Social stuff

Having a lot of thoughts about social stuff at the moment. Hard to identify the best kind of social situations for F and make sure that she gets access to them. Narrowing it down though and making some kind of progress. What I don't want is too much of the negative sort of social encounter, where she comes away feeling crap, or just baffled by other people, or a bit sad. A bit of that is OK, but the balance has to be there. I don't feel she is really enjoying time with other kids enough at the moment, for various reasons. On the other hand, she is very good at just detaching herself from a game that she doesn't enjoy - she won't just play it uneasily because that's what others are doing, which I see some, maybe younger, kids doing. Her strength is definitely that she is quite prepared to go and do things on her own at any point, she doesn't have any desperate need for playmates in order to have a good time.
She went over to her friend C's house on Saturday, without me. Totally unplanned and unprepared (me) for it. But it happened, it wasn't a complete disaster and I guess I feel glad it's over, the first time. On the other hand, she didn't get a great deal out of it, except for a sense of slightly greater independence - maybe that's enough for now. C and she don't seem to have much in common, and I fret for F getting bossed around, tbh. I think I need to build up her confidence with other children, so she can recognize that they may be acting unfairly/selfishly and it's OK to challenge them on that. She is kind of used to taking turns and sharing and when she comes up against other children not doing that, she finds it hard to know how to deal with it, as do I.
Anyway, that aside, she has got back to dictating stories after a long break from them, which is nice to see. This is one I typed as she dictated it:

Once upon a time a little girl and boy set out in a car. They didn’t know what they were doing but they just wanted to get somewhere.

So they took a passage down that went to a magic world, covered with mazes. They went down into one maze and found themselves to be on a path that you decide which way to go. They took one path and got down into a place where there were parcels and the parcel car budged them away and they went down into a place where it was a dead end. They stopped just in time. Then they went down the second path which budged them all the way back. They went down a path where there was a train. They saw its sign. Then they went round in circles until they got back to the maze. Then they took the last path - they beeped their horn to find out that it was the path that got them out of the maze.

Then they saw a sign for fuel. They were running out so they went to get some Pepsi. And after that they found themselves behind a weird gate. They didn’t know what it was but loads of other people were standing beside it.

So they decided that they would just move away from this discovery. And the gate opened and all the people crossed. Then they got a bit afraid because there was a voice saying ‘Go down this path and you will find many treasures’. But when they went down to find all the treasures, instead it was a trap!

But a car rescued them and towed them out by linking up with each other. Then they thanked the car and went on to see that there were many falling boulders so they ran with their car and got to the end to see that they were finally HOOOMMMMMEEEE!!

The End

Tomorrow we're going to see the Angelina Ballerina ballet show in Hastings, which should be entertaining. Also have some craft stuff, we're hoping to do later this week.