Play dates such hard work for my 4 yo.

[DuploTrain123]

My 4 year old is a sensitive and highly stung child. He is quite sociable as well though and seemingly has pals at pre school. He regularly asks for play dates. I try and accommodate and invite one of his friends round when possible.

The play dates are always such hard work though. He snaps and cries at the smallest perceived slight and I’m always asked to be referee. You can see him getting more and more wound up as the minutes pass by. I have to cut them off after 1.5h otherwise he just loses it.

When his friends have gone home he takes so long to recover. He’s so overwhelmed he often just sits and cries or just runs around making loud noises and screaming. He can sometimes be quite violent to me and his dad.

Is this just part of learning to socialise? Will it get easier as he gets older? We never get invited to others and I don’t know if his behaviour is part of that.

I wouldn’t let my (nearly) 4 year old choose to have lots of play dates unless I also enjoyed them. We only do play dates with kids whose parent is also a friend.

But no that doesn’t sound normal to me. My son generally behaves really well on play dates - depending on the child he can be shy at first or play really nicely or go a bit wild with excitement but doesn’t need too much recovery afterwards.

What does he get upset about? I think it can be really difficult for them to learn to share their own toys so we have in the past put away favourite toys so they’re not available.

Obviously being violent isn’t good and we’ve had our challenges with that too, but have stamped out the hitting for now by being really strict with timeouts.

Sorry if my message comes across as condescending!! It was intended to be helpful not judgemental 🙂

Take the children out so that they aren't in 'his' space.
Trip to the local soft play, petting zoo etc dilutes the intensity a bit

Thanks @GreenBanana445 . We are quite new to the area and I don’t have any parent friends here so I thought it would be a good way to try and socialise both of us.

He’s not badly behaved on the play date, he’s just very very quick to get upset and overwhelmed. Mostly if the other child wants to play something different or isn’t playing exactly how he thinks they should be. He’s quite a rigid child. Sharing his things doesn’t seem to be too much of an issue as long as they are playing ‘on his terms’.

He doesn’t really hit in any other circumstance unless he is overwhelmed. It’s proving very hard to get on top of.

@Singleandproud yes, I think we might have to do that. He likes the idea of kids coming over in theory but in practice it’s just such hard work!

He sounds alot like my DD, she was an only child and diagnosed with autism in her teen years.
I'm not saying he is autistic but rigidity of thought and not liking people in your space is a sign - but it's also not uncommon for only children either.

When she has friends round now they never go in her bedroom, they'll go out or stay in the living room. She's happy to go to other people's houses for playdates and now sleepovers but we don't host them at home. Fortunately we live on the coast so I just book a Haven caravan down the road out of season and have all her friends there for the weekend it's cheap as chips, repays her friends parents for having her to sleepovers, the girls get to swim and we take a load of board games and films for a movie night.

Meet at the park instead

Hmm yes I completely understand the desire to make friends via play dates. Going out is a good idea but if you want to stay in perhaps you could set expectations ahead of time. You can warn the other parent it will only be until X time as your son can get overwhelmed. You could also plan activities to do together (eg help them bake cakes etc) so there’s more parent interaction?

Are the playdates always after nursery? If so then perhaps he is tired and overwhelmed - it might work better to try weekend playdates or in the holidays.

Also agree with meet at the park instead. My child was SO much better at interacting when it wasn’t in her home, with her stuff.

At this age I kept play dates very short. 1 hour. Outside if possible and not at home.
My DC also struggled with them. Although he would ask for them.
He was diagnosed with autism as a teen.
Play dates were always difficult as he would wander off and ignore the child he wanted to play with.
It was better when I provided structured play - Lego, play dough or a playground.
I really know how you feel.
The rigidity you mention I really recognize. I’m politely suggesting an autism assessment. One of the early signs I never picked up on - and neither did school - was a complete refusal to compromise on play. This lead to very lonely playtime’s at school. He was often alone as he preferred that to a compromise on what he was playing.

Definitely needs to be on neutral ground and not straight after nursery. He can have play dates at home when he's older if he can cope with them.