Need Advice : Am I being a over protective parent??

[princesskimberella]

First queston... At what age did you let your child make phone calls to their friends?? Just to chit chat and maybe make plans to do something.

My oldest will be goign into 3rd grade this fall, and is at the age now that he is asking to call friends or he makes plans with them during school to come over the gets upset if we have plans that night. Well now it is summer and he is already bummed that no one has called him, and thinks no one likes him. SO after getting him ot open up a little, I find out some of his friends are starting not to play with him because they think he a too small. My son will be eight and only wieghs 38 lbs, and is only 44 inches tall. We also found out that he has a reading disablity so since January he has been going to the resource room and it sounds like that is when some of these issues came about. I know kids can be mean, but this is breaking my heart. I know it is not like he does not have anyone to play with, we have a huge family, we all live close and go to the same school, currently there are 7 cousins all together. I try to explain to him that his cousins are also his freinds, and that it is 10 times better because you know they will always be there for you.
I talk to alot of the moms at school, but honestly it seam like everyone is jsut super busy, I know for us during the school year we dont go over freinds houses during the week with homework and extracurricular stuff it is just to much. Also we are school of choice with our district, we chose to go to this school to keep all of our family together. So of course we dont live in the same nieghborhood, but even in our neighborhood we are the only one with elementary age children. He does see his freinds at the school summer reading program and at baseball twice a week. DH say I am just sheltering him too much. Do I call and make a playdate with a freind, do I have him call, do I wait for someone to call him. Can you tell he is my oldest... If you have read thru my ramblings thank you for listening.

 

[Mouse House Mama]

Well someone has to do the inviting. I would call some kids. Now don't take this the wrong way but only socializing with family is not really doing your child any favors. Friends are important too. Good luck!

 

[scootch]

My daughter will also be in third grade.... she has yet to call any of her school friends either, even her best friend. So I don't think it is odd noone has asked him over to play..... so far we have just been doing family stuff and just fill each day with just play(swim at cousins house, play dolls, school, ect...). If he too sees his friends at baseball, I think that is plenty(if that is plenty for him too). I guess if he isn't asking to meet up with friends, I would just enjoy the summer as a family and then maybe in a few weeks or so, give one of his friends a call. I know most of my daughters friends have things planned for the summer and even though we see her best friends family all the time thru the school year(they have a duaghter the age of my youngest daughter) once summer comes it is hard to get everyones schedule together... we will get together some, but not weekly.

 

[zoemurr]

yes, my DD does it (she's a year older) without a problem. She will also call a friend if she needs homework help, or something similar. She knows where the #s are, but does need to ask permission to call.

I would give him a script and maybe practice. I make sure she says, "Hello, this is R, may I please speak to A?" She also knows that after she is done arranging a playdate I need to speak with the mother.

My DS is 6 and very shy, but he has had his friends call to play also.

Good luck..

 

[okeydokey]

Both my kid's call their friends (with my permission) to see if they want to play. They are 8 and 10. We do have lots of kids in the neighborhood, but they call others from school too. If you initiate a couple of calls and play times, the other kids may reciprocate.

 

[princesskimberella]

Well someone has to do the inviting. I would call some kids. Now don't take this the wrong way but only socializing with family is not really doing your child any favors. Friends are important too. Good luck!

I so am not taking it the wrong way

I will let him make a few calls, and see how it goes. I just was not sure what is normal. I know some of the kids that do hang out or call have older siblings, so the freindships between family are already established.

I guess it also does not help that momma is very shy till she gets to know someone. Oh and I have a phobia of the phone, I love email and texting I guess I will have ot get oever that since I am the PTO VP this year.

 

[ilovejack02]

I agree with the whole family shouldnt be your only friends thought. My stepson only socialized with his cousins.. his mother also very shy and didnt make an effort to get to know others with children. He had a really hard time in middle school making friends. It def took him about two yrs to figure out how to relate with kids that dont HAVE to like you.
Thank goodness he did though and at 19 he has a huge circle of friends.

