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DS tends to outgrow his friendships around 18 months in. There seems to be a maturity disconnect. He does not have friends with large groups - mostly a handful independently cultivated. How frequently is there an emotional maturity disconnect between your child and friends?

ETA: rephrased the question for clarity. I removed the specific examples in a later post which helped clarify the original post.

Can you be a little more specific with what you mean? And how old is your son?

Boys are often competitive around age 7-9, I notice....this can be annoying and cause playdate discord, but I've not seen what you describe with lots of kids showing self-esteem issues.

Actually, quite the opposite. DS is not really outgoing at all and takes a while before considering acquaintances as friends but ultimately develops deep friendships lasting many years. He made a lot of new friends this year in middle school but still hangs out online with his elementary school friends as well.

Perhaps it is a combination of his personality and these particular friends' personalities?

In a bit of a hurry, so I can't really go into detail at the moment, but one thing that strikes me about the description here is that there must be something more to this than the "other" child's emotional self esteem - even though one child is EG or PG and the others might not match cognitive insight, if you took a broad sweep look at children in any one age group, you should find kids who are all over the place on self-esteem and the likelihood of one child's behavior impacting their own self-esteem.

Out of my 3 kids, I have 3 very different personalities re how friendships are formed and how they last. In each instance, the lasting component has little to do with the "other" children but is more related to how my specific child develops/uses/approaches/values the relationship with the other child. I don't mean this in a negative way at all and I'm not suggesting that your child has an issue with how they are approaching friendships, just suggesting a look at it from a different direction rather than assuming the friendships aren't lasting due to blows to the other children's self-esteem.

Hope that makes sense -

Best wishes,

polarbear

I think having the extra detail helped a bit (for me). The first post sounded like you were talking about every situation, the second post sounds like this has only happened with 2 (possibly 3) kids. Considering that most of our kids have opportunities to build friendships with quite a few other children, it's not surprising that one or two here or there aren't going to mesh. The competition upset does happen - when I wrote my original reply what I'd thought I understood from the first post was that your ds was having this issue with most of the children he had contact with, not just a few.

The piano teacher chart thing - I wouldn't like that *at all*. I suppose it might increase practice time, but is that really the point of piano lessons? To practice more than the other kids? What about learning music for the sake of learning? It's possible that the relationship change with the lego-child is due to something that's happened with seeing the electronic practice reports, but it's also possible something else is up. I might ask the mom that you've noticed something seems to be different and you've wondered about it (if you know her well enough to ask). I also think the whole idea of practicing basketball on purpose to one-up another child is a bit odd... a part of me wonders is it possible the parent was joking about it?

My kids do know kids who are sensitive about winning/etc - but there aren't a huge number of them in the circle of kids they know. If it's just a few kids here and there I wouldn't think any more about any of it, just stick with playdates with the kids your ds wants to be friends with. If it's turning out that these things seem to be happening frequently, I'd look a little bit deeper to see if it's more than just scoring more points, but possibly behaviors in that situation that the other child is reacting to rather than the actual score.

FWIW, all three of my kids (regardless of personality) have had changes in friendships over the years - I think that's quite normal as kids grow and start to really get to know themselves and define themselves.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Part of the problem sounds like your DS is not noticing his playmates feelings. But 18 to 24 months is a reasobable friendship length for young kids. Friendships are flexible at young ages.

Two kids shooting hoops with separate balks is more or less parallel play.

I agree that third grade seems to be the transitional year for friendship. I think your DS is ready to move on from these "friends" and probably needs to find his tribe that he connects to on a deeper level.

That piano chart thing is insane.

Just wanted to chime in that I have seen kids act the way you have described -- often and at various ages. I have seen it in kids that value winning above all else and tend to place their own self value upon their capacity to win. The act of winning or having the best score is often valued more than skill or learning. At this age, it is normal. It is common at older ages but not as fun to be around...

It is hard. If they are both shooting with their own ball it limits interaction is what I meant by parallel play. If they were just taking turns with the ball (not comoeting for it) you son may notice the frustration earlier. Still the other child's parent is there too and could step in and coach her kid. It is not your son's job to stop the other kid getting unreasonably upset but it might make more sense if he saw when it started. And maybe you could fix up a code first so if he needed help responding he could ask for a drink?

And finally he could have been unlucky enough to get 2 sulky, do it my way or I won't play kind of friends.