My 4 year old DS is starting school in September. School have sent us a form asking if he has any friends they can place in his class to help settling in (standard form to all parents). Problem is, he doesn't have any particular friends going to his school, and I feel terrible for him.
He goes to a local childminder 2 days a week, he plays with the other children his age there (there's about 4-5 children he mentions that he plays with there), but we don't see them outside the childminder setting. He has a local friend on our street that he plays with, but she's younger and not going to school this year. I have friends with children his age that he plays with, but not in local area. He plays nicely with his cousins and family friends' kids, loves playdates, always makes new friends at the park, but he doesn't see the same kids regularly enough to make proper friends. He's never been invited to a birthday party or playdate with childminder kids.
Basically, I'm just really worried that he's going to struggle at school and that I've messed up socialising him. I've seen him on playdates, he's great playing outside with other kids, not so good when there are toys around as he gets distracted by new toys at other people's houses and ignores kids for toys.
Full disclosure: both me and my older brother struggled making friends at school, both of us are a bit weird and awkward although we've found our way much better as adults. So I definitely worry about the same for DS.
Generally he's happy, cheerful, sociable, talkative, active - I just worry that he's lacking the skills to make friends and will get left out at school. I'll speak to the childminder, previously they've said he needs a bit lacking social skills with other kids but not to the extent that they think it's a big problem, just that we should do more playdates.