Making Friends
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This reply was originally posted by user Pump2Duncan in ADDitude’s now-retired community.
My kiddo has trouble maintaining friendships too. Kids are usually fond of him in the beginning but then things go south quickly. Picking up social cues is not easy for him.
Don’t really have any advice, besides – I know how it feels. Last year we invited his entire class to his birthday party. He wanted a big birthday party so bad. No one from his school showed up.
We work on learning social cues at home and everyone in the house knows the home is the sanctuary, the safe place – so if nothing else, he knows he has a soft place to land after a long day. Plus, his school is very anti-bully – nothing is tolerated on the bully front. So he feels happy in class, even if he doesn’t have a big group of friends.
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This reply was originally posted by user Pink Ginger in ADDitude’s now-retired community.
My son had trouble making friends also. In middle school he was transferred to a gifted program and could not relate to the other smart kids as he was the class clown (but super smart). We took him to a therapist who taught him how to make friends, handle his anxiety, social skills, etc. By high school he had a few very close friends. He still can’t relate to smart kids. Even though his friends are not smart academically they are very good kids and I know their parents. So maybe have him see a therapist about getting social skills, etc. The thing with add kids, they can’t read social cues and over step boundaries.
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This discussion was originally started by user Motherofkings in ADDitude’s now-retired community. The ADDitude editors have included it here to encourage more discussion.
How do you help your 7 year old son make friends? My son’s social cues have been off since he’s been diagnosed with ADHD and sometimes I worry about him. He tries so hard to make friends and then when it doesn’t work he becomes so sad or he shuts down. I have to initiate conversations and interactions for him but I’m not always there to help him interact when he’s at school. Today was his first day and the teacher said it was good but when he went to the after-school program he struggled and wanted to call me to go home. It really breaks my heart. I just want him to be able to make friends. Not just any kind of friend but real, true, and genuine kind of friends.
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This reply was originally posted by user adhdmomma in ADDitude’s now-retired community.
Ask the school guidance counselor to work with him on social skills and facilitate some friendships. We’ve done this a few times.
Also, ask the director of the after-school program to facilitate a friendship there as well and to look out for him where that’s concerned.
You can help him too:
https://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/5401.html
https://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/6933.html
https://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/924.htmlPenny
ADDconnect Moderator, Author on Parenting ADHD, Mom to teen boy with ADHD, LDs, and autism -
This reply was originally posted by user MrNeutron in ADDitude’s now-retired community.
I’m interested to know from everyone here, if any of the kids your child interacts with at school, do they also live in your neighborhood, say within walking distance? Or is driving really the only practical way to reach them?
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This reply was originally posted by user Motherofkings in ADDitude’s now-retired community.
I just bought a house and the school is no where near us. I transport him. The kids in are neighborhood are for Nepal and do not speak English so it is usually hard for him to interact with them and the kid next door his age is never really home. It really sucks but I am not giving up.
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This reply was originally posted by user Theresa787 in ADDitude’s now-retired community.
Motherofkings- I’m so sorry to hear you both are going through that. My 6 1/2 year old son (1st grade) is also. For some reason, he makes friends easily with older kids (5th graders+) and young kids (littles 4 and younger). It breaks my heart too. I know exactly what you are going through.
To help our son with making friends we came up with the following plan. We are making it a priority this year to:
1- schedule play dates with kids in his class, with hopes of making friendships
2- taking Jui Jitsu to boost confidence
3- use the various school/classroom Facebook pages to network with parents, asking what their boys are doing after school (sports teams, music classes…)School just began for us too. Every night I remind him how much fun he is to play with and that whoever gets to play with him is so lucky.
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This reply was originally posted by user Motherofkings in ADDitude’s now-retired community.
Thank you so much Theresa787. I usually let my son have his friends over but it’s hard when he wants kids over EVERY weekend and he struggles with going over other people house. I am going to see if I can do more play dates outside of our home and maybe go up to the school and see if I can meet some of the parents of the kids in his class. Thanks!
