DeHe - you described my PG 5.5-year-old son to a T. I tried to take him to the library where they had a Legos for kids to play with today. My son lasted maybe two minutes. He looked around the room and the other kids and then promptly pulled on me to leave. Some of the kids were his age, but he didn't want to know or even attempt to interact with them..
When it's not happening in the moment it's so interesting to analyze. In your Lego
Library event my DS would have stayed and just ignored all the other kids. Around 3-4 I found it so strange that he would still basically try to parallel play at other kids houses then I realized he had given up on the social side and preferred to focus on their stuff. But if kids came to our house, he totally ignored them, preferring to engage the parent!! The parent was what was new and interesting. the only upside was he never got worked up about kids playing with his stuff, although he hated the fact that his room looked like a bomb went off!
I got a lot of advice here about finding older kids to play with, it was hard while in pre-k but for camp he is in with first graders and it is SOOOO much better. He is still using words they don't know, but not as many or just don't worry about it as much, but they are so much more interested in imaginary stuff so they like him. Which after the year we had with him unable to fit in and 3 kids being so mean, it almost makes me cry!!! And he SOOO much less conrolling when the kids can keep up with him. When the fit is bad, he acts worse - and it's why I never understand why teachers like the, "he can teach them" approach.
DeHe
