My child with ADHD isn't getting invited to anything. How do I help socially?

Notice what you already said: warm, funny, desperately wants friends. That matters, because the problem you are describing is not a problem of kindness. It is a problem of speed.

What is actually going wrong

Friendship at this age runs on split-second social maths: notice the face, read the tone, wait for the gap, resist the urge to say the thing, notice you have talked for too long, adjust. Every one of those steps needs the brake — the pause between impulse and action — which is precisely the thing ADHD makes short.

So he interrupts, not because he does not care what his friend is saying, but because the thought will be gone if he waits. He takes over the game because he can see how it should go and the words arrive before the consideration does. He cannot lose gracefully because the disappointment hits at full volume with no gap.

None of that is a character flaw. All of it is teachable — slower than we would like, but genuinely teachable.

What actually helps

1. One friend, not a group. Groups move too fast; the social maths piles up and he loses. One child, in your home, where you can quietly coach. Then the same child again. Depth beats breadth by a wide margin here.

2. Keep playdates short and structured. Ninety minutes, with a planned activity — baking, the pool, a bike ride, a specific project. Unstructured time is the hardest kind. End it while it is still going well; a short good visit is what earns the next one.

3. Choose activities where his intensity is an asset. Swimming, climbing, martial arts, drama, football. Side-by-side doing beats face-to-face talking, and being the energetic one is an advantage on a pitch in a way it never is at a table.

4. Rehearse the specific skill, when nobody is upset. Not "be nicer" — one concrete thing: how to join a game already in progress ("watch first, then ask if you can be on a team"), or what to say when you lose ("good game, want to go again?"). Practise it as a game with you first. A skill rehearsed on Tuesday might be available on Saturday.

5. Coach quietly and in the moment, never in front of the friend. A private word in the kitchen — "he's been trying to tell you about his sister for a while" — teaches without humiliating. Correction with an audience costs more than it teaches.

6. Talk to the school about the unstructured times. Lunch and recess are where most of this plays out and where there is least supervision. Ask what happens then, and whether there is a lunch club, a structured game, or a buddy arrangement. Many schools have something and simply do not mention it.

The part that hurts

Do not tell him it is not happening. He knows. What helps is being met and then re-aimed: "You noticed they didn't wave back. That really hurts. Let's think about who you actually had fun with this week." Then help that one friendship along.

And keep an eye on the story he is building about himself. If "nobody likes me" is settling in as a fact rather than a bad week, that needs attention of its own.

When to look further

If the social difficulty looks different from impulsivity — if he struggles to read faces or tone at all, prefers to play alone, or finds unwritten social rules genuinely baffling rather than hard to slow down for — mention that specifically to your paediatrician. That is a different question and deserves its own assessment.

Also raise it promptly if there is bullying, or if he is refusing to go to school.