Do your kids ever feel left out at the playground?

[breezy88]

I was at a local playground today with my dd who is 21 months. She was fine and having a blast. There were 2 other boys there who were in Grade 1. They knew each other. Then another boy came. He looked like he was maybe in Grade 2 or 3. Then the 2 boy cousins of one of the Grade 1 boys came. So there were 5 boys and 4 of them knew each other. Anyways.....the older boy tried to engage the other kids. He was super nice. "Anyone wanna play grounder?" No response. Then a few minutes later he went up to one of them and said " What game are you playing?" It was obvious he wanted to join in.

It was just painful to watch. Then the one grade one boy said to his cousin " oh you tag me to easily " and the older boy said " I can help you".. again they ignored him.

It seemed to me like he was initiating conversation and play in an appropriate way but it wasn't the way the other boys did it. Almost like the older boy was acting like a mature adult and the other boys were running around playing and the older boy couldn't figure it out.

I don't know if this older boy was home schooled. But it got me thinking......will this be how my dd is when she's older? If she doesn't "get" the unwritten rules of how kids her age interact with each other is she going to feel left out? This poor boy looked really sad. And so did his mom. And the other parents seemed oblivious. I think if I had been the other parents I would have called my kids over and encouraged them to include the other boy.

I am not saying that school is good for socialization. I don't think that at all. BUT I am starting to think that our dd will act way differently than other kids and that while that might be good in the long run how can I help her to still fit in with kids so she doesn't grow up feeling like a weirdo. Hopefully she will have lots of friends who are home schooled too but I'm not sure how that's going to go if the home schooled people are a 180 from me in their parenting philosophies.