually expect of him!