My five year old (boy) has me completely flummoxed at the moment. He absolutely loves playing with other children and when he goes to friends houses, or to an organised club after school, he is fine - happy, co-operative, friendly ? a bit bossy - involved. The problem focuses on when friends come around to play at our house after school.
He is not good at inventing games (he never, never plays on his own, despite lots of encouragement from us and yes, we used to play with him lots when he was little) and I have a twentytwo month old, who is just too young to play with the five and six year olds and join in with them, so they tend to be left to their own devices a lot. However invariably, within 20 minutes of a friend arriving, he is being horribly bossy and either sulks or starts crying, because they won't do what he wants, or because they have won a game! If I try to talk to him/calm him down/give him time out, things rapidly spiral out of control and we get tantrums/anger/aggression, in a way that he wouldn?t dream of behaving when we are together as a family. This now happens EVERY TIME someone comes to play.
I feel that I am not handling things well, knowing that I am under the somewhat astonished gaze of the visiting five or six year old. Perhaps I should leave them to play/fight/sort it out themselves as they are left at lunchtimes at school, and only intervene if things become too noisy/violent, but my line is that selfish or rude behaviour ? snatching things, constantly criticizing the other child, being rude to me ? is not acceptable, and I don?t want to start ignoring behaviour that I wouldn?t ordinarily accept. I have tried planning with him in advance what he wants to play, but he tends not to be able to follow through and make those suggestions work for the other children. I have tried stars and rewards systems, which normally work with him, but in this case, I am containing the situation and not making any progress at helping him to improve his behaviour at all. He can be calm and sensible, talking about it after the friends have gone, but as soon as we collect the next one from school, I can feel the excitement/anarchy rising. He is always excited/on a high after school, and needs organised activities rather than freetime. And he is physically strong, loves outdoor activities. But surely he needs to be able to play with friends at home too? And if I only provide him with organised things will he ever learn to play? And can I find organised activities five nights a week?! I currently fill four nights a week for him, with activities: swimming, iceskating, a craft club and a trip to the library, but am getting almost scared of having him at home, on that fifth evening. 3 hours can be such a long time!
Any suggestions gratefully received. PS He has no female friends and has vehemently resisted making any. Sadly we have no family friends with kids the same age ? they are all much older and indulgent of him, or babies, with whom he is very gentle and good ? so that this behaviour only happens after school at home, when I am on my own with the kids.