10 yr old with social anxiety - tips/advice

[user124684830]

Looking for some advice from folks who may have been in a similar situation.....

Our DS is 10 and was diagnosed with selective mutism when he was in reception. Since then he's had a number of sessions with the speech and language therapist at school to try to integrate him and get him to speak to his classmates and teachers and participate in class. This was a very slow process and a few years ago they said he's made sufficient progress (he does put his hand up in class, has 1-2 friends at school that he speaks to and can talk to his teacher) and they need to divert their resources to other kids.

Our problem is, even though the school situation has become bearable at least, he's still painfully shy with EVERYONE. Any family, friends, strangers who say hi to him, he cannot answer them. It makes people dislike him because they think he's being rude.

Has anyone else been in a similar position and do you have any advice on what we can do?

Not really. I said to my DS (who was later diagnosed with asd) that he had to acknowledge the greeting. So a smile or a wave.
I don’t know if this is way off the mark,, but could learning sign language help?

My 7yo is the same so following with interest! He’s starting some cbt and awaiting an asd assessment x

Looking again at the selective mutism webpage www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/selective-mutism/ it sounds exactly like my DS. So I think I will need to persist with getting him help with selective mutism, maybe CBT if possible. Because even though it's better and the school is not following up on it anymore, he still has it.......