Q: My son is almost 8 years old, and he doesn't like leaving our house for play dates or sleepovers. He's fine if his friends come to our house, but he is nervous because of an incident that happened at a neighbor's house almost three years ago.

My son was a 5-year-old and playing the Wii for the first time with his sister and neighbors' five children when he tripped and the game controller slipped out of his hands and broke the screen of their TV. He was not taught how to handle the controller so he didn't know he was supposed to have the safety strap around his wrist. There was no adult supervision, and lots of scattered shoes and toys in front of the TV where the seven kids were playing. It was an accident waiting to happen.

The mom called me, and when I came over my son was crying and frightened. The father was very angry, and although he didn't holler, to this day he still glares at us. We chipped in toward a new TV, and we have reassured our son that this was a pretty common accident and not really his fault. He is worried that something awful like that will happen again if he goes on a play date at someone else's home. His friends ask him over often. How do we get him to try again?

A: That broken TV screen was an unfortunate accident that truly traumatized your son, and he won't easily forget it. His friend's glowering dad may have been even more frightening. However, your children learned an important message about responsibly when you replaced their TV.

You can best convince your son to visit friends' homes by explaining the fairness of friendship. Every friendship that lasts involves a taking of turns and a balance. So for example, when children are friends, they take turns talking and listening to each other. They also need to take turns choosing what game they are going to play. In the same manner, they must be willing to take turns in visiting each other's homes. You can explain that after a friend visits him, it's only fair, if he's going to be a good friend, for him to visit the friend. It's truly unfair for him to turn down the invitation because he's hurting his friend's feelings. He can't keep inviting his friends over unless he visits them. He'll soon have no friends to play with if he refuses to visit anyone. I think he'll understand this simple explanation of fairness.

With spring around the corner, you could encourage his first visit to a friend to be out of doors where there would be no likelihood that he could break anything. A few friendly visits and this will all be behind him; however, you may not be able to encourage him to go back to the scene of the crashed television set, but he'll only conquer his fears by learning to visit friends in their homes.

For free newsletters about social skills and/or fears and fearful children, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope for each newsletter and a note with your topic request to address below. Dr. Sylvia B. Rimm is the director of the Family Achievement Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, a clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and the author of many books on parenting. More information on raising kids is available at www.sylviarimm.com. Please send questions to: Sylvia B. Rimm on Raising Kids, P.O. Box 32, Watertown, WI 53094 or [email protected]. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.