Social Interaction 5 year old

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Questions for my son who is 5.
I am making a point of inviting folks over to the house for lunch once a week to help him feel more comfortable in social situations.
He has been trying really hard to "hold it together" and is always excited about having "a party"
This weekend we have a couple who just had a new baby come over. They also have a typical 5 year old.
Any tips for him? For me?
Sometimes it's difficult to figure out what pushes his buttons. I am a little nervous of what he may do LOL
Do I watch him like a hawk or just let him interact? I doubt he would hurt the baby, but he can be harsh with the older boy

What a great idea. I'd watch like a hawk, silently until intervention is needed. Before they come over, go over the rules about behavior around babies, parents and other children.
My son had a very bizarre and menacing habit of touching babies and hitting (like a flat-handed pat). He'd get obsessed and freak out other mothers. We were very strict about touching strangers and once he broke the rules, we'd remove him. But we kept quiet to promote self-managing until a problem arose.

As for toys, I tell my son if there is anything special he does not want to share that he has to keep it put up in his room, and no one goes in his room unless he says it is okay. If the toy is in the living room then he has to share it. This helps with us anyway.

I would let him know if it gets too noisy, he can go to his room and have time alone.

Don't make him interact the whole time to be 'polite'. Let him withdraw if he wants to.

Regards
Helen

I'd also suggest not making him share his toys. If he wants to, fine but otherwise, better to have them out of the way so trouble won't be caused.

I would watch your son and intervene only when absolutely necessary. Avoid correcting him in front of others, unless it's a matter of safety. Boys do not like to be corrected (embarrassed) in front of people and I think AS boys dislike that even more.

My son is 9 now and this wouldn't have worked at age 5, but I talk to him about appropriate behavior immediately prior to a social situation. We run down a list of the rules. If he violates one of the rules, I can whisper in his ear and he remembers and accepts the rule and he will be okay with the correction.

At 5, he was kind of a wild man though , no matter how much I tried to prepare him.

i'd try to plan some activity for them to do....like coloring together, or making cookies together. something they can do together . i wouldn't leave the boys alone. i didn't leave my NT son alone for a playdate at that age either.

I would do the same as Ster. And tell in advance what the plan was.
I do two things: if it's a play date for the sake of my son, I try to keep visits relatively short - and say up front how long. Board games/UNO or something very structured where I play too is a good option if he doesn't now the visitor well.
If it's a visit where I want to do some talking, I go for passive entertainment like computer or playstation. But I guess it wouldn't work for a 5 year old..
The worst combination is me trying to talk, while hoping the kids spontaneously start playing. Recipe for disaster at our place!

I like everyone's suggestions here and I thought of something else...

not sure if this would work, but how about having a box of toys that everyone in the house knows as a box of 'guest toys'?

Toys that your son can understand are for guests to play with?
Maybe they can be duplicates of toys he likes to play with, but a different color or specially marked so he can see them as guest toys?

Like I said, this just popped up while reading the posts above.

Things worked out beautifully! We only had one basic rule: that if he started to fill overwhelmed that he went to his room or came to talk to me. I also asked him if he would feel upset to share any toys with the other boy and he said he wouldn't. When they arrived, my son and the other boy both took off to the play area upstairs and played very nicely! I could not believe it! Although my radar was up, I tried my best to give him a sense of control. The boy was his guest and I was not going to interfere.

He was also great with the baby. Only a little disturbed when the baby started to cry.
Toward the end of the visit, he was tired. He decided it was time to watch a movie. The tape was not working so well and he almost had a melt down. I could just see it starting to build up. But we fixed the tape and he calmed down again. The credit was all his for bringing himself back. He really wanted to be a good host. It was very cute to see that.

Thank you all for the suggestions! I think next time I will keep it a lot shorter because this was a bit too long. They were here for about 3 hours or so. That's a lot for a 5 year old to handle.

While his being younger might make a difference, there is nothing I find worse than someething take longer than I expect it to.
It would be better to say something like "they're planning on coming for half an hour, but might stay as long as 3." Then to say "they'll be leaving at 4:00"
When I graduated high school mmy grandma and mom took me out to buy a diamond ring. The only thing I remember about the trip is it took much longer than the half hour I was told it would. Then to make it worse, we went out to eat afterward. So in all it was like a 3 hour trip. As for the ring, i don't remember what it looked like, and if i still have it, its under a hundreds of pennies in my change bucket.


A few years ago, my mom and stepdad were driving me back home but didn't say we were going to Cabela's until we were already on the way home. I hated that. I got to spend time with my brother who i used to be superclose with but never get to see, and got to see some pretty neat stuff while there, tasted buffalo for the first time etc, but that didn't change the fact that I wasn't home when I was supposed to be. So of course I was irritated the entire time we were there and when i got home all i could think about is how i should have been home an hour and a half earlier.

As i've gotten older and away from my idiot parents, I don't have quite the same need for scheduling out my life, but younger, one unexpected change (an unexpected change being anything I wasn't told of at least 24 hours in advance) would ruin my next 7 days. Even when the unexpected was my best friend spending a few hours with me.

Wow... thank you SO much telling me this. This means a huge life change for me because I am by nature a "last minute change" type of person. And it is true... my son hates when we change things last minute on him. But of course he is not verbalizing it yet.
I will keep this in mind for sure....

I doubt I said anything about it until i was at least 16, een though i recognized this long before then

I used to hate it with a passion (and still don't like it much) when a promised activity is suddenly called off at the last minute. It can be unavoidable but until I was an older child, I thought it was just adults being capricious.

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makes since.
guess I will join that band wagon.
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Hello Kbar