Why Does My Child Have Trouble Playing With Other Kids? Skills Behind Successful Play
You take your child to the playground, a birthday party, or a playdate and notice something.
Other children seem to naturally find each other and start playing—but your child isn’t quite sure what to do.
Maybe they stay close to you instead of joining the group. Maybe they want to play but don’t know how to enter the game. They might become upset when another child changes the rules, have difficulty sharing ideas, or walk away when play doesn’t go exactly as expected.
Parents sometimes worry that their child simply “isn’t social.”
But playing successfully with other children actually requires a surprisingly complex combination of communication, regulation, attention, motor planning, flexibility, and social-emotional skills.
At BK Kids Pediatric Therapy in Joliet, IL, our Occupational Therapists and Speech-Language Pathologists can help children develop the underlying skills they need to participate more confidently in play with others.
Play Is an Important Part of Childhood Development
To adults, play can look like something children simply do for fun.
And it should be fun!
But play is also one of the primary ways children learn.
While playing, children practice how to:
- Communicate ideas
- Solve problems
- Take turns
- Negotiate
- Follow rules
- Use their imagination
- Coordinate their bodies
- Handle frustration
- Adapt when something changes
- Understand another person’s perspective
- Build friendships
These skills develop gradually.
Some children pick them up relatively easily through everyday experiences. Others need additional support or more direct practice.
Why Does My Child Play Fine Alone but Struggle With Other Children?
Independent play is much more predictable than playing with another person.
When your child plays alone, they control the activity.
They decide what the toys do.
They choose the rules.
They determine when the activity changes.
They don’t have to explain their ideas to someone else or understand another child’s plan.
Now add another child.
Suddenly your child has to listen, communicate, negotiate, wait, compromise, interpret social cues, and tolerate ideas that may be completely different from their own.
That dramatically increases the demands of the activity.
A child who can build an elaborate LEGO creation independently may still struggle when another child says:
“No, let’s make it a spaceship instead!”
The challenge isn’t necessarily the play itself.
It may be the flexibility and communication required to share the play experience with someone else.
Joining a Group Is a Skill
Imagine walking into a room where several adults are already having a conversation.
You probably wouldn’t walk directly between them and immediately begin discussing something unrelated.
Instead, you might listen for a moment.
You would figure out what they’re talking about.
You might wait for an opening.
Then you would say something related to the conversation.
Children have to learn a similar process when joining play.
They may need to:
- Approach the group
- Observe what the children are doing
- Understand the basic play idea
- Find an appropriate way to enter
- Communicate with the other children
- Adjust based on their response
That’s a lot of processing.
A child who doesn’t know how to enter may stand nearby watching, grab a toy, interrupt the activity, change the game unexpectedly, or simply avoid joining altogether.
Those behaviors can sometimes be interpreted as rude or uninterested when the child may actually want to participate but lack the skills to do it successfully.
Communication Plays a Huge Role in Play
Children constantly use language while playing.
They need to say things like:
“Can I play?”
“You be the doctor and I’ll be the patient.”
“Let’s build it over here.”
“That’s mine.”
“Can I have a turn?”
“I don’t want to play that anymore.”
They also need to understand what other children are saying.
This requires both expressive language—communicating thoughts and ideas—and receptive language—understanding what other people say.
Children may struggle with play when they have difficulty:
- Understanding directions
- Explaining their ideas
- Asking questions
- Staying on topic
- Understanding another child’s plan
- Repairing misunderstandings
- Using language to solve disagreements
- Reading nonverbal communication
- Participating in back-and-forth conversation
This is one area where Pediatric Speech Therapy may support successful peer interaction.
What If My Child Always Wants to Control the Game?
Some children participate well with peers—as long as everyone follows their plan.
They decide who gets which character.
They create all the rules.
They become frustrated if someone changes the story.
They may even stop playing entirely when another child introduces a different idea.
This can look bossy from the outside.
But underneath the behavior, the child may be struggling with flexible thinking, emotional regulation, communication, or managing unexpected changes.
Shared play requires children to understand:
“I have an idea, but my friend has an idea too.”
Children gradually learn to combine those ideas.
For example:
“You want the dinosaurs to live in the castle and I want the superheroes there. Let’s have the superheroes rescue the dinosaurs.”
That type of compromise requires creativity, communication, and flexibility.
Why Does My Child Get So Upset When They Lose?
Games introduce another important part of social participation: things don’t always go our way.
A child may understand the rules perfectly but still struggle when someone else wins.
They might:
- Quit the game
- Change the rules
- Knock over the pieces
- Refuse to participate
- Become extremely upset
- Accuse another child of cheating
- Demand to start over
Learning to handle losing involves emotional regulation and flexible thinking.
Therapy can provide opportunities to experience these small disappointments in a supportive environment.
The goal isn’t to teach children that they shouldn’t feel disappointed.
It’s helping them learn:
“I can be disappointed and still handle what happens next.”
Sensory Processing Can Affect Social Play
A child may have excellent social skills in a quiet room but struggle tremendously at a crowded birthday party.
Why?
The environment matters.
Playgrounds, classrooms, indoor play spaces, birthday parties, and group activities can include:
- Loud voices
- Children running nearby
- Unexpected touching
- Bright lights
- Lots of movement
- Multiple conversations
- Unpredictable sounds
For a child who has difficulty processing sensory information, simply remaining regulated in that environment may require significant effort.
When their nervous system becomes overwhelmed, the communication and social skills they normally have may become much harder to access.
