Should I worry about my introverted toddler?

• My two-year-old son is very introverted, and I’m not sure if I should worry or if there are things we should be doing to encourage more social interaction. Advice and perspective appreciated. My son is 2.75 years old and quite introverted. He attends daycare three days a week and has other social opportunities at other times - we go to a weekly playgroup, and we have him in toddler soccer and music, which he seems to enjoy. Based on the reports from daycare and what we observe in these activities, he is very uninterested in any kind of social interaction with peers (in marked contrast to the other kids his age). Doesn’t seek out or engage with the other kids at all — basically acts as if they are objects he must manoeuvre around in order to do his own thing. He is a huge chatterbox at home, but to hear him talk around other people you would think he is hardly verbal. If another child wants to engage with him he basically blanks them, unless it looks like they are going to mess up whatever solo activity he has going on, at which point he gets distressed and tells them to “please go away”. If they don’t, starts crying. He is pretty socially attuned in other ways in the sense that he is very good at following directions, waiting his turn, and sharing. He loves helping adults and he is very aware of what everyone in the room is doing at all times - he just doesn’t want to engage with any kids himself. I’m pretty sure he is not socially anxious: shows no clinging or hiding behaviours, his own behaviour doesn’t change after a period of “warm up” (he’s been going to playgroup and daycare with the same people for years), and doesn’t seem intimidated or worried when he goes into new social situations. Also pretty sure not autistic spectrum: no sensory sensitivities, no stimming or behaviours like that, has advanced language and great eye contact and interaction with us, etc. At home, he is very engaged with us, though he also spends a lot of time doing his own thing with puzzles or books or playing imagination games with his stuffed animals or making music. That said, when upset or after daycare or sometimes just randomly he announces that he needs to go into his “cave” (his word for his bed) where he literally just sits and does nothing. For up to an hour. We’ve asked him what he is doing and he says “thinking” - when asked what about he usually says nothing or comes out with random things like “bunny has a nose” or “Monday is the only day with an O in it” (two recent observations). But aside from his cave time, which seems pretty weird in quantity if nothing else, he is really talkative, interactive, happy, and social around us. Looks like a completely different kid than the pretty subdued and quiet kid he is around others. He doesn’t love daycare — doesn’t hate it, but typically doesn’t look forward to it and gets stoic, quiet, and sad when we drop him off (he rarely tantrums in general, so that is about as sad as he ever gets). His self-report about daycare afterward is usually that it was “okay” or “a bit hard and a bit fun” - the self-reported fun bits are usually “playing outside” and “eating biscuits” or the name of his one friend (see below). From the reports of daycare providers (which I receive second-hand because my husband picks him up) it sounds like he’s pretty much on the social periphery but doesn’t get in trouble or have problems. He will do the daycare activities but while basically ignoring the other kids. For what it’s worth, he also seems pretty bright - has accomplished pretty much all of the four-year-old cognitive and language milestones on most developmental lists, and about half of the five-year-old ones. So I have no idea how much, if any of this, is that he’s just not interested in the specifics of what the other kids are doing. The things we do at home that are most engaging to him have to do with his obsession with astronomy, and lots of wordplay, puzzles, numbers, and reading (all his choice - he’ll play outside or with balls and stuff too but only at our request). I do know that many of the times in playgroup a kid has come by wanting to join in, he’s been doing something complicated (e.g., a 40-piece puzzle) and they’ve wanted to come and throw pieces around or something, so you can’t really blame him for being resistant to play. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem great if he’s learning that social situations generally involve defending his notion of fun against other (totally well-intentioned) kids, rather than learning how to have shared fun. The one exception to all this is one kid at daycare, also a family friend we see sometimes outside of daycare. He enjoys running around like a lunatic with her. She completely brings him out of his shell in a way I have never seen with anyone else. She is the only kid he talks about ever wanting to actually spend time with. She herself is the opposite of introverted and quiet, and its not like they play puzzles or do his things together quietly: with her he wants to run around and be silly, and with all other kids he doesn’t want to. I have no idea why or what magic she has or how to replicate it with others. He has no siblings (though a brother is soon to be born) and we have no family on the same continent at all. When we visited the US recently he did really enjoy spending time with his four-year-old cousin, but that was not something we can keep up given that we live around the world from each other. So… my questions: 1. I have no problem with introversion - I’m introverted, my partner is introverted, I love introverts. But I am worried that he seems to be getting almost no real social practice at all, and the social lessons he is learning seem negative: i.e., other kids are for defending your things against, rather than a source of fun. My big long-term worry is that he ends up never learning how to be social and never has friends, and spends a lot of time when he’s older feeling alienated and lonely, or worse bullied. (Both myself and my husband dealt with these things as children and it led to long-term issues, plus pretty miserable childhoods despite overall happy home lives). On the other hand, he’s only two and I know things can change! This seems to be a pretty stable characteristic, but yes, only two! If you’ve had experience with a kid like this, should we be worried at this point about his social development? 2. Any suggestions for things we can do to help him now, or set him up better later? We already put him into as many social situations as we realistically can, and try to help him with them when we can too. But maybe there are others of a different kind that are more feasible, or behaviours we can model or do within them that will help? We sometimes talk about them with him too (at the time or after the fact) but since he has no behavioural or sharing problems it’s not clear what to say - there is nothing I feel comfortable criticising per se. I don’t want him to feel required to ignore or not do the things that he enjoys doing in order to “get along.” When asked or encouraged to play with others he just says he doesn’t want to (sometimes he will add because they will mess it up, but sometimes just says he wants to do X instead, sometimes gives no reason). I am really loathe to push it too much or say anything that makes him feel like he has to be someone who he is not - the one saving grace of my childhood was that I never doubted my parents accepted me for the little weirdo loner that I was. But maybe there are ways we can have these talks that are more productive? Like I said he’s pretty verbal and meta-cognitively aware for two years old; I just don’t know what to say. *** Basically, I could be worrying for nothing. But when I compare the subdued, quiet kid he is in most social situations with the outgoing, incredibly verbal, engaging kid he is at home — and I think of my own unhappy social life as a child — it breaks my heart to think that he might be already learning that social relationships and friends are not for him. If there’s anything I could do now to give him more tools or make things better later on, I’d love to know.

