Bright child has no friends at preschool

[Tetherless]

My son started at preschool in September, having turned 3 last May (so is still 3). He’d never been to childcare before and we’d had a very isolated existence during covid as all family live abroad and we had to shield for the first lockdown. He struggled a lot settling in initially - wouldn’t sit with other children at meals, cried at drop off etc - but by the end of the first term he was joining in with everything, got on really well with the staff and seemed to me to have made huge progress.

He didn’t play with other kids at all at first but now does to a limited degree (apparently mainly when he can lead the activity). He much prefers talking to the adults. The staff have said that they are concerned with his social communication because he doesn’t have friends yet and have mentioned ASD as something they are thinking about.

DS is and always has been incredibly advanced - he met all milestones early, particularly those relating to communication (babbled with consonants at 4 months, pointing and first words at 8 months, sentences at 13 months). His maths is similarly advanced and he is extremely musical. He can read pretty well (on year 1 books atm). He is incredibly sensitive, imaginative, has a fantastic memory and sense of humour and is creative with a very wide range of interests. Motor skills wise he walked early, could ride a bike before he was 3, draws really well and starting to write. He has no sensory issues, eats and sleeps well and I have never considered him to have any kind of rigidness in terms of approach to routines. He’s generally pretty flexible but will sometimes kick off if he doesn’t get what he wants (which I thought was typical of his age). He is a bit of a stickler for the rules when playing games and that’s one of the things that nursery has cited (in addition to his preference for talking to adults) as “evidence” that he may be on the spectrum.

It has never crossed my mind that he is anything other than a bright but neurotypical child. Quite how bright I’m not sure. I feel that his issues making friends and preferring adults stem from a combination of natural shyness (DH and I both shy, academically high achieving kids), lack of practice due to covid and being used to being with adults, and difficulty engaging with peers whose language and interests are very different from his.

I feel that nursery has totally got it wrong but am conscious of course that they have a lot of experience (though possibly not with a child with this particular combination of circumstances). I feel slightly trapped in a parallel universe where they are seeing a completely different child from the one we see at home. They don’t seem to see his intelligence as a factor in his interactions with peers and seem keen to label him which seems crazy to me.

Should I be concerned? Is there anything I should be saying/doing with them or with him? Do I need to help him more with friendships or will it come with time? I feel slightly at a loss.

Firstly I wanted to say your doing a great job, it's clear you know your son the best, and have his best intentions at heart.
Teachers/ key workers etc should not be advising or expressing concern towards a specific medical diagnoses, this is what an educational physiologist would do. They should however be identifying your child's strengths/developments/ triggers/ likes etc creating a profile, and using his positives to help develop the negatives.
I teach primary 1, 25 little children all with their own wee quirks, some easily managed in class with personal space, structure, time to leave, resources, differentiated activities, the list goes on, others need formal intervention, speech and language activities, golden times for positive behaviour, play therapy, lego therapy, again the list goes on. It's my job to figure out what works, and put than one place, while any series concerns would be flagged to management.
In particular I have been looking at play to support a specific child, and found out lots of information on play development, which has helped greatly, allowing me to create learning experiences focusing on my child's specific are of development.
If you Google the 6 stages of play you will find lots of information about it, I ignored the ages tbh and looked more development and ways to improve it. One key thing I took away from my findings was children need to be taught how to play, this can be done in a variety of ways, so we don't always see it as teaching. The last few years, limited a lot of interactions, therefore a significant reduce in him observing his peers model the the correct behaviours.
Don't get me wrong it all takes time, but a tiny change makes such a difference.. I hope you get support you deserve

@5zeds - I think there is a bit more too it than people not liking the fact that a children’s doctor stayed working in Germany throughout the war.. www.spectrumnews.org/news/new-evidence-ties-hans-asperger-nazi-eugenics-program/

How do you think a dr in a hospital for disabled children could have avoided being part of their revolting “final solution”? What do you think would have happened to the children had he bravely refused and run or faced the consequences?

Sorry that was in response to @CornishLamb

I just thought I’d post on this thread as I had my son’s parent-teacher meeting this week and it made think about how far he’d come, and how silly I was to be so worried. At the time that I started this thread I was really worried that I was going a bit mad, and that I had failed my son, and if anything the responses exacerbated those feelings.

He is now 7 and in year 3 at school and absolutely thriving. He is top of his class academically (but not in an exceptional way and there are others who are similar), is very talented at music and an enthusiastic participant in lots of sports and Beavers. Most importantly, he has, and has always had since starting reception, a big group of friends including some very close pals. His teacher told me yesterday that he is one of the most popular boys in the class. He does not have ASD or any additional needs.

Turns out that, having been deprived of contact with children of his own age for a year during covid, he just needed a bit of time to get used to the environment, which is what my instincts were at the time.

Im not minimising the importance of listening to input about your child, or of being open to investigating further if there are concerns, but I think it’s also important to point out that small children change a lot during their early years (and covid was a unique situation thankfully) and parents’ instincts are important too.

I’m replying to my own post that I wrote nearly four years ago! 😂😂😂

It’s a great update OP and I’m glad you trusted yourself.