Mother Talkers

Birthday Party Blues

by Laura

Tue Nov 13, 2007 at 02:52:34 PM PDT

DS is in first grade and has so far done pretty well.  He's freaky smart (multiplying two digits in  his head, adding three sets of three digits, doing addition and subtraction of negative numbers, etc) but his social skills are weak, to say the least.  I blame it partially on his early years- DH was a SAHD and they had very limited opportunities to interact with other kids since most of the moms in playgroup tended to assume he was looking for a little action on the side rather than just looking for a playdate.  Mostly DS has been blissfully ignorant of his lack of skills- moving happily between groups of kids, not noticing that most didn't seem thrilled to have him join their groups.  But today his sister (4) got her third birthday party invitation in 2 months and the lightbulb switched on- he doesn't get invited to birthday parties.

It's not like he doesn't have any friends, there are a couple of kids that we socialize with as a family,  just not many that seem to have birthday parties.  It broke my heart to watch him cry as he asked why no one likes him enough to invite him to a party.  He seems to have recovered now, but I'm stuck.  How do I teach a kid how to be "normal" socially?  He's not an Aspie (though I suspected that for awhile), he's just awkward.  He comes by it naturally- his dad and I both had serious geek tendencies back in the day, but we were both lucky enough to find social circles of like minded geeks.  I've tried having him invite a couple of kids over for playdates, but we don't get good responses.  It wouldn't be so awful except his sister seems to be emerging as quite the social butterfly (actually, more of a Queen Bee, which has me really worried) so the situation is highlighted.

Help?

Tags: child development, social skills, popularity (all tags)

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