DS is so anti-social at the moment, and I don't know how best to help...

[snowleopard]

DS is 3.5 and a bit of a dreamer, and a loner (and an only child as yet). He goes to nursery 3 days, and we have several friends we do things on on non-nursery days - but more and more he acts as if it's just a chore to see friends. He likes to play with toys alone and creative his own imaginative worlds - and gets upset if he has to share (of course we do all the teaching him to share, if he kicks off about it I remove him to calm down, all that stuff, I don't indulge it.)

We tend to bump into people on the walk to nursery, and recently on the way out a mum suggested walking home together. In both cases DS was really upset, almost in tears. It's as if he just wanted his quiet time with me, walking, and then he was expected to chitchat and socialise and he couldn't be doing with it. In the latter case, the friend from nursery, who is a bit older, kept asking "why isn't

Give it time, he's only little. Keep encouraging, but don't panic.

Thanks cory, you're right I don't want to be on his case about it all the time. Would be interesting to know if anyone's child has been like this and then just grown out of it eventually.

My son is like this (although good at sharing - maybe because he's got a little brother only 19 months younger). He is really happy at school (in reception - will be 5 in just under 2 months) and has a best friend. However, he doesn't really like said friend bumping into us on our walk to school, as he sees that as talking to Mummy time and gets quite annoyed if asked to be polite to anyone else, particularly someone trying to annoy him in a bid to get a bit of attention! He has been known to tell his friend firmly, "I'll play with you when we get to school." He will happily run home with said friend after school and play silly games up to the front door, but we've had a similar problem if his friend comes back after school to play: he will play nicely for a short while and will then seem to switch off and want to go off and play his pretending-to-be-a-teacher-at-school games, or whatever he's keen on acting out at the time, on his own, ignoring his friend. He just gets social burn-out, I think. He is much better than he used to be - he isn't so much blatantly rude any more as just a bit distant and quite easily upset during the times he just wants to be left alone to get on with living in his imaginary world. As he gets older, I'm sure he'll get more subtle with his zoning out!

Thanks poater - that all sounds extremely familiar! But of course it makes sense that even if the feelings don't change, he'll learn to be more polite about it which would help.

We went put with another family recently to a family farm type place and he kept pulling me and wanting to drag me off ahead to see more things. I said "but we have come here with X and Y, we should stay close to them and talk to them a bit." DS said "But that would be boring for me, mummy!" (a bit too loudly )