Worried about my 5 1/2 year old son

[bread111]

I am worried about my son's behaviour.  He doesn't have many male friends who he can play with.  He plays with his 7 year old sister all the time and other than playing with my friend's two boys, the odd time and boys he plays at school with, he is usually with his sister.  We were at McDonald's and he met a little boy and then refused to play with his sister.  She was upset, so I asked him to play with her.  He refused.  I noticed he went down the slide with the boy kind of hugging him,with his arm around him ( the boy was probably a year younger than my 5 1/2 year old son) and when I approached him at the bottom of the slide when he came down, he appeared embarrassed and was kind of mad that I was there.

A little later, I asked him why he wouldn't play with his sister and he said that he always played with her and he wanted to play with the boy.  I asked him why  his sister couldn't play too and he said that he would be jealous since the person he was playing with was a boy.  Almost like he would then be competing with his sister.

Perhaps I am overreacting, but could he be attracted to boys?  Does this mean he may be gay?  When he was about 4 1/2, his sister asked him who he was going to marry and he said a man.  Is this just normal behaviour?  In junior kindergarten, he also said he had a girlfriend.  I know kids say silly things, but they are also honest.  Should boys be demonstrating any kind of attraction to girls at this age.

I appreciate your input.

[bread111]

Thank you for your reply.  I am trying to get him into more social situations with school friends, but it is difficult, as a lot of kids get get bussed in and don't live in the area.  I know I do tend to worry too much and you are right, who knows what the future will bring with my kids.  You can only try your best to raise them well, with good hearts and morals.  If any of my children turned out to be gay, I would always love them, no matter what.  I do worry though and hope that this isn't the case, as  kids grow up with enough bullying and barriers and I don't want my kids to have to go through this.  I guess with my daughter, she was already showing an attraction to boys at my son's age, but like you said, who knows what the future will bring.  I guess I tend to analyze everything.  When my son was 4, he said he wanted to marry a man, so I guess since then, I always question his behaviour.  I know at 4, children say things they don't understand.  I guess I need to relax..........

[Sally44]

I wouldn't be worred about it.
If your main concern is that he doesn't have a many friends, then I would consider looking into something like scouts etc or some other club that he would be interested in.
In that way he will be socialising outside of the family circle.  You can also arrange play dates with children from school to help him develop some friendships.  If you think he has problems with social interaction with his peers in general then that is something that could be looked into and schools do have supports such as mentoring or circle of friends for children having these types of difficulties - but that doesn't appear to be the problem from your post.
If you are concerned about how he reacted to the boy ie. excluding his sister, that is typical behaviour.  He wanted the boys attention and would have been jealous of his sister because she is another child, not just because of her gender.
Regarding things he has said, children say many things at that age.  They don't have all the social clues to know what is/isn't appropriate.  I have heard other male and female children say similar things and even much worse things!  When my daughter was 3 she told me she was going to get married and have lots of babies.  Around age 6-7 she stopped playing with boys altogether and only wanted female company. Now she's 10 and boys disgust her.  Give her a couple more years and she'll be interested in boys again.  Its all perfectly normal developmental stages.
Does he have his father in his life, or other male adults?
Some people who are gay say that they knew it when they were children, and we have to take that as the truth for them.
But if that did turn out to be the case would that be a problem for you?  You don't know what the future will bring for either of your children.  Your daughter could grow up and become a drug dealer or a prostitute - obviously hopefully not!!  But I just wanted to raise the point that no parent knows what is in their child's future.  We try to make sure they grow to be independent and good members of society.
And for 'gay' and 'straight' males and females there is the whole range of behaviours from extremely male to feminine.   You can get a female truck driver and a male child minder; you can find a gay builder and a lesbian nurse.  I tend to see it more as a spectrum rather than a clear cut black and white thing.