Is anyone else’s reception started struggling with life at the moment?
My DS is midway through the year, 4.5. He was in the school nursery doing half days for a year before. He took a few weeks to settle there but then seemed to enjoy it, made a couple of little friends, had a great report. He is shy and sensitive, and clingy, always has been. He’s never been easy to leave, and slow to warm up.
He’s really struggling since starting reception. He’s with a few of his friends from the nursery class and one of the TAs who he loved, so plenty of familiar faces. He’s been crying before school, crying at drop off, crying at school (not all day but a good few wobbles), and not wanting to get involved in anything at school, just sitting down alone.
He’s doing a few little activities outside of school, which he did last year (swimming, gymnastics, football) and each one is a battle. Moaning beforehand, not wanting to join in. I know people will say ditch the activities but he is almost always like this at the start and settles, it’s just so painful. And I don’t think waiting would make a difference - if we restarted the activities in a year he would still be clingy and shy and it’d be made worse by the other children being more confident and able having done them for a year (large cohorts of kids from his school do the clubs).
Don’t know how to handle it other than early nights, and loads of downtime to do what he wants when we’re home which I’m doing, and other than the activities (one x 45 minutes session each weekend morning) we’re not making any other plans. He doesn’t want to talk at all - he’s never been good at talking when things are calm about his feelings, almost like he’s embarrassed.