If he's like me when I was little, I could focus on school or friends. I had to pick. If I wanted friends - no, scrap that - when my mother pushed me to be social, my schoolwork went down. I couldn't do both. School was quite easy, social life hard. But I was a lot less social than Lachlan seems to be from your posts. Even now, socialising takes a lot of effort and energy, but I enjoy it these days. I like challenges!

This "pushing" involved telling me off for daydreaming and reading, inviting her friends' children round to play with me when I didn't want to play and make out something was wrong with me, telling me everyone WANTED to play with me (my inference at the time: you're being mean by not playing).