My daughter says kids won't play with her at school

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

You never know.

My 4 year old son is in pre-school. MOST of the kids in his class this year were there last year. There was one, exactly one, new girl this year. She tried hard to mix with the girls. but found it impossible because the girls had already formed their friendship circles and established their places in the friendship hierarchy, and a new girl couldn’t break into it easily. If two or three little girls who know and like each other are playing “Princess,” it’s not easy for a new girl to enter the game.

On the other hand, “friendship” is a more casual and fluid thing with little boys. If a few little boys are building Lego towers or digging in the dirt, a new kid can join in fairly easily.

To oversimplify, girls will let you into their games if they regard you as a friend. Boys will regard you as a friend if you join in their games.

And sure enough, the new girl has become fast friends with my son and the other boys. NOT because she’s a tomboy by nature, but because boys aren’t quite so cliquish at that age.

22

Lorene, this was exactly me at your daughter’s age. Tomboy, small, and bright. I’m a senior in college now, and one of the best decisions that was ever made for me was to skip a grade. It should have been two, but in an 8 year old’s mind (I skipped the 3rd), one instead of two seemed like a compromise :stuck_out_tongue: Yes, initially you may think it’s a bad idea. Don’t. I also had a benign skin condition that developed around the time I skipped a grade, and was shunned for that too. Regardless, if I’d be shunned AND bored in school, who knows what trouble I’d have found for myself. At least I was stimulated in the classroom, and eventually I found a great group of friends in middle school that I still keep in contact with today.

On a sidenote, my younger brother had the opposite problem as I did and as your daughter. In preschool, he was 1 1/2 heads above the other children - they were often afraid to play with him, and some shunned him. Eventually he grew to become friends with the other children who were smallest, and is now class president. I think his unique ability to recognize and seek out those on the perimeter make him the kind and sensitive individual he is today.

Feel free to PM me with more info - I’d be welcome to share :slight_smile:

23

Wow, thanks again, everyone, for your replies! I haven’t been able to reply to each one, just because weekends with a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old are quite busy. I do, however, really appreciate all of the input and the sharing and the advice.

She has been tested for celiac disease; that was one of the first things tested and it came back negative. She also had the growth plate X-ray and I need to go back and review what they said about it. I think I understand the test and its implications less than I previously thought.

Anyhow, I may be following up with some of you via PM…as I said, it’s kind of crazy around here, but you’ve given me some great support and hope. **Thank you all!
**

24

I’m not a parent, but I was a child. I don’t want to throw water on things, but why would the other kids behave any better in middle school? My personal experience was that kids’ behaviors as far as forming cliques and ridiculing other kids never really let up, at least until high school. Even then, I’m not certain if their behavior improved, or my ability to ignore it did.

25

Poor little mite,I hope things get better for her.

I dont know a lot about growth rates in kids but my recollection of schooldays was that a lot of kids grow in erratic spurts so this might happen to your girl.

I remember in the first year of secondary school one boy was head and shoulders over everyone else and used to throw his weight around, unfortunately after that year his growth slowed right down whereas everyone else shot up like runner beans.

A lot of old scores got payed off.

Tell her that someone in England says Hi to her and wishes her all the best.

26

Aw, man, that sucks. Good thoughts to you and your daughter. Emailing the teacher sounds like a good idea. Any decent kindergarten teacher will 1) be able to give you the scoop from her perspective and 2) try to help your daughter make friends in her class.

Skipping a grade may be what she needs from an academic perspective, but it’s unlikely to help her from a social perspective. In general, kids in lower grades get teased not for being smart but for being baby-ish. Smart kids who also have good social skills usually don’t have a problem making friends. I don’t mean to imply that your daughter is in any way in the wrong, just that it’s pretty common for kids’ social skills not to quite have caught up with their academic skills. And, of course, the other kids are also learning social skills, too, so it’s not surprising that they might not respond gracefully to your daughter’s efforts to be friendly.

27

lorene, I hope things will turn a corner for your little girl soon. My best friends from the age of three were boys, so I can relate to her wanting to hang out with them instead of other girls. Maybe you can point out to her that there probably are other little girls with similar interests, even if the boys don’t want to play with them right now? Lots of little girls are tom boys, after all.

