I could've written this 2 years ago!
My older DS started preschool at 3 years, 3 months. The first week, he came home crying every day that the other kids wouldn't play with him. He had close friendships with his playgroup (all 1 year older), so I knew he had strong social skills. When I finally asked the teacher, she explained that he was trying to direct screenplays (at the time, Lion King) on the play structure, and kept trying to give the other kids parts and lines. As she put it, he was being very friendly, but "the other kids were simply 3 and could barely talk, so they had no idea what he was doing." He didn't realize he was being bossy, since he played that way all the time with us or older friends.
We just suggested different ways for him to play with those children, and then encouraged that creativity when he was with a different crowd. Since then, he's naturally gravitated towards friends who think/play like he does, and those playdates give him that outlet. He's also now mature enough to realize that when he's with a different set of kids, he just adapts to whatever the group as a whole is doing. It all flushed out, and at 6, most of the bossiness is gone.
