Why don’t they like me, mum?

Rejection is difficult for your preschooler to understand. DR RICHARD C. WOOLFSON offers expert tips to guide him through this social challenge.

<b>ILLUSTRATION</b> CHENG PUAY KOON

Even though your four-year-old is very friendly and often chats with other children in the playground, there will be times when his peers ignore him and don’t want to play with him. 

While this happens to every child occasionally, you don’t want yours to feel rejected – you want him to cope with the ups and downs of life without feeling hurt or upset. Here are nine tips to boost Junior’s social resilience: 

Play down the incident

Tell him that chances are, this won’t happen again. Explain to him that everyone gets grumpy sometimes and that he shouldn’t worry about what happened. Remind him that he’s usually included in playground games. He’ll be happy with your words of reassurance. 

Don’t panic

There is always the possibility that your preschooler is just feeling sorry for himself on this particular day and that, tomorrow, he’ll wonder why he made such a fuss in the first place! So be careful and avoid over-reacting the first time he tells you that his peers excluded him. 

Check it out

Have a chat with your child to establish if there’s something more to his concerns. Bear in mind that children’s friendships at this age can be fragile – his best friend one day might be replaced by someone else the next. It could be that he had a disagreement with his pal, they didn’t sort it out, and now he feels miserable. 

Persist

Just because he wasn’t socially included today doesn’t mean the same thing will occur tomorrow. So, for instance, suggest to your little one that he approaches the same group of children the next day, and that he tells them that he would like play with them. A simple approach like that could be effective. 

Boost his confidence 

Remind him that he’s still a wonderful individual with plenty of admirable characteristics, such as his pleasant personality, his sense of humour, or even his lovely singing voice. Find any personal qualities you can emphasise. This form of reassurance lifts his self-esteem. 

Develop social skills

Encourage your kid to cooperative more with his peers, to communicate more with them and to use positive body language (such as smiling, standing close to others, making good eye- contact and by laughing when they laugh). The more he learns these social skills from you, the better. 

Don’t take it personally

It’s worth pointing out to him that he shouldn’t over-react when others don’t let him play with them. Instead of looking sad and pleading, he should show no reaction at all and simply turn and play happily with someone else. The more he reacts badly to social rejection, the more it’s likely to be repeated. 

Extend friendships

Another useful strategy to help your four-year-old cope with occasional social rejection is to ensure that he has many friends – that way, if one turns him away, he’ll have plenty of others to play with. 

Help him maintain perspective

There are other areas of his life that matter, too, such as his family relationships, his achievements in school, and his leisure interests. Peer relationships do matter, but so does the rest of his life.