One of my concerns for Hannah is developing friendships with her peers. She tends to prefer older kids. SHe lacks confidence with ehr peers. For example if she is on a ride or swing and antoher child joins her - she'll get off. At the moment we have a friend staying here with her 3 year old daughter. Her DH and other 2 girls are staying close by (yes the joys of trying to accommodate all your family on holidays!!) tonight we had the whole family over for dinner. Hannah was watching Astroboy on the portable dvd in her room - we had to bribe her out for dinner. She wanted to leave the table as early as she could - I told er she could leave the table to show the girls her dolls house (fantastic Christmas gift from her Pop) but not to watch more tv. I wasn't sure if she would - but thought it was worth a try. Well it definitely was. She showed the girls and before long she was in one of the bedrooms with them gigling and mucking about. They had some playdoh, played hide and seek, she got her Dora doll out for them, she clearly showed thee two eldest girls (4.5 and 6) that she wanted to dance. They had a go on the trampoline - now here she finds it really hard - she LOVES the trampoline but hasn't the balance to cope with other kids jumping - well my wordy - she really gave it her best shot and God bless them - they did too although of course their natural exuberance won out in the end - it was enough for me to see Hannah really try and stand up to be part of the group on the trampoline - even though I knew she'd be scared at their robustness. I suggested they all hold hands and that worked really well for a little while.
In the end Hannah was crying when the 2 older girls had to leave to go home. She freely gave them each a hug. A great play date for her. I will really ahve to try early on in the kindy year to sus out likely girls and see if I can't arrange for a playdate at home - somewhere where I Hannah is comfortable - in order to facilitate some peer friendships for her. I hope that there are a couple of little girls like today's visitors - they were lovely girls and fantastic for Hannah.
Shelley, I feel exactly the same way with Bella and she actually would rather hang out with adults or babies (or her brothers) than others her own or similar age. But lately she is also starting to really get into the playing with others thing. I think one thing that's helped is that daycare was getting her to do show and tell really regularly. Obviously she didn't get a lot of the questions but the other kids loved asking her and she loved being up front. I think it gives them a sense of being interested in which must be great for the self esteem. Might be worth a mention at school (bella got a turn at show and tell most days to help give her the practice. She ABSOLUTELY loved it :)). And don't forget us over on the east side for a playdate too :)
ReplyDeleteWe all need friends but it is only in childhood that we insist that they should be the same age. Same interests and sharing of experiences is much more important.
ReplyDeleteI am sure that she will find lots of people like that as she moves through the school years. Well done on such a brilliant start in 2009 :)