DS says no-one plays with him at nursery, should I mention this to teacher?

[saadia]

He goes in perfectly happy and comes out perfectly happy but does say that no-one plays with him. We told him to just go up to other children and ask them to play, but dh thinks I should ask the teacher about how he is interacting. There are not many boys in the class (only about 6) and ds says he doesn't like girls. Also many of the boys have English as a second language so there may be communication problems and a few of them are very boisterous to the point of being a little out of control so may not be fun to play with. Not really sure what to do, this is the nursery of the school where ds will start Reception in September.

Hi saadia. I had the same problem when my ds started nursery. I left it a few weeks and then went to speak to the teacher. she was fab and said she would try to encourage a friendship between him and 2 other boys who she thought he would get on with well. The next day ds came home and said he had played with X and X and they have been inseperatable ever since! He's now in reception and has a good group of friends and no doubt this would have happened anyway but Im still glad i spoke to his teacher, it speeded up the process and made me feel confident that the school took my concerns seriously.

Saadia
Both my DS and DD still say this as they get a reaction from me, as I'm sure they know I get upset by it! I'm sure children don't put the same importance on answering this question as we would.
Can you help out in the class at all so you can see how he actually gets on with others? It'll probably take a few weeks for him to not play up while you are in there, but helped me find out what really went on in the class.
Could you invite a friend back to play or for tea, so you can encourage friendships that way?
I'm sure you'll be reassured that he's getting on fine, just not sure or names of the children yet.

if you mention it to the teacher she will check who he seems to play with most and report back to u then u can guide him in conversation 'did u and tom have fun today?' 'what did u and tom do?' (tom is clearly a pseudonym lol) it could be your ds has played with other boys but cant remember or be bothered, my kids could never remember what they had for lunch- it may be also your ds enjoys his own compny some children do our ds3 is one ,despite having 2 big brothers and a huge network of friends he often stays in to build or model alone.

if you mention it to the teacher she will check who he seems to play with most and report back to u then u can guide him in conversation 'did u and tom have fun today?' 'what did u and tom do?' (tom is clearly a pseudonym lol) it could be your ds has played with other boys but cant remember or be bothered, my kids could never remember what they had for lunch- it may be also your ds enjoys his own compny some children do our ds3 is one ,despite having 2 big brothers and a huge network of friends he often stays in to build or model alone.

Thanks for your replies everyone, I will speak to the teacher today. The funny thing is that he was very happy for a while saying that his best friends were three of the boys and he really looked forward to seeing them. When he goes in he does make a beeline for one of the boys. Anyway, the teacher will hopefully be able to clear things up.

my Dd said this to me when she started Nursery.

I was rather devastated by it, it has to be said, after all you're not there with them and it's hard to know what to do.

I waited a couple of days of trying to peep in the windows to see what she was doing, and I saw she went over to the corner to do a jigsaw on her own.

I then spoke to the teacher, pointing out what she'd said and that she'd not spoken to any of the children but gone to play alone.

The teacher was genuinely shocked, she said my Dd was one of the happiest most popular little ones in the group and whilst she didn't have a 'best friend' she played with everyone. She couldn't get over what Dd had said!

She also said a good few kids say this. I'm sure if the teacher was concerned she would've said something to you, but do go and speak to her anyway, it may well put your mind at rest

thanks sorkycake. I spoke to the teacher and she said that he does play with two other boys in particular and his confidence and vocabulary have grown a lot over the past term. She also said that he does sometimes play alongside other children, rather then with them, and that many of the children complain that they have no-one to play with, so it may be that he is to some extent just repeating what he has heard others saying. But really I don't think there's anything to worry about.