Guilty mom of an only child in lockdown

[Guiltymum]

Hi there

I am an Indian mum of a nine year old( soon to be ten) year old extremely polite boy. My boy is facing enormous amount of rejections and is socially excluded.by his classmates. My heart breaks to see him try to call his friends on messenger kids only to hear hey can i call you later or please don't call me . He is on the mild spectrum and that doesn't hugely affect his social skills. He suffers in silence and even two of his best buddies that kept calling him to play minecraft with him online have seem to be gotten over him. Not wanting to upset me he is internalizing and processing.all the rejections by himself pretending to be alright. I am crying.as I am typing this now and beating myself hard for Not being able yo have one more child due to medical reasons. Of late my crying episodes and depressive mood is starting to impact him negatively as he is slowly starting to appear wirhdrwan from things that once fascinated him. Please help me . Is anyone else in the same boat as me? Anyone looking for a company of a nine year old kid raised responsibly by his civilized parents . Please help me as I can't feel this w at anymore. It hurts. Please please

[Andrea-RO · Accepted solution]

Hi @Guiltymum, 

That sounds like such a difficult situation, and I can only imagine how heart wrenching it would be to see your son go through such a difficult time right now, especially with how difficult things are across the board with regards to Covid. Firstly, I really want to implore you not to beat yourself up about only having one child. A lot of my friends have grown up as only children, and they are happy and fulfilled adults, with many friends and loved ones who care about them. I have no doubt in my mind that your son will grow up to be the same  

It sounds like your son is having to deal with a lot of rejection when he calls his friends to hang out, and I can totally understand why overhearing those conversations would be deeply troubling. Perhaps, however, there is a miscommunication between himself and his friends? I know that a lot of people get anxious about phone calls - particularly by ones that aren't planned in advance. Maybe it could help to encourage your son to message people in advance and ask his friends when they are free, adn what time would be best to call them. It might also be good to ask them if they like phone calls, or if they would prefer to just message. 

It might also help if he was involved in some extracurricular activities, where he can make friends who have the same interests as him are there any activities that he really enjoys, or would be interested to learn more about that you could sign him up for? 

[Guiltymum · Accepted solution]

Hi Hannah,

Thanks for responding back . Yes he has got some very deep connections within our community. We are Indians . But for some reason he refused to call friends within our community and kept reaching out to his classmates through calls and texts. As I mentioned in my previous posts he got few responses but lots of rejections. I am perfectly fine with him to have friends from different ethnic groups as I even myself don't confine myself to my ethnic identity and have lots of best qfriends that don't belong to my ethnic group. He is not part if any big friendship groups but likes o ne to one chats with his classmates. I am not sure if he is an extrovert or an introvert or an ambivert. He just told me that he would like to try gymnastics ( he is over cricket now and doesn't want it anymore). T hanks again .

[Guiltymum]

I tried hooking him with his classmates and everytime there is a brief excitement in the air and it soon.fadez away.😭

[Andrea-RO · Accepted solution]

Hi @Guiltymum, 

That sounds like such a difficult situation, and I can only imagine how heart wrenching it would be to see your son go through such a difficult time right now, especially with how difficult things are across the board with regards to Covid. Firstly, I really want to implore you not to beat yourself up about only having one child. A lot of my friends have grown up as only children, and they are happy and fulfilled adults, with many friends and loved ones who care about them. I have no doubt in my mind that your son will grow up to be the same  

It sounds like your son is having to deal with a lot of rejection when he calls his friends to hang out, and I can totally understand why overhearing those conversations would be deeply troubling. Perhaps, however, there is a miscommunication between himself and his friends? I know that a lot of people get anxious about phone calls - particularly by ones that aren't planned in advance. Maybe it could help to encourage your son to message people in advance and ask his friends when they are free, adn what time would be best to call them. It might also be good to ask them if they like phone calls, or if they would prefer to just message. 

It might also help if he was involved in some extracurricular activities, where he can make friends who have the same interests as him are there any activities that he really enjoys, or would be interested to learn more about that you could sign him up for? 

[Guiltymum]

Hi Andrea

Thanks a lot for your soothing words. I forgot to mention that being extra polite he keeps messaging them call me when free please and I can say that's not working anymore. He had two of his best buddies that used to call him all the time but one of them simply got over the topics or games as he doesn't seem to call much these days. I would only say that they will still keep continuing to be good friends when they meet face to face in class. I have been arranging few playground play dates with my community friends as well . But your insight was very valuable. Also he had to say no to couple of friends as well coz he wasn't into their sort of games. So I guess that's a win win situation. But I would love to enrol him in any outdoor activities such as cricket or running and I would prefer even drama classes for him ( he is not very keen about drama but I want him to give it a go as it's good for his social and communication skills development). Thanks again

R


😃

[Hannah-RO]

Hey @Guiltymum,

Thanks for getting back to us today, arranging playdates with community friends sounds like a great idea! Has he made any connections with other children from the community?

I also think that getting him involved in an activity could be an awesome way to meet other children and learn those communication and team work skills. I personally loved drama - but I respect that it's not for everyone! Which activity do you think he would be most interested in?

[Guiltymum · Accepted solution]

Hi Hannah,

Thanks for responding back . Yes he has got some very deep connections within our community. We are Indians . But for some reason he refused to call friends within our community and kept reaching out to his classmates through calls and texts. As I mentioned in my previous posts he got few responses but lots of rejections. I am perfectly fine with him to have friends from different ethnic groups as I even myself don't confine myself to my ethnic identity and have lots of best qfriends that don't belong to my ethnic group. He is not part if any big friendship groups but likes o ne to one chats with his classmates. I am not sure if he is an extrovert or an introvert or an ambivert. He just told me that he would like to try gymnastics ( he is over cricket now and doesn't want it anymore). T hanks again .

[Guiltymum]

Any gymnastic classes suggestions would be really appreciated. I mean I could consider them when the restrictions ease

Thabks Hannan and Andrea.😃

[Hannah-RO]

I don't know of any gymnastics classes personally, and due to the anonymous nature of this forum we can't give out any really specific locations, sorry about that! But if there is a YMCA or a PCYC near you they might be a good place to start