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    Joined: Sep 2014
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    Flyingmouse I think that's a great idea but I'm not sure we can implement it just yet - do you know if these sorts of things are usually a health insurance type of thing? I looked up a few online and they seem to start at 4 years old instead of 3 but I'll keep looking a bit. DH is unfortunately transitioning between jobs at the moment and our health insurance is probably going to be expensive and not so great for a bit.

    Thinking about it, we really don't do that many playdates with other kids, which is my fault. I think that for now I'm going to concentrate on setting up playdates and 'getting him out there' a bit more and see how that plays out and maybe add a sports team as well if we can swing it.

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    My DS is the most independent thinker I know smile I recall a day when we had friends over - he was about 4 yrs old - and the other 5 kids played in a group while DS pushed his bubble mower around the yard by himself. From very, very early on he had an obsession with figuring out how things work. While other 1 & 2 year olds would play with toys, he'd try and take them apart and "test" them.

    At school he was initially very independent as well, choosing to follow his interests rather than peers. He was even the subject of a story in the school newsletter about leadership - the principal wrote about how he was engaged in a solo activity at recess and other kids decided to follow him and join in.

    Now he's 10 and has come out of his shell and is very social, but for awhile was so independent at school that the staff though he had autism.

    FWIW I was always the same way. Outside of school I was more engaged with others, but at school I became more socially withdrawn.

    As for long term obsessions... has anyone heard of Thomas the Tank Engine? Holy smokes. He lived and breathed Thomas from about 3-6 yrs old (or thereabouts - I can't recall exactly, other than to say he's long since outgrown it).

    Last edited by CCN; 10/23/14 06:54 AM.
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    My son was 3:6 and had no friends at his preschool. We accelerated him to the 4s room based on a WPPSI-IV test and one day was best buds with 3 5 year olds (the 4s played with the 5s on the playground and at opening and closing).

    So maybe his "peers" are not really his peers. He may have a lot more in common with 5 or 6 year olds.

    Last edited by cmguy; 10/23/14 08:21 AM.
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    ndw Offline
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    Finding peers is never easy. Some kids are luckier than others and click early, some move in and out of relationships, some take a long time to find someone they feel comfortable with. As our DD developed more interests it became easier to find commonalities with others, which was good, but they still weren't peers.

    Based on my own experience, I found peers later in life and I still only have a few. They are distributed all over the world but we stay in touch.

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    I just observed this today with my DS 3.5 at his preschool. He has always been a talker and enjoys conversing with adults. I always assumed he was an extrovert and I mean a serious social butterfly because he always wanted to interact with every human he came across since he was an infant. But now, at preschool everytime I get a chance to observe (today they had an indoor "pumpkin patch" the parents came in to take pictures and we walked into their normal activities), the group is in one place and he's off to the side doing something else. My heart kinda sinks when I see this. I have seen him try to physically pull other children into his interested activity but my husband and I and the teachers have heavily worked with him on not physically forcing kids to play with him and so now what I am seeing is resign. He's decided he'll do it alone. I haven't processed whether or not this is a good thing, I know it hurts a little for me to see, yet I also know this is just snapshot of his development and may not indicate any real ongoing trait necessarily.

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    Originally Posted by readermom123
    Flyingmouse I think that's a great idea but I'm not sure we can implement it just yet - do you know if these sorts of things are usually a health insurance type of thing? I looked up a few online and they seem to start at 4 years old instead of 3 but I'll keep looking a bit. DH is unfortunately transitioning between jobs at the moment and our health insurance is probably going to be expensive and not so great for a bit.

    Thinking about it, we really don't do that many playdates with other kids, which is my fault. I think that for now I'm going to concentrate on setting up playdates and 'getting him out there' a bit more and see how that plays out and maybe add a sports team as well if we can swing it.


    Oh I wanted to add that after talking with his child psychologist (which is really like my psychologist because most of the time he it out of the room while I'm discussing his issues/needs with her and then I cry. LOL), she suggested that we start him in sports and keep preschool at 2 days a week-because he needs something non-academic to bond with other children, something that levels the playing field. I love this idea and that's my next goal. I just posted in the Tests and Assessments forum a post about how we just got approved to have him evaluated by the public school system if you would like to read about that.

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    readermom123, I sent you a PM.

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    Ha CCN, yes that's the same sort of dynamic I see sometimes, except he's an explorer more than a tinkerer most of the time. My nephews were Thomas crazy and DS knows a few of them too.

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    cmguy I've wondered about this a bit. At his old MDO he actually happened to be in with a bunch of kids that were about a year older than him and he did talk about those kids a lot and seemed to play with a larger variety of them. It's hard to tell though, because the structure of the class is also a bit different. I feel like his current teacher has a better 'read' on him and is a bit more involved but maybe he did enjoy playing with the other kids a bit more. Then again, he'd known them for several months by the time we left.

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    ndw, yeah, I've always had a hard time forming good friendships so I'm feeling a bit out of my depth. Really, college was when I finally found a larger group of people I felt I had a lot in common with. DH also doesn't strike up many friendships but he doesn't seem to care as much. We'll muddle through I guess. smile We're going to the zoo with a friend today and next week we'll see one of our mutual friends that he really likes (a boy who's 4 and probably gifted himself).

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