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Behaviour/development

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4.5 year old has no friends

1 reply

worriedmumofone26 · 06/04/2026 21:02

My daughter is 4.5 and struggles interacting with other children. She goes to nursery but seems to prefer to play by herself or with the practitioners. She is very sociable at home but does like play to be on her terms and can be a bit bossy. She’s an only child and I don’t have friends with children of a similar age which probably doesn’t help. When we’re out and about she tends to commentate on other children but doesn’t interact with them naturally, for example if a child said they liked her shoes she would turn round and say ‘mum that boy likes my shoes’ instead of answering them. I’ve wondered about autism traits in the past and wonder if this could be related.

I’ve been trying not to dwell on it but tonight she asked me why she never gets invited to birthday parties and I almost burst into tears 😢 has anyone else been in the same boat or have any tips? I really hope friendships will just click one day

OP posts:
TinyMouseTheatre · 07/04/2026 06:36

I think of you are worried about ASD I would do the 4 year Social & Emotional Ages & Stages, also this simple progress checker from Speech & Language UK. They should give you some indication of if she is likely to need support or not.

Do you do role play with her too OP? It might be useful in circumstances like the situation you’ve described here.

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