Sanity check on social behavior of 11 year old boys

oops , its me KarenN. I wasn’t logged in.

I do think exclusionary behavior is pretty much the norm at this age. But kids differ a lot in how well they deal with it. It is the “politics of the playground.”

Personally, I wouldn’t worry about this too much. The kids who manage this stage well are those who navigate fairly naturally and who don’t see behavior as in black and white terms as your son. Many other kids have a few good friends and do just fine. Your son is apt to be one of these.

If you want to help him to be less rigid in this thinking, you could ask him why he thought the boy didn’t stick up for him. Most likely the friend was being influenced by the other child. Your son, however, may prefer people who are less easily influenced by the moment–more the same in all circumstances. He may not be forgiving of such behavior and frankly I think that should be his decision. He wants a friend who will not leave him out in the interest of gaining the favor of another child.

But still it doesn’t hurt to have your son understand why someone might behave in a “unfriendlike” way and still be interested in being your friend.

BTW, I don’t think this tendency has much to do with being LD. My own 11 year old son is very conscious of fitting in and I don’t think has the backbone that your son does. My 14 year dd, NT, is more like your son. Frankly, I worry about my social climber LD son a lot more than my more black and white daughter. I have seen my son go along with others to fit in…. and that is a scary profile for a to be teenager.

Beth

Columnist Marguerite Kelley’s advice is never have an odd number of children together—two of them will almost inevitably get together and go against the third, particularly if two are together already before the third comes onto the scene. This sounds like exactly what happened in your son’s case. I’ve reminded my dd about this rule several times and it really helps to explain sudden puzzling behavior changes in kids she assumed were friends. (Also have warned her to be on the watch for her engaging in the same exclusionary behavior when in this situation.) As I am writing this, I’ve got three girls upstairs playing before I take them all to a birthday party…oh well, you can’t always avoid it.

This is what I love about this board. instant support and validation that I’m not losing my mind!

Beth, thanks for articulating the issue so well. My NT daughter also is the one to watch over the long haul. Right now I would say she is gifted socially, but her desire to conform is something that concerns me when she’s older and sex and drugs are on the scene. (she’s only 8 so we have a while to go, but now is the time to talk about these things.)

its always my son who has these problems. My daughter, if excluded, will either figure out a way to get in, or find someone else to play with. He just feels bad. He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body and doesn’t understand exactly what you said - that someone can be unfriendly in a given situation but still be your friend. But I’ll try to not let this bother me and just be thankful he has found a few loyal friends. Thanks.

Two more thoughts:

1. I think Marie’s point about number of kids is a good one. I have three kids and the times they all get along….well, somedays I think I could count them on one hand.

The important thing is to teach your son that some circumstances may influence behavior (not his I would venture to say) and that he should be aware of this. I guess I am thinking of the feeling bad part–that it isn’t him. Two kids together are just likely to do this.

2. The more important part I think for your son to work on is recovering. He may not want to be friends with kids who act in such ways but he needs to figure out what else he could do that evening. Maybe problem solve with him. ” Ok. They did that. You didn’t want to play with them that night. You felt bad all night because of that. What could have you have done instead of feeling bad all night.” Maybe he can push him into being a bit more like your daughter—who finds something else to do.

I know my daughter though is a great grudge holder. With pushing though, she has become more flexible. I think the principled ones are more likely to “get stuck”, at least in my experience.

Now, can you tell that I am grading exams? They aren’t as good as I had hoped and I keep coming here as a distraction!

Beth

Is this the child with anxiety issues? If so, the “ruminating” type response he had to being excluded could be a manifestation of the kind of thought-processes that many with anxiety have. They play the anxiety producing event over and over in their minds and don’t have a good way to stop it. Cognitive behavioral therapy targets that kind of thinking and offers ways to stop the “bad thoughts.” I’m not suggesting that therapy is needed because of one bad social experience, but possibly this is part of a broader issue.

That would be him!

Actually, often he can put aside his anger if he is offered the chance to do something different. In other words, I ;ve seen him totally enjoy a funny TV show, or a new game with different kids soon after he’s upset . But when he returns to thinking about the person or the incident that upset him he can become very upset and angry all over again.

We are going to be exploring some form of therapy to help him turn off pleasurable fantasy thinking when its inappropriate (ie during school) and I think your suggestion that this is an extension of that is correct. The ability to self regulate, self calm is all related and he could use some help in learning to do these things.

His former psychiatrist did tell me once that he’s seen kids this age present as if they were clinically depressed over friendship issues - and that the importance of these relationships is really magnified at this age. When you are sensitive to begin with its even harder.

I sometimes see this same exclusionary behavior too (and it happens at all age levels). I think explaining this to your son (it’s normal and it happens to all kids) and then discussing different ways to deal with it (find a different activity, call mom and say you’re bored and ready to come home, find another kid who looks bored and start talking to him, find something more fun to do and sometimes the group will follow, etc…). Of course the options on how to deal with it differ depending on the situation. But these are great things to discuss with your kids. Also, sometimes there are books about topics like this. I always like to have my kids read or listen to books about difficult things they may encounter.

When my kids were really young I used to make up simple stories about different situations using animals or insects as the characters. In creating these stories I’d try to give my kids the words they might need for different situations. For example I might start the story; “Once there were 3 ants and 2 of them decided they didn’t want to play with the third one so….” (add in meaningful dialogue).

Even if you do decide on therapy, lots of dicussion, stories and maybe some role play might be helpful too.

My son doesn’t do this but I did as a child. I can clearly remember social anxiety related to fitting in. I would replay everything in my head. I wasn’t usually angry but rather always trying to figure out what I said that was wrong.

I was just very very shy. I almost completely grew out of this. Inside, I am still a very shy person. Now, most people who know me don’t believe me when I say I am shy.

My younger son is demonstrating some of these tendencies. I offer him many play dates as a way to gain more social experience. It has helped. Social skills are skills just like any other skill. They can be taught.

My 12yo son has had VERY similar issues through the years. What we have done (and this may or may not work with your child) has been this:

If we know the child, or one of the children, involved that he is upset with, we try to get the two of them together to talk about it. This has had the added benefit of educating his friends to how he works (he is bipolar).

If we do not know the children involved, we play reverse twenty questions to get to the root of what happened. “OK, he said this. Why? What did you say to him? OK, why did you do/say that?” and so on until we get to what really happened. Then we discuss the situation with him, what he could have done differently, how sometimes kids can be mean even if they don’t mean to be.

We have been doing this for a couple of years now, and it seems to be less frequently that we need to do it any more.

Just a suggestion,

Rayna