Reluctant Loners

By Harriet Barovick

Alexander was a voracious reader of history books, especially those about his favorite period, the Middle Ages. He played Brahms and Bach on the cello and was accomplished at tennis, swimming and skateboarding. In fact, it seemed the only thing the 10-year-old couldn't do easily was make friends. "I was really quiet; I didn't talk to classmates a lot; and it seemed as if a lot of kids were sort of pushing me away. I was very lonely," says Alexander, now 13. (Like other youngsters interviewed for this story, he asked that his real name not be used.) Seeking a way to help her son out of his growing isolation, Alexander's mother sent him to Peer Play Groups, a New York City-based program that works with children who are socially awkward. In weekly, one-hour sessions, Alexander learned ways to interact with kids his own age. "They taught me how to have fun, how to talk with other people at school," he says. "Now I'm not so quiet anymore."

It can be heartbreaking for parents to learn that other children don't like or won't play with their children. And being left out or labeled a geek can be even more devastating for those youngsters. The common wisdom used to be that such children were just shy and would grow out of it. Many did, some didn't, but nearly all suffered unnecessary loneliness and rejection. Spurred by a growing awareness of social-anxiety disorders in children and research that shows ways they can be helped, more and more parents, pediatricians and schoolteachers are turning to local programs like Peer Play Groups to teach social and emotional skills. They see them as a way to assist otherwise mainstream kids in overcoming the excruciating pain of feeling left out.

In New York City, Peer Play Groups, which opened in 1993 and is run by former school psychologist Andrew Cohen and social worker Sandra Greenbaum, has seen its enrollment rise from 30 to 80 kids in the past two years. Ginny Strock, co-owner of FriendSmarts, which runs social-skills groups in and around Palo Alto, Calif., says her practice has grown fivefold since it began in 1996. "Parents and teachers are realizing that these skills are as important as knowing how to read and that with coaching and lots of practice, kids can improve significantly," says Strock.

The groups are typically small, with a maximum of five kids. A session costs around $80 a child; on average, kids go weekly for one year, although some, like Alexander, choose to stay longer. Peer Play Groups works with youngsters 5 to 13, and Cohen and Greenbaum carefully screen families, which are referred by teachers, doctors or friends, to weed out children with severe behavioral disorders. The goal is to balance each group with kids who are outgoing and those who are withdrawn. To help them address the difficulties they face--being teased or bullied at school, feeling excluded from playground activities, eating lunch alone--a board or card game is the anchor of every session. For older kids, the game may give way entirely to a freewheeling discussion about what's going on in their lives and how they're handling their families and friendships. For younger children, games like Uno and Candy Land provide vehicles in which social obstacles--like bossiness, excessive compliance or intense competitiveness--naturally emerge.

In a session of four kindergartners, for example, one boy laughed as another had to draw undesirable cards in a game of Uno. When the laughing boy found himself in the same unhappy position a few minutes later, Cohen pointed out how nice it was that the earlier object of his ridicule was not laughing at him now. "We give them solutions, different strategies for playing well together," says Greenbaum. "We empower them with ways to solve the problem that take both people into account, like understanding that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose and neither is that big a deal."

Perhaps the biggest advantage the groups offer is the all important feeling of not being alone. Experts say this sense of belonging makes it easier for socially unskilled kids to interact confidently with others. "They feel safe trying out strategies in the groups, where they are totally accepted," says FriendSmarts' Strock. "It then makes it easier to test the skills outside." The most useful advice often comes not from an authoritative therapist but from the other kids. For John, a 10th-grader from San Jose, Calif., who was incessantly bullied in middle school, sharing stories and strategies with groupmates at FriendSmarts changed his perspective about how to behave in school. He says he used to try to start conversations by telling someone too much about himself too quickly. "That never worked," he says. "But when I just relaxed and only said a little bit, it worked so much better. It was really cool."

Similarly, when Alexander found that no one was interested in talking about the Middle Ages, he asked his groupmates at Peer Play Groups for recommendations. They advised him to initiate conversations, laugh a bit more and think of topics other kids might be interested in. "It didn't work the first time, but the second time it went well, and now it works great," Alexander says. "Now I have a group of kids I have lunch with every day. We make up weird songs, talk about music or what we're doing for the summer. For some reason, it seems, they even look up to me."

Despite such success stories, many families feel there's a stigma attached to attending a social-skills group, and most keep their participation quiet. A parent of a Manhattan kindergartner admits she "had to work through some shame" about her son's involvement. But overall, the positives clearly outweigh any embarrassment for many kids. "They know they're unhappy, that they're not good at connecting to people, and they love coming. It's like a lifeline for them," says Peer Play Groups' Greenbaum. A very affectionate third-grader who alienated classmates by standing too close when she spoke or hugging them at inappropriate times was so delighted with her group that she mentioned it to a classmate who was awkward and being ostracized. The boy got his parents to enroll him and, says the girl's mother, he is "doing really well now."

Of course, while the groups can change behavior, they are not intended to change a kid's underlying personality. Alexander is in many ways still an unusually gentle, quiet kid who says he prefers low-key celebrations of his birthday to large parties with lots of kids. But Peer Play Groups, which he says "helped me so much" and which he has no immediate plans to leave, has enabled him to feel more comfortable in social settings--and more willing to take the risks required for developing closer friendships. At lunch recently, Alexander chatted easily with his buddies about the cello piece he performed for the school talent show. "I was talking about some things I did well and other things I didn't do so well," he says. And that was something everyone could relate to.