Only child - problems with playing with other children

[DippyMummy]

Can anyone give me some advice? Our only DS (5 years old) is a happy, bright boy, but has a melt down everytime another child comes round to play. He is constantly asking me if he can have a friend to tea, and gets very excited when we bring someone back from school with us. He loves showing them his toys, but once they actually start playing with them, the problems start. Every 10 minutes he comes running to me saying "He's being silly with my Playmobil / he's not playing with my cars properly / he's broken my crane / she's not playing what I want to play". I understand completely why this happens; being an only, he's used to having his things all to himself (but not, I hasten to add, to having things his own way). What I need to know is how to tackle the problem. I have sat down with him on countless occasions and talked to him about it. I have appealed to reason. I have got cross. But nothing changes. It's not that he doesn't want to share; he does, but he does not seem to be able to handle other children of his own age very well (he's fine with older children). Does anyone have any strategies for tackling this? This afternoon we have just had the worst playdate ever. DS got so unreasonably upset so many times that I have had to say no more friends to play for a while (though admittedly the visiting child was pretty badly behaved too). Children with siblings seem to be able to take the rough and tumble and snatched toys in their stride - how can I teach DS to do the same? Will practice make perfect?

Don't worry about it too much. My DS2 (child #3, 5 years old) has a friend here right now and I have just spent the last 10 minutes dealing with this exact problem. I think 5 can be a tricky age and sharing toys with friends who don't live in your home is a difficult concept to grasp. I have similar problems when he's playing with his older brother and sister but it's a slightly different dynamic...more taken in stride as you've described above. Maybe you can try to have him put away some favourite toys before the friend comes over if there are some he's not willing to share?

I think its a problem all children have tbh - it is particularly hard sharing at home because its their precious things. Imagine another adult coming in and rifling through your things and not treating them like you would ? You'd be annoyed, but being grown up either wouldn't show it, or distract them away from your best things. And its those skills he doesn't have yet.

Try giving them an activity to do together - art and craft or whatever so that its not something your ds 'owns'

Limit the time the friend comes to 1 hour. Set out toys that are neutral, like play dough/paint/crayons/cutting out

Supervise the play. 15 minutes per activity. 4 activities in the hour.

Build up from there, asking DS before what of his toys they can play with. Limit time to 15 minutes initially.

Good ideas re the "neutral" activities. I did try to persuade them both to do some drawing yesterday, to no avail, but I think I will try and be more organised next time. These visits always tend to be impromptu, ie. friends get invited round during the walk home from school, so I'm not usually very prepared. Good point, CMOTDibbler, re imagining another adult coming round and rifling through MY stuff!

I think the neutral craft type activities is a great idea.

I'm sure you do this already, but I always make sure my DS isn't allowed to boss me around or dictate play with me. When he shouts at me 'you're not doing it right!' (be it with lego, or with imaginative play) I remind him that people like to do things in different ways and if he wants me to continue playing with him he needs to accept that I do things differently to him.

I don't have an only, so I don't know if it's something that's more of an issue or not, apologies, but I do make sure not to respond too much to complaints from either my own or visiting dcs about each others behaviour.

As long as no ones getting hurt or there's actual meanness going on, I tend to look confused and say, 'why are you telling me? You need to sort it out between you/ find a solution if you want to play together'.

You'd be amazed what they manage to negotiate once they realise im not going to step in and solve it for them. It also helps to reframe the disagreement as a 'different points of view' thing, rather than appealing to a referee to decide who's 'right' IYSWIM.

Are things the same when he plays at other people's houses? I found that my only was completely angelic, great sharer out of the house - precious hellion at ours

I'd second that unfortunately you need to be very involved at this stage. It will improve, I promise.

Oh yes I am CONSTANTLY using those very words "Why are you telling me? You need to sort it out between you" - hoping that one day soon he'll get the message... And yes, joanofarchitrave, same here - he is wonderful at other people's houses! Thanks for all the responses - very helpful.

Definitely agree on the neutral activity at that age, ideally something a bit 'special' so that they will both be excited by it. Decorating biscuits was always a hit here (make a batch of biscuits in advance then have different coloured icing, sprinkles etc etc) but of course takes some planning!

I also used to have a small but select collection of things like crayons, giant paper etc that were mine and definitely didn't belong to dd. Then I could share them with all the children, and there was no issue about ownership.

The other thing that I found very helpful with my dd who was definitely slow to develop social skills was to have the same child visiting regularly but for a short time at first. I found this one out by accident, because I looked after a friend's ds for half an hour after school once a week. To start with they didn't really play at all (friend's child was very shy as well as dd being socially awkward!), & mostly I just gave them a snack & put on a dvd for the remaining 15 minutes, but gradually they started to do things together & now some years later they are really good friends & will play together for hours.

Following that experience if dd had a new friend who she wanted to have to visit I tried to engineer several short social meetups even if only 10 mins in the park after school so that they were used to interacting outside of school before the 'X comes round to tea' scenario.

Finally - apart from reassuring you that in 2-3 years time it will all be much better - remember the mantra of Food, Food, Food - and any time they start getting scratchy get a cup of juice & a snack into them, if nothing else it breaks the mood & they can restart