Socialization of Your Children

At some point, everyone begins to worry about their children’s socialization. You want your kids to go out into the world and bond with other children; to enjoy friendships and everything that goes along with it: games, sharing, conversations about things of interest, etc.

If by three years old or so your child isn’t thinking about interacting with other children and making friends, then maybe you figure that there might be something wrong. Of course, although your child should think about making friends at this age, any actual success in making friends should not be viewed as any kind of victory.

My wife and I were very worried about our son’s ability to make friends. We’d ask him who he played with on the playground after pre-school and he’d say “nobody.” We’d ask him if he wanted to have another child over after school and he’d say “no.” We were a bit concerned.

Then one weekend we went to a school picnic with all the parents and children and I actually got to watch him and his pre-school classmates. After watching the many children run around and abuse one another for a day, I realized that his unwillingness to bond with these children was not a problem; it was a sign of intelligence or good taste even: I wouldn’t want to be friends with these kids either.

You sometimes forget that young kids – even the good ones – are oftentimes beastly, narcissistic animals, particularly at ages 3 or 4. At this young age, lots of these kids have very little conscience. And the worst one have morals comparable to humankind’s worst dictators. And so, just as you would be upset if your child found Sadaam Hussein or some other despot to be friendworthy, you should be happy if your child refuses to make friends until ages 5 or 6, when at least some of the kids that age begin to evolve out of their animalistic phase. Kids that make friends at age 3? Those kids are at times like the sad, low-self esteem chubby girl from high school who was willing to take attention from anyone, even when it was a bad kind of attention. Or if not that, then what they are making is not really a "friend" but a "fighting partner" or "someone to boss around" (which is what our daughter was looking for in a "friend" at age 3) or "someone to boss them around." So I wasn't too concerned that my son remained and remains, at 4 and a half, wary of making friends yet.

Whenever it happens, when your kids first start to make friends, however, you will soon realize that it is more interesting to you than the best Real World episode, the best tabloid, the best US Weekly story. Rumors of your children’s social interactions will be crack cocaine to you. You’ll ask the teacher at parent/teacher conferences who your kid is hanging out with. Another mother will mention how she stopped by school and saw your child talking to another child and you’ll demand to know who. If she doesn’t know the name, you will demand physical descriptions and when you get home, you will pull out the class picture and engage in rampant speculation with your wife over who your kid is talking to. Ultimately, my wife and I were reduced to bribing our oldest with candy to get out of her who they played with that day. It will be a part of your life that you care desperately about.

And one day you will realize that you are obsessed with the social life of a 4-year old. (If this isn’t a sign of how pathetic YOUR OWN personal social life has become, I don’t know what is.)

Luckily, ultimately you’ll realize, after observing your first child’s social life over a period of months, that it’s inanely and incredibly boring. It’s probably kind of like what it would be like to actually have to watch the Real World / Hills / whatever people all day long (personally, I find that when the condense a whole week into 60 or 30 minutes, it’s insanely boring, but my wife begs to differ). And so you’ll stop worrying about it and you’ll act like a regular parent and not give a good goddamn about your kids social life until they get to Junior High (when I’d imagine I’ll have to start chasing away the kids that come to your door smelling like smoke, or worse).