A Pediatric Occupational Therapist can help identify whether sensory processing or regulation may be contributing to difficulty participating in group environments.
Motor Skills Can Affect Play Too
Social play isn’t only about communication.
Many childhood activities require motor skills.
Think about:
- Playing tag
- Riding bikes
- Climbing playground equipment
- Catching a ball
- Kicking a soccer ball
- Completing crafts
- Building with blocks
- Playing board games
Children who struggle with coordination, balance, strength, fine motor skills, or motor planning may avoid activities that feel physically difficult.
Sometimes a child who appears uninterested in joining playground games may actually be worried they won’t be able to keep up.
Occupational Therapy can help children build the motor skills and confidence needed to participate more successfully in these activities.
How Pediatric Occupational Therapy Can Help With Play
Occupational Therapists help children participate in meaningful everyday activities—or occupations.
For children, one of their most important occupations is play.
Depending on the child’s needs, OT may address:
- Emotional regulation
- Sensory processing
- Flexible thinking
- Impulse control
- Attention
- Turn-taking
- Motor planning
- Fine motor skills
- Coordination
- Strength
- Body awareness
- Tolerating unexpected changes
These skills can be practiced through obstacle courses, games, crafts, movement activities, pretend play, sensory activities, and other experiences children enjoy.
How Pediatric Speech Therapy Can Help With Play
Speech-Language Pathologists can address the communication skills children use to interact with other people.
Depending on the child’s needs, Speech Therapy may work on:
- Starting interactions
- Joining play
- Asking and answering questions
- Maintaining conversations
- Explaining ideas
- Understanding directions
- Taking conversational turns
- Staying on topic
- Problem-solving with language
- Understanding social cues
- Repairing communication breakdowns
- Perspective-taking
- Narrative language
For example, a therapist might use pretend play to practice explaining an idea or a game to practice asking another person a question.
The child is playing—but the therapist is intentionally targeting communication skills throughout the activity.
Why Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy Sometimes Work Together
Children don’t experience development in isolated categories.
A child might struggle during peer play because they have difficulty communicating their idea and become dysregulated when someone changes the plan.
Another child may understand the social expectations but struggle with the motor coordination needed to participate in playground activities.
That’s why looking at the whole child matters.
Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy address different areas, but those skills often come together during real-life activities.
At BK Kids Pediatric Therapy, having both disciplines allows us to consider whether communication, sensory processing, regulation, motor skills, attention, or a combination of factors may be affecting participation.
How Parents Can Support Play Skills
Parents don’t need to turn every playdate into a therapy session.
There are simple ways to support these skills naturally.
Start With Smaller Groups
A one-on-one playdate may be easier than a large group.
Fewer children means fewer conversations, ideas, and unpredictable interactions to process at once.
Choose Familiar Activities
Children may communicate more successfully when they already understand the activity.
A favorite game, building set, craft, or playground can reduce some of the demands.
Practice Helpful Phrases
Before a playdate, you might practice phrases such as:
“Can I play?”
“Can I have a turn?”
“What are you building?”
“Let’s do this together.”
Giving children language ahead of time can make it easier to access during the actual situation.
Allow Adults to Support Without Taking Over
Sometimes children need a little help getting started.
You might say:
“It looks like they’re building a zoo. Maybe you could ask if they need another animal.”
Then give your child an opportunity to take the next step.
Practice Flexibility During Family Games
Board games provide natural opportunities to practice waiting, losing, changing plans, and handling unexpected outcomes.
Keep the experience supportive rather than focusing only on whether the child reacts perfectly.
When Should Parents Consider an Evaluation?
Children develop social and play skills at different rates, and personality matters.
A child who prefers one or two close friends isn’t necessarily experiencing a developmental difficulty.
The question is whether challenges are preventing your child from participating in activities they want or need to participate in.
Consider discussing your concerns with a professional if your child consistently:
- Wants to play with peers but doesn’t know how to join
- Has significant difficulty taking turns
- Becomes extremely upset when play changes
- Struggles to communicate ideas during play
- Has difficulty understanding other children’s directions
- Frequently experiences conflict with peers
- Avoids playground or motor activities
- Becomes overwhelmed in group environments
- Has difficulty maintaining back-and-forth interactions
- Struggles to participate in age-appropriate games
- Becomes frustrated because others don’t understand them
An evaluation can help identify which underlying skills may be contributing to the difficulty.
Pediatric OT and Speech Therapy in Joliet, IL
When a child struggles to play with other children, simply telling them to “go make friends” may not be enough.
Successful play requires children to combine communication, regulation, flexibility, attention, motor skills, problem-solving, and social understanding—all while responding to another child whose behavior they can’t control.
That’s a complicated developmental task.
At BK Kids Pediatric Therapy, our Occupational Therapists and Speech-Language Pathologists provide individualized, play-based therapy designed to help children build meaningful skills while doing something children naturally love to do:
Play.
Our goal isn’t to change a child’s personality or force them to be more outgoing.
It’s to give them the skills and confidence they need to participate, communicate, connect, and enjoy experiences with others.
BK Kids Pediatric Therapy is located in Joliet, Illinois, and proudly serves families throughout Joliet, Plainfield, Shorewood, New Lenox, Lockport, Romeoville, Minooka, Channahon, Morris, Bolingbrook, Naperville, Oswego, Yorkville, Wilmington, and surrounding communities.
If you’re concerned about your child’s play, communication, sensory processing, regulation, or motor development, contact BK Kids Pediatric Therapy to learn more about pediatric Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy evaluations.