Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion The "Guys" Don't Want to Play with Me

Sorry this is happening to your DS. It's hard.

Are all of the boys equally excluding your DS or are there one or two "leaders" who are spearheading the ostracizing?

We had an incident earlier in the year where a girl in DD4's class, who is the self designated "leader", made up a game. One of the rules was that DD wasn't allowed to play. When DD told me about this "rule" we went over how she responded - she went and played with someone else. We have since role played and discussed what to do when someone excludes you or mistreats you. She knows that she doesn't have to follow unfair rules made up by other kids. She also knows that she needs to tell the teacher when she is being mistreated. We've even practiced specific phrases she can say if someone says something to her like, "Your hat is ugly." (We've had that happen) Perhaps you can think of some rehearsed phrases your DS can say in response to being told "You can't be in third grade math."

I encouraged DD to try and seek out the other girls when the "leader" girl was doing a different activity and build friendships with them. This has worked well for her.

I went in and spoke with her teacher the very next day to make her aware of the situation. Even though our school is extremely proactive about bullying her teacher hadn't noticed this incident and she was happy that I brought it to her attention. She has kept an eye out for it happening again and has been great at addressing these issues head on.

I think your son's teacher should be doing something to help the boys come together. Maybe give them a fun project to do together as a team. This is an opportunity for her to talk about differences and how everyone needs to be respected...she doesn't even need to single out your son to do this because everyone is different. Hopefully if you do talk to her she'll be open to helping.

Good Luck!

We had a very similar situation in K, so sorry for your DS.

Agree that a lot of things depend on the culture of the school. Our DS (5th grade now) has several girls among his best friends; they share interests, humor, temperament. However, in K (a different school) this would not have been the case- there was quite a gender divide (probably related to the specific kids, but the culture of the school seemed to reinforce it).

I would certainly let the teacher know what is happening. In our case, the teacher was able to subtly find common activities the boys liked to do together after the bus arrived but before school started (the one I remember best was building with blocks and marble runs). DS was a great builder, and the teacher found ways to point this out to the others, giving him some currency with the boys. (Finding the right activity could be tough- academically DS was doing totally different stuff, and he was not as comfortable on the playground as the others, we were lucky the teacher found a good solution).

We also made efforts to invite the boys individually on playdates or outings; often, once they were one-on-one they were able to find things in common and enjoy each other, and this gradually seeped into the classroom environment. This was tough, particularly for me, as it is hard to put those mean comments and actions aside, but in the end they are little boys and I felt it was important to help DS while he was "stuck" with those particular boys. Things did improve, but we were not sad when we changed schools for 1st😊.

I'll be watching this thread as well as it also applies to us a little. As others have mentioned, my DS has found some friends among the girls. I have encouraged him to think about games he can share with other boys his age and interests they have in common. He has zero interest in superheroes, which he finds really boring, but he does like sports. We have also asked the teacher to suggest boys that would be a good fit for him friends-wise. Good teachers do often have an idea on this stuff.

My ds 10 was subject accelerated 2 years in early grade school, math and reading. He enjoyed the freedom of switching classes every day (it was probably the side trip he would make to the library).

There were situations like this at times, and my son might have been close to the slowest. One situation I can remember, one of the boys used to touch my son (he hated that). Touch his snack or anything to get a rise out of him. When my son would retaliate the other kid would cry and say my son was doing the touching or hitting him. My ds got in trouble for arguing his situation several times.

We told him to tell the kid if he continued these thing he would not be his friend. My son went in the next day and told him. We were very proud of him taking this on. They were never close friends but the other kid stopped this behavior—or I should say, he found someone else to pester.

The positive, he ended up with a bunch of friends from all grades.

I hate these

I've though about expanding his horizon to include a ham radio club.

Melessa-

DS has trouble controlling his voice when he perceives an injustice, and so will barely keep it "together" whenever someone is teasing him.

I know this is like the smell of blood to the predator child. It makes me very sad for DS that he will get "nipped" at the heels until he is able to control this.

Your child sounds like mine (sensitive), and I appreciate your sympathy.

The school says it's vigilant with respect to bullying, but I don't know if the bullying has to be blatant for them to catch. I'm thinking these comments are made outside of ear-shot of the teachers.

That's a terrific idea! I will speak to her about it.