My son is clinging to kids that don't want to be his friend.

[dadsbestfriend]

Our 4 year old child just started kindergarten. He's the youngest kid in his class. There's a kid on our street that he has played with this past summer who's a little older than him, yet they played a lot. Now that school has started, this kid wants nothing to do with our son. Our little boy doesn't understand why his friend doesn't want to sit with him on the bus or talk to him at the bus stop or play with him after school. He's such a nice boy and always happy and smiling - it seems like his friend, and others at the bus stop, are picking on him and he doesn't recognize it. I want to give him the independence to work through these things on his own, but I know his feelings are getting hurt. There are other kids that he can talk to but he's become so attached to this other boy that he doesn't consider other kids. I don't know how to explain this to him so he understands. How do I get him to leave this boy alone and look for other friends to play with? Is he just not mature enough for kindergarten?

[jdtm]

I think you need to enlist the help of your son's teacher - have the teacher pair your son with another classmate whom the teacher feels might be a suitable friend.  Then, you could have this child or children (if more than one "friend") over for playdates and fun times.  At four years of age, he's just too young to sort all this "friend" thing out.  Hope this helps ....

[margypops]

Sometimes you have to let them find their own way also,possibly take a step back and see how he deals with it.