DS recently turned 3. He has always been quite a shy and sensitive child (as was I as a child) and there are a few aspects of his behaviour which are beginning to worry us. But I’m not sure if it is actually normal:
- he won’t do activities. We have tried to take him to football, tumble tots, and other kid activities but he won’t join in. As soon as he walks into a room that looks like some kind of adult led organised fun, he immediately wants to go and I can only keep him there with lots of coaxing. He won’t look at or talk to the adults and will only very reluctantly barely follow the instructions, and will put on a whiny baby voice when doing so. When other kids are getting up to dance or whatever, he will just want to sit on my lap and watch.
- he doesn’t want to leave the house, unless it’s going to grandparents or sometimes soft play. He would always rather play at home than go to the park, farm etc. It’s like he doesn’t want to be around people other than his family
- he can have quite extreme meltdowns, often around bedtime or sometimes in the middle of the night if he wakes up. He doesn’t hit or anything, but he’ll cry intensely and shout/wail, and roll around on the floor. It can go on for at least half an hour and is so hard to bring him out of. I also think it tends to happen when he’s had a period of having to interact with new people/do new things e.g. if we have a play date with friends kids. His meltdowns were worse when he was younger and the health visitor referred us to a course for parenting kids with big emotions. It helped, but he still has meltdowns
- He’s ok with talking, I’d say average for a 3 year old boy. But when he’s around people other than his parents (and sometimes even with us) he won’t talk properly. He’ll use a kind of whiny baby voice with made up words
- he started nursery at 1 years old but he cried the whole time. Every day for about 6 weeks nursery would ask us to collect him early because he was crying the whole time. We then moved him to a childminder and he hated going, even after a year he would still cry the whole journey to the childminder and wouldn’t join in with the other kids or the play groups etc she took him to. When he was 2 he moved on to a nursery. As we left the childminder, she said that he might need to get assessed and the nursery senco should meet him. When he got to nursery he seemed to do better there and the nursery didn’t have any concerns.
I think most of this fairly normal for a shy 3 year old boy, but MIL witnessed one of his meltdowns and started suggesting we should get him assessed. Nursery haven’t said they think anything is wrong, but I’m conscious he is very quiet and shy at nursery so they probably don’t see the full spectrum of his behaviour.
So, does all of this sound pretty normal, or something that is worth talking to nursery about in more detail and perhaps looking at some sort of assessment?