(no subject)

[becomingkate]

 I had a few things I wanted to post about last night and now I forget.

Oh yeah.  Well, I'm concerned about my son.  Again.  I worry about his social skills.  He says there is a group of kids he plays tag with at recess and there is this one girl who always calls time out when she is about to get tagged.  So he tells me that he tells on her all the time.  He tells the recess monitor that she's "not playing right" and the monitor tells the girl to play right and then she plays right.

I'm not a fan of tattling.  I mean it has negative connotations, right?  Tattling is when you tell on someone for something that isn't major.  It's right to tell an adult if someone is bullying you or being mean or unfair and I guess that kind of crosses over into not playing a game right so it's not fair to the rest of the kids, but it just seems like, if you didn't like how someone was playing, you'd go find someone else to play with. I tried to tell him that he should try to work it out with the girl, or just not play with her, and he said "if tattling isn't right, then why is it a thing?" LOL

This stemmed from the fact that only 3 kids have rsvp'ed to his birthday party this coming weekend.  He invited his whole class and some kids on his bus.  I understand the kids on his bus maybe not wanting to come if they don't really know him.  But his class?  I am working with the hope that they're just waiting until the last minute to RSVP.  But I worry that he's too bossy and controlling with his friends, like he is at home, and maybe that he's not really well liked.  I think he is brillant and funny and worth knowing, but I am his mom.  His friends might see that he's bossy and needs to have his own way and that just does not bode well with 6 year olds.  Because he doesn't listen to me, I'm probably going to have to wait until the kids actually start telling him they don't like playing with him because he's bossy.  That's going to hurt, but if he won't listen to me, what else can I do?

So I had a talk with him about making friends and I tried to get a feel for his social life at school and that's how the tag thing came up.

Now he wants to schedule out his entire birthday party.  First of all he wrote a play and wanted his friends to act in it with him on his birthday.  Well since the majority of the people he picked to be in this play said they aren't coming, that was a bust, and he didn't want to ask the people who are coming.  This morning he told me he wanted to write a schedule and hand out copies.  He wrote a song he wants to sing at his birthday and he wants everyone to know what time he'll be singing this song.  I told him that he can just tell everyone when he's starting and that they'll come listen if they want to, but he wants to write a schedule and hand it out to everyone.

I just don't understand his love of rules and schedules, but when I try to stick him to a schedule at home he doesn't want any of it.  I already know that when kids are at a party they don't want to be told what to do.  They're there to play and have cake and have a good time.  And I don't want him to be upset on his birthday so I was trying to let him know ahead of time that the kids might not be up for this whole schedule thing.  But I have a feeling, like the making friends thing, that I am going to have to let him be let down in order for him to really get it.  Or maybe they'll surprise me and love the schedule.

My heart just hurts for him.  I want him to have friends, of course, and I want to help him be the kind of person people want to be friends with.  But I watch him with his peers and I just cringe.  He's much too stubborn and needs things to be his own way.  I suppose it's a hard skill to learn, to compromise and think about what would make other people happy.  

I think that when he gets older he might find more kids who are like him, but at this age most of them seem to be pretty happy go lucky and not as rigid as my son is.  I hope that as he gets older he'll kind of grow into this personality and find something that will help him thrive.  (I'm open to any ideas for hobbies or skills he might be good at...)