Help DS understand about making friends?

[TCsMummy]

I've only just discovered that there is a one-child families area, and I'm quite excited, everyone I meet in the real world seems to have 3 kids and I feel like a complete weirdo most of the time!

My DS, 4y4m and now at school full time, is struggling to understand that friends need to be 'made'. He was quite a loner but comfortable with it at pre-school. The staff commented on it so I found out which children he was most interested in and invited them round with their mums. He made a couple of friends that way, one 'best'.

Starting school, he is in the same class as his 'best friend' and regards everyone else in the universe as 'people who are not my friends' and therefore evil! His 'best' has been off sick this week and he says he hasn't played with anyone and doesn't want to. He even says that the friendship monitors wanted to find him someone to play with and he told them that he only plays with his best friend who was away.

How can I help him understand that there are people you don't know well / at all yet, who might become good friends? He seems to think that the one he has now is going to be enough for life. Worryingly, that boy is a middle one of 3, quite gregarious and popular, so my DS needs him more than he needs DS, and I'm scared it will end in tears....

It's difficult and I don't have an anwer. My only DD is 9.8 and while she has friends, not a proper best one. She is quite often annoying and rather argumentative which tends to put peoples backs up.
Can you talk to your son about the future? How his BFF may not always be that and how his friend might want other friends. Invite some other boys around for tea?

He's VERY little still at 4.4. Still only just grasping the concept of friends. Chances are he'll figure it out in time - one day his best friend will be off school and he'll be bored, and decide to join in with someone else after all. My DD is only 6, so I have lots more experience yet to come (current friendship challenge is bizarre but apparently harmless adoration of Reception child) but she went through a similar phase to this. Her best friend was her best friend, end of story, if best friend played with someone else it was wall-to-wall WOE. Then she started to go off with someone else, or join best friend and other child, both she and her best friend had some different children home to play - she is now in a phase where EVERYONE is her best friend!

I think DCMB's right. It's a learning thing and there's probably not much you can do to alter it or speed it up. When DD was in reception, she was glued to the side of one other girl, but when that girl moved away she seemed to realise that it wasn't such a good idea to put all her friendship eggs in one basket, and she then formed a trio with two other girls.

Perhaps you should keep up the low key chats about how nice it is to have several friends - does your son see that you have several friends? - but don't expect to see a sudden change in his behaviour. As DCMB says, one day when his best friend is off school he'll get bored of being alone and find someone to play with.

I've tried to explain to him that there might be people you don't think you like who turn out to be your best friend later, using an example from my childhood (and not wanting to take the negative view of 'your BFF might not always be' which might just scare him!). At the moment he just says 'but they're all mean' in response (and I know that they can't all be...).
Tried socialising with a few kids at once but he tends to withdraw and play on his own, as he is happy this way and doesn't see the point in trying to muscle in to the bigger game.
I guess I will have to continue to cherry-pick a few potential friends for him, invite them round and hope something 'takes'. There are some he plays with on playdates but claims not to play with at school.
The only other 'only' we know at school is almost a full year older than him (they are at opposite ends of Reception intake) and he is very gregarious so not at all like DS.

What is his dad like? Seeing other people as "evil" can be due to how your father behaves with you.