8year old son seems to be alone at school

Hi,

so during break times, he runs around the field as “ he’s trying to become faster than Daddy.”
When ask if other kids join in, he said “they don’t want to as they playing football”. He doesn’t want to do football either as he knows he’s not any good. Not sure if someone said that to him or not so for that part, I think it’s ok.

lunchtimes is a bit different he says. He finishes his lunch and says he wants to play but goes indoors to draw by himself and none of his friends want to do that. But that’s it. 

so should I just ask the teachers to watch out for him? I don’t want to be one of those parents who wants to know what their child is up to every 5 mins but I do want him to be ok, especially when I know he wants to play with others.

I think the key thing is whether or not he is unhappy about playing separately from others, and whether he is interacting with other children in other ways, such as in class, or out of school?
my youngest son is autistic and had Selective Mutism throughout his school life. He would spend break times on his own, running around the perimeter of the playground a lot of the time during his primary school years. A lot of the time I thought that he was happy doing this, and when asked about it he seemed relatively happy about it. At the time he hadn’t been diagnosed with autism yet (he was diagnosed at 10/11 years old But as my son got older I think his difficulties with social anxiety became more marked and more of a worry for him, and I wonder now if we should have done more to help him with the social side of life as he was growing up. He’s in his very early twenties now and his social anxiety causes a lot of stress and unhappiness for him.

So if your son is expressing unhappiness about playing alone then I’d work with the school to find strategies to help him socialise with others, especially with any other autistic children in the school as I often thing autistic people socialise most easily with other autistic people.

However if you sure that playing alone is a happy preference for your son then I think it’s important to support him in that and not give him the impression that it’s ‘wrong’ in any way to have that preference. Be led by him and what makes him happy, and review the situation regularly as time goes on. Good luck x 

I think the key thing is whether or not he is unhappy about playing separately from others, and whether he is interacting with other children in other ways, such as in class, or out of school?
my youngest son is autistic and had Selective Mutism throughout his school life. He would spend break times on his own, running around the perimeter of the playground a lot of the time during his primary school years. A lot of the time I thought that he was happy doing this, and when asked about it he seemed relatively happy about it. At the time he hadn’t been diagnosed with autism yet (he was diagnosed at 10/11 years old But as my son got older I think his difficulties with social anxiety became more marked and more of a worry for him, and I wonder now if we should have done more to help him with the social side of life as he was growing up. He’s in his very early twenties now and his social anxiety causes a lot of stress and unhappiness for him.

So if your son is expressing unhappiness about playing alone then I’d work with the school to find strategies to help him socialise with others, especially with any other autistic children in the school as I often thing autistic people socialise most easily with other autistic people.

However if you sure that playing alone is a happy preference for your son then I think it’s important to support him in that and not give him the impression that it’s ‘wrong’ in any way to have that preference. Be led by him and what makes him happy, and review the situation regularly as time goes on. Good luck x 

My son went through this, so I feel this. He's not autistic, but he's dyslexic and aware he doesn't operate like everyone. He can't join in harsh defence-mechanism induced banter, but now headed toward mid-20's has read a few psychology and self-awareness books, he's felt more clear about what kind of friends he wants to make. Skateboarding has helped. These solo sports where they parallel play have been useful for this.