DD10 is struggling at school with friendships. I've noticed more and more recently that she has physical struggles and I think these seem to really impact her. She is very clumsy and injures herself regularly and still cries out in a babyish way when she's hurt (stops quickly) but I think this puts others off her. She mostly refuses to join in any physical games or contests even things like tag. I think this really isolates her and annoys her peers too. However I do understand to some extent why she refuses to join in as whenever I see her play games with peers she is ALWAYS last. Always. She's just that kid that always loses or can't do the thing - even if it's luck based it sometimes seems. I help at her Brownie pack sometimes and she just loses constantly. I can see why this gets her down and why she now gets stroppy about joining in.
I've always jusr considered her slightly on the slow side physically. She walked at 16 months, rode a bike at 6 and swam at 6 so nothing markedly unusual. But it's taken her ages to get through the swimming stages. She's been going since she was 4 and is still on stage 5 when her friends are now mostly stages 7 and 8. She can't catch a ball well still but can now do it after lots of extra input. She dances (and loves dancing) and whilst she is very graceful, she really struggles with the coordination and footwork/jumps and seems to always be out of sync with the others in the routine. She can't tell left from right.
It doesn't help that her sibling is a talented sportsperson (county level in two sports) so I've always just thought of her as my not sporty one and assumed it would click a bit more as she got older. But now I'm worried that the constant clunsiness and losing in any games and lack of confidence in anything physical is really impacting on her. Can anyone relate and advise? How can I best support her? Thanks