3 year old lacks social skills and has become clingy

[plktdon]

My (just) three year old son is very tactile and loving. He is quite bright and has a secure home life. Lately he has become very clingy with me(mum). I know this is probably just a phase but is it better to try and detach a little or just carry on as usual (I am a stay at home mum and we have a close relationship). Also he goes to nursery 3 mornings a week but he has never seemed keen on playing with other children. It wasn't an issue before but the nursery staff have spoken about it to me today saying, in a nice way, that he lacks social skills. He is quite shy and I don't know whether to worry about this and speak to a health advisor or just let it be for now. Could it be a sign of something more psychological that needs addressing by a professional?
Please could you offer any advice.
Thanks.

Exactly what social skills do the nursery staff expect from a 3 year old?

He's probably just shy.

have the nursery staff any suggestions to ways that they are supporting him in making friends/playing with other children.
erhaps if you know other mums suggest meeting up at the park, or your home wherever suits so you can see if he plays with the children in smaller groups?

Does nursery teach social skills? Which ones, specifically, do they think your DS is lacking?

What can happen when a nursery/pre-school doesn't teach social skills is that a majority of children come from similar sorts of homes and behave in a similar way, while a minority have different (not non-existent) social skills.

Nursery ought to be bringing the children together through social skills that it actively teaches.

He is much better one on one with other children but still doesn't seem to know quite how to act. He's all excited when they arrive but then has difficulty actually playing. The nursery have said they are going to try and spend some time getting to know him more and encourageing him to play with the others.

IMO a nursery ought to be helping children learn to play with other children as a matter of course.

he sounds a little like my ds was at that age. he used to get so excited that he would be jumping up and down laughing his head off when he got to pre-school, but then he would happily play alongside others but never actually with them. with encourgaement he did get better, and was definately better in small groups.
has he been at nursery long?
maybe he just needs more time to settle/ and or support on coping with groups of children

He has been at nursery for two years, always only 3 mornings. Unfortunatly at his last he had a serious of accidents and we lost confidence and had to change. That was three months ago. He never played with the children much at the other nursery either so moving him isn't the reason but is the reason that I have to perservere as cannot keep moving him. He doesn't want to go in the mornings but apparently doesn't cry after I leave, just asks where I am alot. This clingyness is difficult as I don't know what to do. My husband says I need to go away for a few days but I don't think that is the answer.

Why does he go to nursery? Do you work?

plk my ds is very much the same (I just started a thread yesterday which was very similar).

He likes the 'idea' of other children but then when with them he is largely disinterested and plays on his own.

I haven't got the answers either although I find if I encourage him to play with another child when we're together by suggesting a game that helps a bit.

It's starting to get a bit awkward sometimes as when friends' kids come round who are a similar age but more 'sociable', they want to play with ds but he backs off a bit and doesn't reciprocate.

Does your ds like adults more? Mine is really quite sociable with grown-ups.

Re clinginess - mine is like this too - I really don't think going away for a few days will help. In fact it might just make him worse. I have tried talking to ds and explaining that I wouldn't ever leave him with someone who won't look after him etc. I'm just hoping he'll grow out of it. He has bonded a lot with some of the nursery staff and says he'd be ok about me leaving with thme so I might try that. But generally he prefers to be with me or dh (although he goes to nursery happily)

DS is 3.5 and plays with other children some of the time. He also still likes to play side-by-side (developmentally this is the standard way that toddler play). I think it is completely normal. Development (social and otherwise) is not linear. Children take two steps forward and one step back.

I think the suggestion of having him get used to playing with only 1 or 2 of the other children at home, if you can arrange a playdate or two, is a good idea. Obviously children are little people and some are naturally outgoing and thrive in big groups, others like closer, more intimate friendships with fewer children. Start where you ds is most comfortable and feels safe and expand from there, iyswim!

Appalling grammar and sentence structure - sorry. Hope you got the general sentiment of my post, though!

Reply to Anna - He goes to nursery for a few mornings as he is an only child and I thought it would help with socialising. It also gives me a break as he likes me to be involved with him constantly and so I never get anything else done!
Reply to skippsmum - reading your post was like reading about my ds! He is more sociable with adults (as long as there are not too many at one go) and I also get embarassed at times with friends children being more sociable than mine. It helps to hear your story as it makes mine seem less worrying, I guess it's just shyness. Well I hope so.

If he is clingy then he needs to cling - let him cling! It will not last for ever. He is feeling insecure and needs reassurance so distancing from him is counterproductive.

My dd is very sociable since starting school but really wasn't at age 3 at preschool. She played with a best friend at preschool at 4.

IF he doesn't like preschool I would take your ds out and wait a year. If he likes it but doesn't want to join in much yet I really would not be worried.

plk - maybe we should get the two of them together and they can blissfully ignore each other!
Worst bit is when the other child wants to kiss ds or hug him at the end and he just thinks they are mad it seems!

