Tzvi: I’m embarrassed of Ezzie in front of my friends even though he’s my older brother.

Ezzie: I gave away all my Dubble Bubble but still no one likes me.

Mrs. Fish calls at 9 a.m. on Isru Chag. “I need an appointment as soon as possible” she says.

Over Yom Tov or vacation when people spend more time with family issues that have been overlooked become more apparent.

Eight-year-old Ezzie seems sweet hanging around awkwardly in the waiting area.

“What brings you here?” I ask Mrs. Fish once she settles in the room with me.

“I want Ezzie to have friends” Mrs. Fish says baldly. “I want him to be happy and I see he’s not. I see my other kids and the kids in the neighborhood — he’s different from them. And he’s missing out.”

“Does he have any friends at all?”

Mrs. Fish thinks. “He does play with some neighborhood kids. But they’re all younger than him. He doesn’t really have friends his own age.”

Children gravitate to playmates at the same social development level. Ezzie’s social development lags behind his chronological age so his friends are correspondingly younger.

Social skills are about more than just friendships — they’re the skills we use to relate to all the people in our lives. “How are his relationships with his siblings?”

Mrs. Fish grimaces. “They’re always fighting. He always needs to have his own way never accounts for anyone else’s needs. We have six kids in a four-bedroom house but Ezzie gets his own room. It’s the only way. And he does inappropriate things — if there’s a fresh kugel on the counter he’ll cut a piece smack in the middle instead of starting from a corner. He gets into trouble in school too.”

This may seem like a middos issue but the root is Ezzie’s lack of social skills.

“Can you give me an example?”

“A few weeks ago the whole class hatched a plan to rip up their math test papers. Of course they all chickened out. The only two kids to tear up the test were Ezzie and his classmate Yitz. Ezzie was suspended but Yitz wasn’t. His teacher explained that when he discussed the incident with the boys Yitz looked at the ground and apologized but Ezzie was oppositional and chutzpahdig and didn’t express any remorse.

Here too lack of social skills are the central issue.

His teacher said Ezzie looked him in the eye the entire time as if he totally didn’t care and kept explaining and arguing that he really didn’t do anything wrong.”

Ezzie doesn’t have the social savvy to know not to follow through on the plan or to understand that the rebbi  expects him to show remorse.

Mrs. Fish returns to her greatest concern. “What I really want is for him to have friends and be happy. He’s not part of the gang he’s not into what all the other kids are into. I picked him up from school the other day and I saw how the kids stand around in groups and he was kind of hovering nearby.” She sounds really sad. “I also had a hard time as a kid” she adds hesitantly. “It’s still hard for me now. I hope you can help him. I don’t want him to suffer like I do.”

D. Himy M.S. CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist in private practice for over 15 years.