My 9yo DS is not fitting in at school. He never has really. He would like just one close friend, I think he struggles with group friendships (although you wouldn't know this to watch him, the struggle seems to be internal) and is often excluded.
I find it hard to put into words what he is like, so I apologise for the ramble. He is very bright, especially in literacy and things which are thought of as more left brained (he is left handed too), and he talks a lot, I think probably to an annoying level for the other children in his class (his teacher feels this). With grown ups he will have a proper discussion and properly listen to the response from the other person, I'm not sure if this happens with his peers.
He is a sweet, sensitive and thoughtful boy, but also says inappropriate or mean things at times, never ever with spiteful intentions though. He is always the first to offer comfort to others in the playground and I have done some expression recognition exercises with him as I thought maybe he wasn't reading others right, he did better than me on these tests...
He is often excluded by the other children. This has been going on for a long while with varying degrees of intensity. Recently he said that one boy moaned loudly when he had to pair up with him in PE and this really hurt his feelings. He said he is often last to be picked/paired up and this hurts his feelings so he tries not to think about it. He said he hoped it would be better when he goes to secondary as there will be more children to chose from (something we have said to him) and he just has to stick it out in the mean time. This breaks my heart for him. At playtime he goes to play a game with the others and they will walk away after a while and tell him to stop following them. He often spend his breaks alone.
He does tend to be the 'grown up' in a group in that he will be the one telling the others they shouldn't be throwing stones etc. I do think his behaviour annoys the other kids.
He tries to tell a lot of jokes, the younger children tend to really love him as he messes about and does silly voices and so on. I'm not sure how well this goes down with his peers.
His teacher tells me he is a stickler for wanting to do things a certain way too, and I notice this at home. If something isn't going his way, or he no longer has an interesting part to play in it (not his turn in a board game, fielding in cricket) he quickly loses interest. We work on this at home and it is obviously an effort for him. He isn't a bad loser (he has a little sister!) but will often say he doesn't deserve it (winning or good things happening generally).
He also has a tendency to 'cut off his nose to spite his face'. We have worked on this a lot at home, and as a family play lots of games together and try to make him aware of when he is doing this.
He goes to a very small school, there are only about 10 children in his year, although he is in a mixed age class of 20. Outside school he goes to kickboxing once a week, he seems to fit in ok here and so far pairs up with no problems.
I have talked to him about talking too much in class and assuming the role of the grown up without being asked to, but it hasn't actually changed this behaviour. His self esteem is not great anyway given the excluding, and I feel I am further crushing him when I bring up these things. I have told him that he isn't responsible for being excluded, so then to add that I think he needs to change seems like blaming him for it.
His teacher has now suggested that I ask him what he would like her to do. He can't think of anything that would help yet. She is sympathetic to his problem, and I have no idea what I or she can do either. She is very strict and a bit scary (for me too!) and I don't think that helps, I know he feels he can't speak to her easily. She can be very cutting to the children, but also very supportive and enthusiastic.
I think maybe he needs some help with dealing with social situations, but I don't seem to be able to find anything which fits with how he is. He isn't shy, or aggressive, or many of the other things that the online help or books that I have found seem to focus on dealing with. I keep thinking maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree and it isn't social problems at all, but then what is it? Why is he excluded? Why does he feel he doesn't fit?
Sorry, this has got so long! To put it plainly, I think DS is a loving, caring, sensitive, emotional, bright, talkative boy who doesn't know when to stop, and therefore he is a bit irritating and inappropriate which is making it terribly hard for him to fit in and make friends.