friends with other parents at school?

[wiggy1993]

ok so my son went to nursery at the school he is starting in a couple of weeks, i was told by his teacher he is a little unsociable (although he's not bothered by it in the slightest)
as i'm fairly the same, i didn't really notice this was an issue.

But for him i made an effort to make friends with the moms of the other children he did seem to get on with, which did cause him to hang round with them alot more and take part in group play more instead of just playing by himself most the time. so to me this was a really good thing

we all walked back together and i believed this was going quite well, and as term ended one of the moms did exchange numbers with me and last week i messaged asking if they wanted to meet up sometime, she said yes and text me today inviting us down to the field so they could have a kick about.

we went and all was fine, the children were having so much fun but the whole time i was there the 3 other mommy's all knew each other quite well and sat talking about people they knew and their street etc, i jumped in when i could but to be honest i obviously couldn't really be part of the conversation. And then after only 45 mins they all disappeared and said they were going home, which upset the children but hey ho nothing you can do.

i wasn't really included that much, and although this really doesn't bother me - i'm a little worried about my son, he does struggle with socializing and is very quiet unlike the other boys and daft as it sounds i liked he was starting reception with familiar friends to start him off. I know they intake 60 children and i'm almost sure only a 3rd of those will be children from the nursery (providing they all moved up to this school which i doubt)

when did you all start making friends with parents, if at all? and is it a totally new playing field when they hit proper school? I'm sure i'm getting ahead of myself but because of how quickly this hit a wall i'm concerned about the same happening over and over and my son continuing to struggle. But then i can't help think he will find his friends in his own time despite what the school are saying - we arn't all social butterflies after all!

If there’s an intake of 60 and only a third come from his nursery, I wouldn’t worry too much OP. After a couple of weeks you probably won’t be able to tell who came from where as they’ll all make new friends. My DD has just finished Primary, she started with just 3 other children she knew, it’s never been a problem.

What happened with the other Mums could just be normal. Could you invite the other Mum around to yours for coffee or to the park with the DC?

Once he’s started school, if he makes a friend, I’d invite the child and their DM around for a cuppa after school a couple of times. This should help your DS to get to know his friend better and should help you to get to know the Mum too.

Longer term, if he struggles socially I’d look at starting him at Cricket next summer. It’s a great team sport and should help him to make friends out of school. Swimming lessons are good and I’d think about putting his name down for your local Beavers too, although he won’t be able to start for a while yet

Hi my son took till primary 2 to start finding his feet. His teacher helped and he has a close knit group of friends and gets on well with others but accepts there are others he doesn’t have much in common. He’s 10 nearly. My dd seems to be going the other way so I’m getting worried about her. She’s 8 and is getting ignored by her ‘friends’. I don’t really have any mates re other mothers as I work full time. She needs play dates but it’s good you are actually being asked to come along. It’s finding the people you click with as there are nice folks out there. It is a minefield out there but I’m sure other folk struggle.

It's lovely that you're socialising with other parents as this is a great route to helping your DS develop a more confident social life IMO, and will also help keep you in the loop, so you can make better-informed decisions about your child and reduce anxiety when faced with the inevitable issues regarding schoolwork, the kids and teachers your DS is thrown in with, after school activities, which secondary school etc.

It's hard making friends when you're not naturally dying for a chat all the time (or you can't initially see anything in common between you) and it can seem as though they don't really get on with you when they get into their own little conversations, but the real reason is that they already know each other quite well and are looking for the security and relief of sharing their problems with someone they already trust, and so this is natural and not a comment on you. My advice is to hang out with them more rather than less and carry on contributing in a friendly way. If you have time, volunteer when the school needs parents to man cake stalls or do activities with the kids, or candidates for the PTA. You will find that over time the barriers will break down, especially as you start finding common ground with individual parents and start getting on with their children or your DS gets on with a particular child and their parents will hopefully let them have playdates together one-to-one. Most parents will see you as shy rather than standoffish if they know you're prepared to muck in.

When it's your DS's birthday I think it's good to invite everyone to a run around in the park together for cake, weather permitting, or even start up a class WhatsApp group now so you can get your children playing together after school more spontaneously, because it doesn't have to involve commitments like Beavers if that's not up your street or your DS's. Whenever I tried to encourage my DS into a club he would just sit unhappily on the sidelines and we'd end up leaving, cos he's not a natural team player, and it would put him off that activity for ages, and I'm guessing that's an introvert thing he has cos I have it too - but he's now turned out to be a rather loud introvert because of all the time we put into meeting up with his other school friends and doing stuff! I think for the first couple of years of primary school lots of free play in the playground was the best thing for us.