Can you get to adulthood without knowing for sure if you have this? I was a big baby, especially for a girl (over 8lbs and 22" long) but I completely stopped growing by age two, and didn’t start again until I was four; according to my parents my height and weight remained the same for two solid years. My parents and doctor were very concerned about this, but no cause was ever determined. After age four I started to grow again, but very slowly. I didn’t reach my adult height until I was 19 which is extremely late in girls. I’ve always wondered what caused this, and celiac disease sort of seems to fit given the digestive problems I’ve had on and off for years, but I find it hard to believe no one would have figured it out…

28

Add to the folks who say don’t skip her. My brother and I were both skipped; it didn’t do a huge amount for us academia-wise but it certainly made the whole socialization thing a whole lot more difficult (especially for him – he was small for his age, and he had a much stronger desire to be sociable than I did, which was thoroughly frustrated).

29

One of my colleagues just learned he has it this year. He is having his kids tested because they show similar symtoms. So, yeah.

30

Sure, celiac disease can be minor or major in symptoms; an old boss of mine wasn’t diagnosed until his 40s. He only had minor discomfort after eating gluten. His daughter showed much more dramatic symptoms, and was what triggered him to see if he was affected too.

31

I would add a vote to go ahead and skip her. If she’s really bright she’s probably bored intellectually. Also, she has a chance to reinvent herself to a new group of people, with a built in ‘genius’ rep. It might not be any better, but it is unlikely to be worse.

32

Kicking 3rd grader ass normally means even more grief for your girl. Do what you must at home to support her, but let her handle the school side of business unless she specifically asks you to intervene.

Asking the teacher about what’s going on is fine, but don’t expect her (or ask her) to intervene.

Other than that, another vote for “this too shall pass”. Kids are fickle little beasts. Be there for yours and don’t pay much attention to the others.

ETA: Not that you were polling us, but here is one vote against skipping grades. I was the youngest in my class (entered uni at 16) and they wanted me to skip one more grade. Being the youngest is not fun, you miss half the stuff.

33

I didn’t want anyone to think I had abandoned the thread…things have been super-busy around Casa Lorene.

Anyhow, our plan of action is:
[ul]
[li]listen if she feels like talking, but don’t force it[/li][li]talk about ways to be a good friend[/li][li]support her development of positive self-esteem[/li][li]generate some play dates[/li][li]keep pursuing activities she is interested in[/li][/ul]

Things we are NOT going to do:
[ul]
[li]kick anyone’s ass[/li][li]go to the playground and demand that kids play with her[/li][li]make any kind of decision about academics until it’s time to[/li][/ul]

I am a little dismayed that the teacher has not emailed me back. I wrote to her mid-morning on Friday. That’s approximately 2 “business” days. I’m not sure what a reasonable expectation is with regards to reply time.

I also think that her small size has led to peers and adults alike treating her as younger than she is, and I’ve been working really hard to get her to act in age-appropriate ways. That may have to do with some of this. But she said again last night that 2 of her friends didn’t want to play football with her because it’s harder for her to catch a ball that they throw over her head.

I dunno. Plugging away. That’s what parenting is a lot of the time.

34

You’ve gotten this answer several times already, but here’s one more: you sure can. That’s what happened to me, although in contrast to your case, aside from a brief stint in infancy of failure to thrive, I have always been in the 90-something percentile for height and weight for my age. My minor digestive problems were investigated as a child and no real answer was found, and since I seemed to improve with age, that was that. I was actually only tested (at around age 21) to rule out possible causes of chronic fatigue syndrome (the celiac disease wasn’t a major contributing factor, unfortunately). I’m 24, by the way.

35

Why don’t you let her take huge bags of candy to school to give to her friends?

36

Lorene, I am so sorry to hear about what your daughter is going through and for the heartache you’re feeling. As a kid who was shunned to to various and sundry reasons, I can understand how much it hurts her.

My suggestion to build up her confidence? Horseback riding lessons. Nothing on this earth is better in giving a child—esp. a girl—the confidence when she learns how to take care of and ride a horse. Also, she’ll be able to make friends through being around like-minded little ones.

