Hi All
First up, thank you for reading and any help or direction you may be able to provide.
I am UK/London based dad who lives with wife, daughter (6 years) and another daughter (2 years). My question is regarding my elder daughter who I think may not be developing her skills on the social side of things. I say this because I have seen that she has trouble making new friends (she has two or three good friends and that is all), she will often not look other kids (that she doesn’t know well) in the eye and not talk to them in a friendly way and lots of other signs. Lastly, these days, it has come to my notice that she has said she has no one to play with in her lunch / break times in school. She has taken to carrying a small metal teddy bear which she plays with in school breaks/lunches.
She is an intelligent, creative, articulate, confident girl, and this has been attested to by her teacher at school (she is reading/writing/math-ing above her peers) and something I can see at home as well. She might be a shy introvert, and that is fine, but I do feel this may be one step beyond being an introvert and so I am asking if you all have any tips or resources that I can look at to understand what I can do here.
My overall objective is to allow her to be more curious and open (at an appropriate level) with other kids and to be able to approach them without hesitation and work to be included in their play/conversation etc. Not sure what I need to do to help her develop these socials skills and so reaching out to see if anyone can give me some direction.
Any help much appreciated.
Thanks in advance
S
1 comment
Might be a debated topic but I feel like keeping them off phones and iPads etc. (If they have them) would help. At least until they’re older. It’s my personal experience that young kids who use those a lot seem much less socially developed than the same aged kid who doesn’t. Maybe there’s a confounding factor there but seems pretty causal to me.
I feel like it’s easy as the parent to give them that stuff in the moment because it makes them be quiet for a while (which is nice) but I think it’s an inaccuracy because they end up being socially undeveloped and then you’ve created a bigger problem.