• Answer:

  Doesn’t seek out or engage with the other kids at all — basically acts as if they are objects he must manoeuvre around in order to do his own thing. First, I think this is developmentally normal. Second, look, chuck this response if I'm off, but you seem defensive (okay maybe not defensive--just a little personally worried) and not happy with introversion even though you say otherwise. I'm an introvert. My partner is an introvert. My daughter is less so, but an introvert. She gets tired out being around lots of people. This isn't a pathology; it's a preference. My shitty childhood had far more to do with my parents not accepting me as an introverted kid than being introverted -- do you know what I mean? A simple, 'I totally understand' would have done worlds for me. My big long-term worry is that he ends up never learning how to be social and never has friends, and spends a lot of time when he’s older feeling alienated and lonely, or worse bullied. Give him language. This is the one thing I'm working on with my daughter that I never got. I get tired out when I'm at a party for many hours. I feel easier if there are fewer people at a dinner table. Sometimes I find it difficult to talk in groups. Being able to say stuff out loud...is transcendent. "I'm tired out from being around lots of people after a birthday party. I think I want to read a book." God, the relief to be able to say that to someone who knows what the fuck you're talking about. Given that, I think a kid can venture out, be less introverted than mom and dad -- I had to hide, I had no one to talk to, my daughter can try stuff out and go home and say 'yo, I'm exhausted, I'm going to listen to music for two hours and space out.' Also, I'd say, as a dork who was a dork as a child and bullied and so on: Look, you have one thing you can do. You can provide a place where the kid can learn language to describe himself and where he can genuinely be himself. You can look at him with a spotlight shining on him from the heavens and say 'I like you. You are smart. You are delightful.' You can hook him up with social skills, etc., but there is nothing more important than that.