I thought by Key Stage 2 we would be past the tears and peeling him off me at the school gate, but here we are... I shall try not to drip-feed so this might be long.
He says he doesn't want to go to school because he wants to stay with me. He finds school boring. Fair enough - he still has to go, and that seems more like grounds for grumbling (which I can put up with) than the full on hysterical sobbing and clutching at me as the teacher pries him off. We have had this intermittently throughout school but I thought he would have outgrown this by now.
There's no bullying going on that I am aware of, and he has friends and a sibling at the same school so I think I would hear about it even if he didn't tell me directly. He had some counselling for anxiety last year which concluded he was unsettled and worried about making mistakes due to a particularly shouty teacher for that year - but his new teacher seems better and his first couple of weeks back seemed okay.
I have previously tentatively suggested that if he hates this school so much we could look at other schools in our area but he's adamant he wants to stay put. So it can't be that awful - and at pick-up time he's usually happy and says he's had a good day.
My gut feel says it's the idea of having to be there for the next 6 hours and being told what to do, and having to do stuff he doesn't want to do that upsets him - but that is life! Once he's there, I don't think the reality is so bad.
School is essentially a whole day of doing what you're told rather than what you want, but he is "good" at school, never had any issues in the sense of him not doing what he's told. It is really hard work at home to get him to do what he's told though. He does seem, dare I say, entitled - in that he expects me to act like his personal skivvy, and do things he's totally capable of, but then kick off if I tell him he can do it himself, or if I tell him to do his (very limited and age-appropriate) chores. We don't ask that much of him at home, and he does get a lot of control/choice over his free time.
We're working on him taking responsibility for himself/his own chores etc, but it is not easy. I don't know how much of this is from not wanting to grow up, and wanting to be babied, like we don't love him enough if we don't do everything for him? He is very bright academically, but emotionally he's quite young. He does feel things quite deeply, to the point it's sometimes overwhelming - an example being the drama at school drop-off.
In terms of getting him out of the door, getting cross with him doesn't work, it just makes him panic. Likewise anything physical like carrying him out the door also makes it worse. So I kind of get that some of the angst is about a lack of control thing, and feeling more out of control makes it worse - but he doesn't have control over going to school or not, that's just how it is.
Jollying along and distraction are the best ways to get him to the school - we can have nice chats on the way but then once we get there it reverts to the sobbing. I don't know what to do to help him, whether it's an issue with managing his feelings or something else.
Sorry this is long. I would love to know if anyone has had a similar experience with their DC and if/how you get out the other side with both yours and their sanity intact...