Yourself at age 6 - a way to predict your social carrier?

Post Reply New Topic

Just saw something on a BBC documentary on which they said that if children are isolated at age 6, have trouble to get in contact with other children that it's very likely that they will remain as isolated as an adult.

Try to remember yourself and your social contacts at age 6; are you more, less or as socially successful as back then?

The above statement doesn't hold true for me.

At age 6 I had no friends, I ignored children, ignored most adults, I had only just developed a growing interest into simple conversation with my family. Today I have a couple of friends and I talk to other people a lot. I can have good conversations, I like small talk, I like interacting with people and I continuously get better at socialising.

Last edited by Sora on 15 Feb 2009, 2:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

At age 6... hmm... I did not have any real "friends" in kindergarten, I sorta just lived... In grade 1 though, that is when I first had a friend that I would actually call a friend.

That was an awful long time ago. I have no brothers or sisters, I guess I had one friend. But preferred to be on my own. Later? Well my social contacts depended on my coping skills or my self destructive lifestyle, which had to put me in contact with others, like it or not. I did have some I considered very close friend and they were a bit strange and we hit it off well. But at an early age I was more comfortable with adults rather then those of my own age. They tended to talk about things that were far more interesting to me. Now I'm pretty much a recluse, but I can afford that, well I consider it luxury. On the other hand I guess my computer is an obsession and that gets me involved with people. So am I recluse? Physically yes. I am married but have a room where I pretty much stay. My sleep time is when most are asleep, because they tend to do naughty things. Ok that was a Frank Zappa partial quote, but I agree with it.

Last edited by postpaleo on 14 Feb 2009, 6:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

At the age of 6 I was a very shy and scared child. I even didn't dare to talk to the teacher directly-I talked to him trough a cuddly bear. After a while I trained not to do that any longer, but still I had no social interaction. Even more, I didn't feel like I needed it, I just played on my own. After a year, when I was 7, I got more sociable by just being nice to other kids, who were nice to me, and we played together, became friends. I'm definetely more sociable now than I was at the age of 6, but I still am not that good at being social. I'm now 17 years old.

great question, but...: asked&answered:
another brilliant (and quite shocking) BBC documentary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_series

so

6down7up!/toxic.RobertO.iii

I did have a few friends when I was 6, I was actually quite extraverted then but the things I said were usually daft

I am far more social than I was when I was 6. I didn't talk to anyone but my family. I was just scared of other people. Now I can go up on the street and ask people for directions if I must. I'm not scared of strangers anymore. My friends are all in Sydney but I do get to talk and have drinks with them. I think I have more friends than I did when I was 6.

At age 6: did not initiate social contact, ever.
: Spoke to most people only when I needed information.
: Accepted the social approaches of others, but made sure I isolated myself enough so that most people could not approach.
: Was perfectly happy with the way things were.

Now : Do not initiate social contact, ever.
: Speak to most people only when I need information.
: Accept the social approaches of others, but make sure I isolated myself enough so that most people can not approach.
: Am perfectly happy with the way things were.



Nothing's changed.

Actually I would say I am the same socially at 6 as I am now - distant from people, doing things on my own and resistant to any forced interaction. I don't remember having any friends then and I have none now. There have been times in later years where I had a couple of varying degrees of friendship but it was always on my terms and no best friends just people who were there that I interacted with at times but kept a distance from all the same. The most social I ever was, was between 14 and 15 1/2 - I finally got tired of being so non interactive and hardly ever talking and I was falling fast behind in classes because I can't learn by listening to someone and wasn't asking questions [asking for any help is a big no for me] So to make up for my difficulties I breifly became class clown and was liked for it - I enjoyed the attention and it wad the on;y way I knew to mix with people. I would then steal for the other girls and try to impress them to keep up the interaction - where they would be able to just chat to keep the friendships, I had no idea of that - so I would act out for attention that way. After I left school I reverted right back to pre 14yrs old and became very insular again. I realised I could get in real trouble doing 'naughty' things to get interaction and was back to having no idea how to go about it.

For years I have been pretty much back the same way when I was little. I have had brief spells where I have reverted to some bad behaviour to have contact but I realise it's to inappropriate. Then in cases where it's completely inappropriate to act out, say like in jobs as an adult - I can't interact at all and become almost mute around the other people. That is the worse feeling and makes me so unhappy so I avoid it. I have always been one extreme or the other. But mostly I am always the outsider - resistant to interaction - sometimes wanting it but being very picky over who with - never satisfied with available options / not interested = I stay alone. I have a gf so at least I do get interaction without turning completely feral in the social sense.

