I don’t know how to help my anxious, sensitive 10 year old. Very worried about him.

[Wicker527]

Just tucked him into bed and he burst into tears. Says he’s sad in school all the time, he’s worried about getting the work wrong all the the time, worried about dropping into the lower group. None of this pressure is coming from us.

He’s always been a worrier. He’s in year 6 and all I can think is how the hell is he going to cope with secondary school next year?!

I don’t know if this is something I need to get him more support with-gp? Counselling? Is it anxiety/depression or normal school nerves?

He’s been really happy lately, he was full of beans before bedtime and then just crumbled which makes me worried he’s bottling things up.

I fucking hate the education system sometimes, the pressure it puts on kids who just don’t cope well with it is unreal.

We’ve had a good chat with the teacher. She was lovely. She reassured him that he doesn’t need to worry about his school work, that he’s not the only one feeling like this and we spoke about who he’d like to sit by. She’s going to change the seating arrangements tomorrow.

The books we ordered have arrived (thankyou Amazon!) and we’ve started working through it. He’s already opened up about his fears at nighttime which I didn’t know. He said he worries about school when he’s falling asleep so we’ve put some things in place to help with that. He’s also scared of the dark if he wakes in the night so we’re going to get him a nightlight too.

Oh brilliant. Sounds like a really good set of steps towards things getting better

Detention in primary school? For not reading 'enough'? That's shocking.
Can you ask the school why they have that rule?

Something we've tackled with our DC is reassuring them that if they get into trouble or struggle at school, it's not something that they will then get into trouble with at home. To give them a safe space where they can escape from school related anxieties.

It’s ridiculous isn’t it! I did go in and speak to the teacher when it happened. She said it was to prepare them for secondary school.

We’re the same-he knows that detentions or being told off in school does not mean he’s in trouble at home because we know he’s a good lad and does his best and his best is enough. We actually treated him to tea out after his detention because he was upset about it and I wanted him to know how little it meant to us at home.

This all sounds so familiar, I had very similar issues with dd2 in Year 6 (though we had other complications too) Yy to the issues with spellings and feelings of not being good enough despite good results.

Eventually she was diagnosed with mild dyslexia in Year 7 and she had about 6 months of counselling for the anxiety. She's year 8 now but these issues are still very much present and are making learning languages very hard for her.

I'd say take it seriously, go with your gut, you know when there's something not right. schools -especially at primary level - can tend to over rely on the brusque/jollying them out of it approach. Sometimes that's not enough.