my child is also in 3rd grade. It has not been a good year so far socially at all. I feel she has no friends in her class. No one has called, except one girl from her class last year for a playdate. THe girl she has been friends with for two years and was purposely placed in her class this year is ignoring her now. She is very sweet, but I don’t think she knows how to engage another child for two long, her eye contact is better than it used to be, but she is a very immature 8 year old. She also has motor problems, so she is clumsy at sports, not good on playground equipment, not off training wheels yet etc. My heart is breaking. I have had her in social skills groups in the past, I haven’t seen improvement. Most of her free time is spent playing with her younger sister, who is well-liked by her classmates accoridng to the teacher but she also doesn’t have a lot of playdates.
I am ready to move somewhere else, I am getting so frustrated by all this. Any advise anyone!!! By the way she is in swimming lessons, didn’t do well in Brownies for two years with making friends, so we don’t do that, and we are now in horseback riding lessons„which she likes, but won’t do anything like dance, ice skating or anything athletic because she is not good at that.
Re: daughter's problem with social skills
My daughter who’s now a 6th grader had those problems at that age. We did girl scouts for a year and she also tried sports. She took gymnastics for a year and a half and while she wasn’t real good she did become friends with a classmate whose mom was the teacher. Softball was a total flop. She plays soccer and while she’s now getting to be pretty good she wasn’t at first but since the team only has 3 subs the kids never really noticed because by the end of a game they were all so tired that everybody sucked! I also found sending her to day camp for some of the summer helps. She’s gone to the same camp 3 years in a row now and she meets the same kids every year and gets to do activities she likes. She also runs into the same staff every year and that helps. the camp she goes to is for science and math and this past year she moved up to the upper camps and there aren’t many girls in them so the few that are there stick together. I guess the big thing I’ve found is scheduling time with other kids for my daughter. She still doesn’t have a lot of friends but she has a couple of really close ones and several kids that she can hang out with at school and who look for her at school events. She was missed when she couldn’t play soccer this fall due to broken heel. There is hope
Re: daughter's problem with social skills
My son also has social problems and has few friends. Things have improved this last year as he now has one good friend and they go out playing together. I got his doctor to put me in touch with other parents with kids with same problems, that is how he found his friend. My son is 11 years old.
Re: daughter's problem with social skills
It sounds like you are doing everything you can - just keep doing it and something will stick!
My son (also in 3rd grade and the subject of a thread below) has 4 friends. They are very good friends but that’s it. He’s not inappropriate or rejected - just irrelevent. And he’s happy.
I did have him in a social skills group, and will again if time permits. I think practicing social skills in a controlled setting was good for him. At this age I can also talk to him about the importance of saying Hi and making eye contact.
I really would like to know how you got your daughter’s eye contact to improve. I think this is a big problem for ds.
One side note: I’ve discovered that not that many kids are having playdates anymore due to afterschool activities and homework. So I realized not to take it personally if noone called !
Re: daughter's problem with social skills
I notice that my daughter had social skills problem when she was about 3 years old. At that time I took her to playgrounds like (Gymboree) now is 8 years old in 2nd grade and the social skills still persists. I have enrolled her in swimming classes, tennis, soccer, and many other sports but she refuses to participate with other kids. I recently met her teacher and we discussed the problem. The teacher stated that my daughter excels in every academic subject, but except in sports and behavior. (she is too shy). I explained the teacher that I went thru the same problem as a child and that perhaps she took it from. Any suggestions?
Re: daughter's problem with social skills
Hi Kathy,
I don’t want to alarm you about the possibilities, but you could be dealing with a mild case of Asperger’s Syndrome. An initial question would be whether or not your daughter seems to become overly focused on a narrow range of interests. Perhaps a doll that she plays with for way too long. Also problems with fluent speech.
Her problems with eye contact are probably related to her motor planning problems. There are two excellent therapies for this - sensory integration and vision.
My son was diagnosed with AS at 7, is now 15 and has made TREMENDOUS progress, so don’t be discouraged by the dreadful descriptions of things like AS that you read about. DO be proactive though, in trying to figure out what’s wrong.
Good luck,
Dan
Questions for you , Dan..
Your post really caught my attention. I have an 8.5 year old that is not AS, or NLD, or ADD, but boy he sure has attributes of all of them, just not severe enough for a dX. (He’s also dyslexic. ) The thing that is the most AS about him is the problem he has maintaining eye contact, which we’ve suspected is related to sensory overload. He has done OT for mild motor planning problems but is not a classic case of sensory integration dysfunction. Your post made me think about revisiting OT for him - but I wanted to know how you felt vision therapy helped with eye contact. We are looking into VT for his reading problem, but I didn’t think of it relative to the eye contact thing.
And a broader question - any words of wisdom about a child that may in fact be a really really mild case of AS? Do you think a dx matters? Thanks!!
Re: daughter's problem with social skills
This sounds like NLD. Have you checked out the NLD boards? Try www.nldline.com or www.nldontheweb.org for more information.
Re: daughter's problem with social skills
Try one on one. Stay away from group activities like brownies.Horseback riding is positive build her self esteem.Individual sports are better only competing agaisnt yourself not others,not as frustrating.As a parent we need to teach our children social skills and when they fail,encourage positive reinforcement.It will not happen overnight be patient,take small steps and you will both suceed.Tell her to watch other kids that she admires to learn social skills modelling and role play and for you as parent to intervene or cue her with positive reinforcement when mistakes are made;just a few words no lectures.Hope this helps Pierre
My son at that age had similar issues. I found it helpful to have very structured playdates like going to the movies. We would take the initiative to invite another child and I’d take them both to the movies. Other children seemed happy to accept an invitation to a movie and watching the film together was an activity that didn’t play up my son’s social issues. It gave him some relaxed time with other children and helped him through those times.