With my baby who is now 5 I joined a playgroup and have made wonderful close friends. He has a big group of friends and I have made some of the best girl friends a girl could ever have!

 

[kxmeeh]

my youngest just turned 7, and has been using the phone since kdg. to call her friends. she will invite them over to play. i don't see any harm in letting them call and talk to their friends. and besides, what a great way to teach them phone manners...let them practice on someone else who is too young to realize what they do wrong. i love it when i hear my daughter now say, hello, may i please speak to...what a huge difference from when she was 5 years old.

 

[sueh]

My oldest daughter just turned 8 and going into 3rd grade in the fall as well.

All the kids in her class it seems this year have started to exchange their phone numbers. Now that it is summer.

Everyone is super busy now adays. It's hard for me to because I am a single mom and we get home @ 5 pm. My kids go to daycare all day.

I have started to let her call her friends just to chit chat. I know it's only the beginning. I have a younger daughter that's 6.

 

[momtwo4]

I would definately make the effort now to help your son with his friendships. I found that 3rd grade was a very changing year. I have a son & daughter who just finished 3rd grade last week. Unfortunately, kids start to break off into groups earlier and earlier and it makes it so difficult.
I bet if your son calls a couple friends to come over, then they will call him too. Maybe you can find out who is in his class next year and have him invite a boy from his class over a few times this summer so they have a friendship going prior to the first day of school?
Good Luck, and my kids, I have told NO you are not having any playdates yet, they have been out of school a week. I needed a little break, before I am the neighborhood babysitter (pool at our house) / carpool queen.

 

[irene_dsc]

Interesting thread. My oldest is almost 7, and just finished 1st grade. I haven't let him call anyone yet, and I've only relatively recently started setting up playdates for him by calling myself and talking to the parents. (Well, a parent, at least). He does know how to call me from dh's cell phone using speed dial, which can be disconcerting when I get a call and am expecting dh, and get ds!

But, yeah, I think it is important to try and develop friendships outside of family. Ds has cousins, too, but they have lots of friends that they hang out with (one more so than the other), besides that all of his cousins close in age are girls. I WOH, too, so it is hard to set up playdates, but I'm trying to make more of an effort. Fortunately, he is pretty friendly with a boy (and his twin sister) down the block, so that is relatively convenient.

The thing I'm coming up against is that ds will tell me that he and another kid have made plans to get together - but without any actual parental discussion. And usually with a kid I've never met - I have to tell him that I need to discuss plans with a parent, that they can't just make their own plans, because the families may already have plans.

(Oh, and the one time a kid gave him a phone number, it turned out to have too many digits, so it didn't work! That was for trying to set up a Spring Break play date, and since it was a girl who had moved in during the school year, her phone number wasn't in the school directory.)

 

[sashagiselle]

My dd5, hounds me to call her friends moms for play dates. Honestly, I would rather chill, but I make the call and friends come over and we all have a good time. I am shy but have had to come out of my shell because I don't want her to miss out on anything because of my issues. Also, lots of times we just go places like McDonalds or Chickfila and she ends up meeting a child and that is her friend for the day. She just stated a cheer class and was intimidated because she didn't know anyone. I made a deal with her that if she introduced herself to one girl, I would do the same with one parent in the waiting area. After the class we compared notes on who we had introduced ourselves too and we kept doing that for a few weeks. Now we both have new friends. Best of luck

 

[Mouse House Mama]

I so am not taking it the wrong way

I will let him make a few calls, and see how it goes. I just was not sure what is normal. I know some of the kids that do hang out or call have older siblings, so the freindships between family are already established.

I guess it also does not help that momma is very shy till she gets to know someone. Oh and I have a phobia of the phone, I love email and texting I guess I will have ot get oever that since I am the PTO VP this year.

I am the queen of social anxiety! It is a long running joke here! I just really want my kids to not be that way so I try so hard to get over it for their sake. I am completely awkward.

