Well I have a 5yo daughter who is an only child and lives with her mother. I spend every 1 or 2 weekends with her. When I take her to the park, or McDonald's playplace, I can see that she is shy to approach kids. If someone picks her out, then she tends to follow them around and join their game. If she is rejected in the slightest way she will get very sad and withdrawn. The other day she took me aside and told me, "You know I'm sad and I feel alone." These things remind me of me, and it's hard to watch. Sometimes i don't quite know the right thing to say, because I haven't really solved these problems myself. And it's possible that she has this behavior mainly with me because I don't have any friends with kids, and we tend to go places alone, just me and her.
Luckily her mother is a very social person and is her main social behavioral model. My daughter is doing well in school, has friends there, and overall it is agreed that she is a happy, caring child.
Over the last half year I have been through times of severe depression which involved staying in bed for weeks unless I was alone in the house. At these times I would avoid seeing her, partially because I was in a very foul, foul mood, and also because I didn't want her to see me in my state of emotional invalidism. Unless I can resolve certain problems, I sometimes envision things becoming more and more awkward between us, as she compares me to other men.
