How much to intervene on playdates?

amother

Sapphire

Tue, Jul 26 2016, 2:30 pm

My son is 3, turning 4 soon. He in general has trouble regulating his emotions, and has a hard time dealing with another child wanting to play differently than he does. If he wants to line the cars up, and the other boy wants to drive them down a track, he gets mad. He wants to kick the ball, she wants to throw the ball, he gets mad, etc. He always has a set idea of how to play whatever he's playing, and is very rigid with it.

Obviously this sort of territorial behavior is somewhat normal for preschoolers, but he definitely has more trouble with it than the average kid. We are working with him on it, but my question is on playdates, what should I be doing? I feel like I need to step in every time he starts to get upset, because I don't want him to resort to hitting or something. But is that counterproductive? Am I supposed to be letting the situation play itself out a little bit? On the one hand, he has to learn these skills on his own, but I don't want the other kid to suffer for it. And my fear is that he'll end up isolating himself, and the other kids won't want to play with him anymore. I feel like I need to step in before it gets to the point where he's really mad, but then how is he ever going to learn on his own how to handle this sort of frustration?

Any advice is greatly appreciated

Miri7

Tue, Jul 26 2016, 2:48 pm

I would step in and gently redirect. Though I typically intervene as little as possible, here your son can learn some important skills through play. You may want to acknowledge his feelings, identify it for him, and then redirect to another activity. Hopefully soon he will be doing this more himself.

I'm not an early childhood educator, but I'm sure there are some on this site who have great tips and ideas as they see this all the time.

amother

Plum

Tue, Jul 26 2016, 4:09 pm

3-turning-4 is so little as it is. If he's having difficulty with playdates, I wouldn't have them at all at this stage. You're not setting him up to succeed and that can become a vicious cycle. Far better for healthy social development is play with mixed-age groups, not same-age groups. We learn skills from those who have them, not those who, like us, still need to learn them, which is why 4 year olds won't learn social skills from other 4 year olds. If it works and it's fun, no reason to discontinue. But when it doesn't work there are lots of reasons to discontinue. Give him a couple of years to catch up at his own pace. He sounds age appropriate to me.