We recently pulled DS(4.5) out of his preschool where he was having all kinds of issues, and we are currently homeschooling. We are seeing in spades how much "damage" has been done over the last few months. One of the issues that is paining us right now is that he has a REALLY hard time making friends - or being a friend. At his last school, he wanted to play with the big kids and they wanted nothing to do with him. The kids his age thought he was wierd and bossy because he would try to create games for them all to play that had all sorts of rules and requirements. The other kids had no interest, and it would really, really upset him. Eventually, he started playing alone, but not necessarily in a good way - he'd be loud and obnoxious, as if to let the other kids know that he was still there, even if they didn't want to play with him. Now that I have him at home, I have sought out other highly gifted kids his age for him to play with, but the playdates haven't gone so well...he just assumes now that kids don't want to play with him and that they will think his games are "dumb." He won't even give these kids a chance. I know he would LOVE to have friends who would excavate for dinosaurs in the backyard and debate the relative merits of the various "fossils" they found, but he doesn't seem to think anyone wants to play with him and therefore he's just proactively shutting them out. Any advice?
