Friendships & socialising

[onthefly]

DS is 2.5. He's generally happy playing by himself, but likes us to join in with him a lot.
Recently he's beeng saying these sorts of things a lot:
"I don't want to go home, I want to go to another person's house"
"What to be someone else's boy"
And tonight "I want friends. I want a boy to play with me"

Is this normal? Does it mean he's socially starved? He does seem to have negation down to a fine art ("No it isn't....No I'm not...).
He does like interacting with other kids these days, but it doesn't seem to me like he really socialises all that closely with them, if that makes sense.
He goes to daycare twice a week. Other than that we ocasionally catch up with our mother's group, or go to an ABA meeting where he can play with others. Do I need to be doing more?

[Liviam]

As soon as my DD wakes up she starts asking to go to people's houses. Depends on the mood and whether I've told her no or not as to who's. If i've told her no she wants to go to nan and pas other wise she wants to go to her best little friend or her cousins. When I say no we're not going visiting she answers with "fine then mummy you can take me to the shops then". She has a play mate in her brother and they play really well together, we do swimming lessons tuesday morning, wed & thurs at childcare and friday is mothers group. And we always do something on the weekends as a family. So she has lots of socialisation and she still asks every single day and more than once.
Sounds like it's just another thing they do. I'm hoping anyway because I really can't fit anything else in, LOL!!

[onthefly]

Well, this is what I was thinking but DH is worrying about it and of course it's down to me to actually do it...

anyway, is it normal for them to have real friends at this age?

[Liviam]

I'm not sure whether they have real friends at their age or not. DD has two friends from MG who she has played with every week for over 3 years and we see one of these more and she has a group of 3 or 4 girls who play together at childcare but that's it. I'm not real sure - how could we tell??

[Ozziehoffy]

Oooh Oskar drives me nuts lately wanting to "go to someone's house"... he'll list through as I say no, they're busy or whatever I come up with lol.... then he starts on the "can so and so come to our house today?"... and list through... he just wants to be entertained all the time lol but then the next minute you turn around and he'll be off occupying himself and playing for AAAAAAGES on his own. I think it's all about awareness and aware of surroundings etc. Real friends? I don't think they "get" that yet. I think they see everyone as a potential playmate aka friend. I know at kindy (Oskar goes Wed) that they call everyone "friends"... the teachers refer to the other kids as "friends".

[Laranna]

DS says to me almost everyday "we play with friends today". We only do playgroup once a week and that's it aside from swimming or the occasional catch up with other mummy friends.