TLDR: almost 5-year-old son has friends in the classroom and my attempts to set play dates have been rejected by parents. How do I help him continue these relationships outside the classroom?
Hi, long time lurker first time posting here. My son turns 5 in a couple of weeks and is finishing up transitional kindergarten at the end of the month. He was very recently formally diagnosed with ADHD by a psychiatrist.
We are in the process of doing genetic testing and exploring stimulant v. non stimulant medication options.
Currently trying to learn how to navigate helping him make friends.
After about a year and half of preschool and TK my boy has still never been invited to a birthday party or play date outside of school. Further, my attempts to arrange play dates with students he is clearly friends with at school have gone unanswered by their parents.
I completely understand why parents wouldn’t want their child to hang out with my son. He went through a phase where he was biting everybody in the classroom, he has daily meltdowns, he still has issues pushing and hitting when he wants a preferred toy or item, he is speech delayed, and to top it all off he’s very tall and big. We can’t go anywhere without people mentioning that he’s built for football. So with his size, stuff that is developmentally normal for a typical kid is a much bigger issue due to his size.
All that being said, he’s still very clearly liked by his classmates. He is funny, extremely social, and he’s constantly trying to include children in play who may otherwise be outcasts. He has 3 or 4 friends he talks about constantly. I’ve done classroom observations chaperoned field trips, and worked at school fundraisers and I see how social he is with kids and how’s he developed friendships.
When he was going through his biting phase, we met with his teacher and asked questions because we were concerned that he might be ostracized due to that behavior. The teacher told us that the students really love my son, and that at this age students are extremely forgiving to that kind of behavior. It does seem though that the parents are not as forgiving.
How can I help him continue these friendships outside of school? To the parents who are a little further down the road than I am what did you do to try to foster friendships for your kid?
We do throw parties and entertain often and have invited his friends and their parents, but we have never had anybody take us up on our invites. We have a pool and we have invited children and their parents over swimming, etc.
This is particularly hard for me because I really don’t reach out to new people on on my own behalf. I have the same friends I’ve had since high school and a very close knit group of friends. I had a negative experience like a decade ago of trying to make new friends in law school that resulted in some rejection and now I just fear rejection in general (think of that feeling you have where you throw a birthday party and you’re afraid nobody is going to show up.) I actually really despise having to reach out to these parents that I don’t really want to talk to in the first place, but obviously I’m doing it for my child.
Should I look for ADHD or neurodivergent play groups? Some of the friends he has made are also neurodivergent, and those parents have rejected our invitations for play dates.
Should I keep reaching out to parents about play dates or inviting them over to events at our house? Do we consider putting him in a different school once he’s medicated and hoping that a fresh start may help?
Thank you in advance for any recommendations.