As a parent of a child who may be experiencing social difficulties, you have probably heard your child say “no one will play with me.”

In many instances, this translates into “no one will play what I want to play.” Some kids have difficulty in adapting their own plan to fit with other ideas, may not enjoy the activities that most of the other kids on the playground are playing, or lack the flexibility to shelve their idea and join in with what other kids are playing.

It helps to explain the options to the child who thinks no one will play with them. They could experiment with trying different activities at recess with different groups of kids. They could look for someone else who might be playing alone and invite that child to play. They could certainly continue playing what they want to play, but need to understand that they are making the choice to play alone if no one else is interested at the time. As much as we would like to, we can’t force other people to do what we want them to, and we can’t wish them to, either.

You can coach your child at home to develop what I call a people plan for recess time. This is thinking about whom you want to play with, several ideas for what you might decide to play together, and a Plan B and even Plan C if it doesn’t work out the way you hoped. I find that kids who get turned down for play frequently don’t know the next steps are to try again with someone else, or when your own plan doesn’t seem to be working out, to give someone else’s idea a fair try.