Hello everyone. Welcome back to my blog…..This week I’m going to talk about how to play with friends.
Now that you have a group of friends you should play with them. You should get your parents to organise a play date unless your old and you don’t need your parents’ permission.
If you go to school, you should play with your friends, and if one of your friends is sick, you should always play with a group of friends so it won’t matter too much if someone is unable to make it.
When playing with your friends at school or in the playground, you should always include other kids who want to want to play with you even if you don’t know them well.
That’s all for this week. Have a happy, healthy week.
Lily O
Terri from Glastonberry, CT, writes:My 12-year-old son does not have a best friend. The kids he plays with around the neighborhood and at school never include him in things,like birthday parties and, recently, trick-or-treating. Even when he asked if he could go they said they didn’t have enough room in the car for him. I feel really bad for him and don’t know how to help him. He is an only child and not athletic like the other kids. He still tries to play baseball even though he feels he isn’t good enough. He will stay in the house all day sometimes and play with Legos. I think he feels he will only be rejected if he tries to play with the other kids. He was diagnosed with mild ADHD in third grade. He takes no meds but takes flaxes and omega. His grades are great in school and he is a very polite child. He is mostly a happy kid except for the friend part.Dear Terri,I usually don’t worry if a child doesn’t have a best friend, but I do worry when a child has no friends at all, or if a child is being consistently excluded. It often helps to nurture one-on-one friendships, since kids tend to be less tolerant and more rejecting when they are in a group. You can invite over another family, and soon the kids will get tired of the grown-ups and go off to play, but there isn’t as much pressure as there is when it is just kids having a playdate. You can look for social settings for him with other kids who share his same interests, somewhere that he doesn’t have to force himself to play just because it’s what everyone else likes to do. You can ask the teacher which classmates are most likely to be good friends for your child, and invite them over. And hardest of all, you can ask the teacher and other parents what they see in your child that contributes to his being excluded. It is important not to blame a child for being targeted with cruelty, but it is also important to help kids fit in if they just need a little help with social skills.