My sister at 6yrs however was very social and interactive and had imaginary friends to - I didn't even have or want imaginary ones! Although I did once make a friend up to use it as an excuse for where I was going, I said I was going to there house but I would be going to the fields alone to make fire or smoke or something, alone and it felt difficult sometimes to always say I was doing things alone all the time - I only kept the fake friend up to excuse a couple of times away though because I really didn't like lying at all. My sister spoke to anyone and everyone she could and then to her imaginary friends - she has always been incredibly social and always will be. We are half sisters but it is hard to believe we had the same upbringing and how different to her I am.

Me in a nutshell.
I was isolated when I was little due to circumstances beyond my control.

I had to become more socially capable as I became older to survive by learning to reciprocate to other people's initiations of social contact. It's still not perfect though. Sometimes people have to help me through interactions. When any collaboration or working lost of others is required, the "cracks" in my "veneer" definitely begin to show.

I can ask people formally for information and run verbal errands though, but it has to be structured or I have to have a specific planned topic in mind before I can say anything "sensible".

I think it depends on the things that happened to you in the time between, meeting the right people etc.

When I look at my superficial social skills they improved a lot. But when I look at my ability to form real friendships or relations, that is just as terrible now as it was then.

I think the theory could be true for the 'deeper' relationships, but when you look at he surface it could be 'fooled'.

In some ways I'm better now. The main reason is because I took the, 'Don't talk to strangers' WAY to literally.
I mean, I'd talk to kids, but say if their parents, or my Mum's friends said, 'Hi' or something, I'd walk completely past them and ignore them, thinking it was almost immoral to talk to them.
Then my Mum said that some people said that I wouldn't talk to them, and I decided I had to change my definition of stranger.
But in terms of friends, I'm probably the same now(I'm only 13 now), where I don't have a secure set of friends, just people I know would help me out. Like, I wouldn't define most people I know as friends most of the time.
EMZ=]

This is a really interesting thought.

At age 6 I was more social, but about equally unsuccessful as I am now. When I was little, I sought out human beings, even when I had no clue as to how to go about it. I can remember countless awkward encounters where I would approach someone, say or do something odd, and the other person just looked at me strangely and walked away. I wanted friends. Everyone else seemed to have them. I even developed a few rudimentary friendships through shared interests. But more often than not, social contact ended in confusion, disappointment, and rejection. After years of repeating these situations, I think I began to develop the aversion, isolation and social anxiety that I currently experience.

Another factor at that age was environmental. My mother had a an irrational fear of the outside world. She thought that the other kids in my neighborhood (which was remote, suburban, very nice and totally safe) were bad influences on me, and that I should not spend any time with them. She saw them as vulgar, dirty and a little bit dangerous. More often than not, she encouraged and reinforced my innate tendencies to stay in my room and hyper-focus on my interests. So any peer contact that I had was at school, and even that became increasingly limited as I retreated further inside of myself as I grew older.

I actually think that with proper support and understanding at a young age, I could have developed better social skills, and been more successful at interacting with the world. Now, I'm 20 years too late in realizing these things, and I have all sorts of figurative knots to untie... Oh well

Less than a month after I turned six, I moved from Houston to Indianapolis. So that was a big year for me. Let's see... I made friends very quickly up here and immediately got everyone into what I liked or what I wanted to do. I was very, very much a manipulator of everyone. I was also very judgemental over appearance (and in some respects, I still am! lol). I didn't always say it out loud because I didn't want to be rude, but there were just some houses and some outfits that just had to go. Today, I'm still very big on that. I also liked to design products and things with cartoon characters I made up or existed. I continued doing that for years, but no longer do this as I have pretty much outgrown drawing pictures. I was probably one of the smarter kids in my class. I remember one girl next to me saying, "Heather, you're a genius!" after I figured out a tricky worksheet question.

I am very similar today how I was back then. But just in some ways more or less. I've been through a *ton* since then, so I've definitely had my shares of ups and downs. But you could definitley tell I was the same person then as I am now.

I remember being happy till around age 5. I enjoyed speaking to everyone and other kids gravitated towards me, I had interests appropriate for my age, gender and upbringing. At around age 5 we moved house, I was almost completely isolated socially and I began to develop the typical obsessions and social ineptitude.

That's a bit like me actually