Hugs to you both.

37

My oldest daughter is in first grade (and is also six). My impression is that, among kids that age, social interaction is very random. Kids have only a dim grasp of how relationships are supposed to work, and they’re flighty and temperamental. One day so-and-so is your best friend, the next day she’s not.

We ask our daughter almost every day about who she talked to at school that day, who she played with at recess, and who she ate lunch with. We continue to be baffled by our inability to comprehend her social life. Is she making friends? Does she fit in? Beats us. She doesn’t seem to be upset about her social life, and her teacher says she’s doing fine, so I guess that’s good enough, but we’re still perplexed.

None of this helps you right now, but what she’s going through may just be part of being six.

38

You may already know this, but I’ll throw it out there.

In general, kindergartners play “near” each other not “with” each other. Some of them, though, are more social than others, like your daughter. I’m guessing she’s pretty sharp, reads early, and has good verbal skills. She may want to play with other kids, and they are simply lost in their own little worlds.

I can’t believe the difference between first graders and kinders (I teach fifth and sixth graders). Kinders are just…kinda clueless :slight_smile: They just are so…weird and spacey and in their own worlds. Once, I had to cover the kinder teacher’s class for 20 minutes. It made Kindergarten Cop look like a movie about a convent.

The playing “amongst” rather than “with” kids will continue into first and second grades, but it will appear more organized: tag, jumping rope, hopscotch. They won’t care who’s a boy or who’s a girl until third grade, when the boys will start getting interested in organized sports.

So you can look forward to social behavior in third grade…and then Queen Bee Bullying in fourth! Yay!

:slight_smile:

39

Maybe where you’re from, there was no such thing as girl cooties for me 36 years ago and there isn’t for The Nephew now either.

His favorite classmate from kindergarten last year was a girl who hit everybody. Well, she was his favorite when she wasn’t hitting anybody, of course…

40

I can see where this might happen. My mom was very tall for her time, and she would tell tales of people thinking there was something wrong with her, because she didn’t act the age her size implied. (I never asked her mom, he would have been 5’ 11" before 1920, how she was treated.) Ironically, 4 of my kids have/are all been small for their age, even though I am 6’ 2". (I grew late, and I married a very short woman, so we have no idea how big my kids will end up. Well, the almost 17 year old is finally maybe 5’ 9", so he is no longer extremely small. The endocrinologist we took him to when he was smaller than everyone but a girl whose mom was 4’ 11" said he would be 6’.)

A few of my kids have had trouble making friends. The oldest two are twins; both had trouble making friends at the Kindergarten age. Most kids that age can only be friends with one kid at a time, although who it is might change in a few hours. Twin 1 said that the following conversations hurt: “Will you be my friend?” “No thanks, I already have one.” That one, was sometimes twin 2. In HS, the twins were best friends with two girls, and basically had no other friends until their senior year. This was good for twin 2, who is very introverted and shy. She only needs a friend or two. Twin 1 is introverted, also, but loves college, because she made many friends immediately. So, eventually, she made friends. But, the last 12 years or so would have been tough w/o the one friend who has been a friend since first or second grade. (They knew each other before kindergarten.)

I think the Daisy troop idea is a great idea. You can gently help your daughter socially, and give her a chance to consistently interact with other girls.

I think advancing a grade is a bad idea, although it can work out for the right kid. It sounds like your daughter has some social development to do first. We rejected skipping grades for our kids. At least in our area, they can take classes geared to their level. We have a great GT teacher at the local elementary school who made sure kids 3, 4 and 5 were not bored. (She was hired too late for the twins.) The middle school worked hard to make sure Kid 4 could take math at the HS while he was in MS, as will Kid 5 next year. Right now, I have a textbook I am supposed to review for the HS, so kids like mine don’t have to go to the local college for math. (Twin 1 missed out on any shot at valedictorian because college classes didn’t count towards her GPA.) If your area is similar, and one nice side effect of the no child left behind act is that schools now bend over backwards for good students, you should be able to keep her academically, and socially, where she needs to be.