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My Daughter is 9 and has a very hard time making friends. With her impulsiveness she often says very hurtful things and thus loses the friend. We remind her constantly to think before she talks but very often it just comes out. She feels more at ease with kids that are younger. She has a hard time recognizing the social cues. Once a friendship is ruined she tries to make amends and doesn’t understand why they don’t want to be her friend. So I apologize if this doesn’t offer much advice but maybe it offers a little support. Hang in there. I understand what you are going thru.
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I totally get it too. My 9 yo son has ADHD and is fairly hyper with major impulse control issues. Kids tend to like him at first because he’s good at sports and he’s smart and funny but he tends to glom onto one best friend and will wear that kid out. He also gets in trouble a lot at school and some of the kids don’t like associating with him for that. Right now his “best friend” is a pretty popular kid who’s great at sports, very nice, smart and they’re having a sleepover tonight and I’m terrified that my son will do something to totally ruin their friendship and then he will be iced out of their group. Being a mom to kids with ADHD is like repeating the worst parts of middle and high school over again…in fact, for me it has been worse. We try to make home a sanctuary too but we’re in a very close knit community and I always see all these kids playing together outside my window…and they rarely invite my son to play along. I wish I had some advice for others too. Maybe just the fact that we’re not alone helps. I try role playing and setting up playdates but it’s getting to the point that kids in his class are making their own plans and not relying so much on parents so that’s hard for him because I think he gets left out.
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My son just made 10. He is an only child (adopted) and tries to act adult with us. He comes from very abusive and neglectful family. He has made leaps and bounds in school and in
Boy Scouts. Friends. No friends. He lies, cheats at games, kids just like him because he can do sports well, but he is so lonely. He thinks he is an adult around his peers. He doesn’t play like other kids. He won’t play with all the toys we buy him. When he is invited over to a child’s house, it’s all ways him against them (fierce competition). He has to win. He has to beat everyone at everything. Getting to the car, seat belts, eating, etc… My husband and I have thought of getting another foster child to adopt, but it’s everything we have just to keep him. It’s Summer now so he gets to see some of his school and scout friends at VBS in the mornings, after we have a 30 minutes computer program to help him in Reading and Phonics. He is going into the 4th Grade in August. After that he helps me work on our farm in which he is very impatient and fights me at every turn. He is so impatient to let anyone show him anything. What’s been working a little is: ignoring him and just do what I need to do for the chickens and such, until he is begging me to let him help. I have to go through about an hour plus of his ranting and disgust at how “I won’t let him go, or I won’t let him do anything,” trying his hardest to draw me into a fight. It has been working but it is rough.
Yesterday, after VBS, he got in trouble in a pushing match where “He won!” as he told it. Latter he told us that it was about his shoes. We helped him to understand. Today we will see. Thanks for letting me share. A.-
Back in the 70s there was a fad started by a book called “New Games.” It was all about noncompetitive play. For example, the “Tug of Peace” game, which is just like Tug of War, except that when one team starts losing, kids on the end of the “winning” side let go and run to join the other side, the object being to have everyone pulling as hard as they can, with the whole mess perfectly balanced. I don’t know if those books still exist, but it might be a way to teach him to channel some of the competitive energy into cooperative energy. Just a thought!
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I understand your frustrations. My daughter had to always be in the middle of things. She has trouble understanding why she can’t make the rules and why people don’t want to be her friend when she isn’t being very nice to them. We ADHD moms have to stick together.
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Hi there, thanks for sharing the post. I like to make friends. I think everyone should have social skills.
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I have a 14 year old son with ADHD, he has a twin brother who does not have it. He has 3 friends that he has been friends with since grade school. They get him and are very patient with him. When we ask him to text one of them to see if they want to join him for a movie or do something he says he does and tells us he doesn’t hear back from them. When we check his phone, he never sent the text to them in the first place. He will lie and say that he did. Is this common? He simply refuses to try and make any new friends, he says he has friends. Most of the kids at school shy away from him because they think he is too serious and can be very negative.
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It is hard to watch kids struggle to make friends, in fact, it is hard to find places to make friends besides school, when perhaps school is no longer the best fit to make friends. There is a new website for parents who are looking to find friends for their children who are struggling to make friends. The website finds other parents in your area for connecting and matching kids. It is http://www.friendometry.com I encourage folks to check it out.
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This is a great way to find other parents who want the same thing for their children. Pretty cool idea.
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