Does your son have age peers who are truly his friends?
Yes and no. I would say he is tolerated by most age peers and liked by some. He is gregarious and wants to have friends; there are kids who genuinely like him and include him in some activities (invite him over, etc.), though I suspect that his social life is not as rich in invitations as other kids'. He doesn't have a best friend, never has had; but he's included often enough that he doesn't feel like an outsider.
it doesn't bother him that he doesn't talk to anyone during lunch and recess. That's one of the reasons why I feel like it's probably not a big loss if he ends up being surrounded by kids who are much older than him who probably will not consider him a friend either. DS will probably not be able to fit in wherever he goes, so maybe grade acceleration for academic purposes only is not so bad of a idea?
Have you worked on social skills with him? Does he do okay in any group activities (clubs, scouts, lego league, etc.)?
We have considered the skill of participating a group hugely important for our DS; we did some group social skills work as well as quite a bit of practice through ABA therapy on the constituent skills of being a friend (being a good loser, encouraging others...). DS's school IEP goals include social communication. I would be bothered if he wasn't interacting at lunch; I would see it not so much as "he doesn't want to" as possibly "he doesn't have the skills to do it successfully, so he doesn't do it." But I don't know if that is true for your DS at all.
I want his potential friends to look at him and think, "yeah, that kid is younger than I am and he is certainly no athlete, but boy, he is smart and we can talk about really cool stuff because he can follow the logic of the conversation and he knows a ton about things I'm interested in." What do you think?
The thing I do not know is whether classroom friendships will translate into real out-of-school friendships. Certainly this is the age where kids start to be friends not because their moms are friends or they live on the same street, but based on shared interests. I am hoping that science club, math team, etc. will yield a group of real friends for DS. But I don't know yet whether it will work.
I also don't know how it will go when DS is in 7th and 8th grade, probably medium-to-shortish for his age, and going to the high school for math and maybe science, with kids who are much more mature physically and socially. I don't think that world will be a social success for him, though it may be academically exactly what he needs. Our thinking has been that the older kids don't really see him as a peer outside the classroom, and that will be worse for a while as the academic peers go through puberty and our DS isn't there yet.
DeeDee
