My little boy is really struggling with preschool. He's summer born, so one of the youngest. At home he is chatty, happy, plays with his friends, goes exploring - no issues. He's gone from going into preschool nursery (attached to his future primary school) sad but ok, to sad and nearly crying, to full blown kicking and screaming and then spending most of the 1.5 hour session alone on the reading mat not letting anyone come near him (trying to hit anyone who did). My gut is that five mins of crying on drop off is to be expected, but that over an hour of sustained distress is not healthy. He's not been to nursery before (but has been to a lot of stay and plays with me and play dates). He doesn't have to go, I just thought it would be helpful to make friends before reception starts. But he's so distressed and clingy when he's back (normally he's very confident) that I'm thinking I should pull him out and reattempt for reception when he's a bit older.
Please help, I'm very upset at how much he's struggling.