 

[princesskimberella]

I thank everyone for all their advice !! I am gonna let him pick a friend to call and try to set something up next week. The other thing that does bother me a little is that the friends we do socialize with ( baseball, soccer, camping) are all a grade older or younger than him, but no one in his grade or class, so I think he feels kinda left out.
I have been thinking that he may be being hard on himself, he is having some issues being on the small side especially since some one said something about him not growing at school, and he has always had anxiety issues.

 

[DevilDuckie]

Generally I do the calling, but that's just because it seems silly for Kid A to ask Kid B and Kid B to ask Mom B and then Mom B to get on the phone with Mom A... My kid says he wants a playdate with so and so and I call the mom. We have the car keys. We do the negotiating.

I suppose if my boy wanted to make the call it would be fine. It just hasn't come up.

 

[cigarboo]

I'm a bit of an non-social person and so is my 7yo DS. I've arranged playdates throughout the year by emailing the parents of the child my son has wanted to have come over. I always leave them an "out" by sort of saying, "so and so(my son) really likes talking/playing with so and so(their son) and would like him to come over to play one day. Let me know if you're interested and what days would be good." I like to email so the other person is not put on the spot to come up with an answer. Many parents will not just drop off their kids if they don't know you very well. I certainly will not let my son go to someone else's home, if I don't know the parents. I've had parents come to my home with their child for the 1st playdate. I like it because I get to know the parent as well.

My son is small also and is the youngest in his class. He's very shy and is quite insecure about making friends and whether people like him or not. The playdates really helped him get to know kids one on one and I've seen a huge difference since the beginning of the year. But I still arrange the playdates with the parents. DS will call his friends every so often if he's stuck on a pokemon DS game.

 

[mom2prettyprincess]

I am a mother but only to a DD 3. So we haven't started all that stuff yet. But here is my take on what I have observed thru my boyfriends family. He is the oldest of 6 I have been around since his youngest brother was 7. Their mother did not let any of the kids have playdates, they have never been to spend the night at anyones house except family. And they have never had anyone come to there house to play in the 5 years I have been around. Not that birthdays are important to some but they get 1 birthday party and that is when they turn 12. Field trips at school they are not allowed to go on if it is over 15 miles away from the school...Boy but I could go on and it would probably last 3 pages of rant and rave and then i would get further off topic than i probably already am. In conclusion the 3 younger kids lack a severly in the social skills department and the 3 older have gotten much better but sometimes I think to myself that really didn't happen. And that all has to do with the control issue there mom has! I think that not allowing your children at a young age to develop relationships and friendships outside the school or family setting is really doing your child a dis-service. Children need that outside of the family interaction because life is not going to be that way. There obviously has to be boundries but let your son go with the older boys and maybe "keeping up" with them would be great for his self image. I say let him call, and make the first move. It will be great for him and it may even develop a new friend for you with "the mom"......This may not make any sense but oh well!

 

[In a hurry]

3rd grade teacher here, with a third grader to boot. I am glad you are letting him call. It's good for kids to have some control, and independence as they get older. I know you still have to interact and find times, etc., but you really can't go wrong with encouraging him to be social, and really, a leader. So many parents are hovering, and controlling their kid's every step, that he will be a step ahead.

 

[3princesses+aprince]

My oldest DD is going into 3rd grade in Sept. also. She has a few friends from class that she calls and chats with on the phone. But usually when we want to make plans I call the parents and set it up, other wise the other parent doesn't really know whats going on. I have a neighbor with a 6yr old, and he will actually take his mom's cell phone and dial us on speed dial and ask us to come over, when his mother has no idea he called us. He just did this last week , his mom was in the shower. Just an example as why the parents should always set up the plans. LOL
I know, it's so tough as they get older, they need plans, their friends, something to do constantly, or their bored..... Happy Summer Vacation!!!

 

[dizkids]

Its also very easy to call someone and say "hey we are going to the park around 12:00 so can come and meet us there". Its a no pressure type environment to meet the friend and parent and you never know who else you will see there.