Reply to skippysmum - lol, my boy is at least very tactile so we all get lots of kisses!
To everyone who has written with ideas and words of encouragement, thank you. It helps just to release some of this stuff and helps me to rationalise the situation more.
He's a smart cookie which seems to me very contradictory to his lack of social skills, as the nursery put it, and if I take him out now for a year as DarthVader kindly suggested I'm not sure I'd ever get him to go again and to be honest he's so active I couldn't manage him at home 24/7. That's being honest.

Reply to skippysmum - lol, my boy is at least very tactile so we all get lots of kisses!
To everyone who has written with ideas and words of encouragement, thank you. It helps just to release some of this stuff and helps me to rationalise the situation more.
He's a smart cookie which seems to me very contradictory to his lack of social skills, as the nursery put it, and if I take him out now for a year as DarthVader kindly suggested I'm not sure I'd ever get him to go again and to be honest he's so active I couldn't manage him at home 24/7. That's being honest.

Plk - mine is quite tactile with me and dh and those he knows and likes but it's the other kids he's not too sure about kissing him or hugging him....! I'm sure he won't be like this about the idea of being kissed by a girl when he's a teenager!

They will probably be signing up for fame academy or some such showy tv programme in their teens and we'll be wondering what all our concerns were!

Plenty of 3 year old children still do parallel play.

I think the Nursery staff are making too much of his behaviour tbh.

Fwiw, my sociable dd was more at ease with adults and did parallel play until she was in Reception. And my quiet clingy ds refused to go to toddler groups etc but since he's been at nursery he has made 2 very good friends ,and has a little group of acquaintances.

was going to say what Mercy said - parallel play is VERY normal for this age.

I think the nursery staff are being unrealistic in their expectations. And as Anna says, they need to actually teach him stuff before they 'judge' him for not knowing it already!!

In the 'How not to be a perfect mother' book by Libby Purves there's a passage that really made me think; she says that many young children do much better in MIXED age groups; they like being with older kids and younger kids, and actually can feel 'threatened' by a whole groups of their peers; when you have lots of needs (as all 3 yr olds do) then I guess it can be anxious-making when you feel somehow that all the others in the room are vying to have those same needs met.

When you think about it the nursery environment is an artificial one - all those peers together - humans throughout time would have lived in family situations, eg, the older/younger child set up

I really wouldn't let the nursery worry you about this!

plktdon and skippysmum - your boys sound just like my dd. She is 3.6 now and has been at nursery three mornings a week since last October. She is very confident and chatty with adults, but I don't think she 'gets' other children really. She is best with the couple of children she's known since they were babies, but even then she plays separately most of the time and only occasionally actually plays with them. When I've tried inviting nursery or playgroup children over, she wants to pretend they're not there most of the time, and just wants to interact with the adults.

Like you I can't help worrying, but our nursery is very relaxed about it. Her keyworker says some children just don't get beyond parallel play till they're practically starting school, and not to worry about it. I am encouraged by a friend whose 5-year-old was actually even more anti-social than my DD at this age, and he is now very sociable and outgoing. I don't think there is anything wrong with them. I just suspect that children who really like adults may take longer to start wanting to play with other children.

Also wanted to add - my DD is pretty clingy too sometimes. She is more confident about being left at nursery since we established that an adult would take her and read to her when she arrived, rather than her being left to fend for herself among the other children. When we go to playgroups she tends to want to stay with me and involve me in her play rather than going off on her own. I certainly wouldn't advise going away for a few days - I had to leave DD for a couple of nights, and it took her AGES to get over it. She was desperately emotional and clingy for weeks afterwards. I'm a SAHM too, as is my friend with the 5-year-old, and I wonder whether this makes a difference. Not that I think that would make it a bad thing, just a bit different from children who have spent more time in nursery. I'm sure ours will crack it in the end.

My dd is 4 in October, and similarly to your son, she is tactile, loving and secure at home. At a nursery review her key worker said she was concerned that dd tended to 'flit' from group to group and didn't have a special friend or special group of friends. I was really concerned for a bit, but having thought about it I've decided that for some children, as HonoriaGlossop says, these large same age groups of kids are a bit much.

Also, your ds goes to nursery 3 ams a week; my dd just goes 2 days - at my dd's nursery many of the children there go 5 days a week, 8 - 6, so they do develop strong groups/friendships because they're there all the time, whereas I guess if they're there only part of the week children like my dd and your ds don't get so much of a chance to do this. Is this similar to your ds's nursery?

Sometimes I think nursery staff are great at pointing out 'issues' but not so good at suggesting solutions. If they do think your son lacks social skills, can they suggest ways they can help him develop these at nursery?