To be worried about my son’s emotional development

[AlertEagle]

My child has just finished year 2, school report was great but had a meeting with school to talk about his emotional wellbeing at school. Teacher said he gets upset easily and cries, struggles with friendships. She says some days he is absolutely fine but most days he struggles with his feelings. He can be mean to friends and when they are mean back to him he runs to the teacher to say they don’t want to play with him when in reality he’s the one who’s starting things and ends up in tears. School thinks it’s attention seeking and emotional disregulation. He went to a holiday club this past week and they said at times he argues with other children and perceives the situation as in someone is being mean to him when in fact he is also being mean. For example he refused to hold a child’s hand then decided he wants to hold his hand, then the child didn’t want to hold hands anymore so he told an adult the child is being mean to him which isn’t true. I’ve watch him play with other children and he can be just fine and play nicely but the moment someone does something he doesn’t like he struggles. For example there was a child who joined the big swing he was on with his friends and the other children started saying swear words to everyone, my son asked him to get off the swing and the child said no. I said you get off and you can come back later he said no he is swearing he should get off not me.

another examples there is a girl who bosses children around and that triggers him. He’s constantly shouting at her to stop and leave him alone. Another girl takes things from him and runs around wanting him to chase her and he doesn’t like it he ends up shouting at her to stop as well. When this happened I told him just let it go don’t chase her don’t pay attention to her go play with someone else, she’s not very nice. Another mother overheard and said it’s my son being mean by shouting instead of saying nicely, I told her he did ask her to stop 3 times and she didn’t.

He doesn’t have any send so I don’t have any support from school but constant telling of how he is doing at school.

oh and another examples there was a kid kicking my son my son asked him to stop he didn’t so my son shouted at him then the teacher turned around and told my son off for shouting I saw the whole thing and told her what happened she said she will tell the others kid parents.

so far I’ve told my son to walk away when he feels he will shout at someone. He promises me all the time he will be a good boy but every time it ends up with teacher telling what’s happened. I feel like walking on eggshells

Honestly op don't over think it. Model good behaviors, don't let him rule the roost at home. Lots of good advice on here.

But also - tell him he must do his work when the teacher asks! Focus on obedience at home. He's beyond the toddler stage where you distract or offer choices to get them to do things, a school aged child has to learn to do as they are told.

He’s either Autistic or has ADHD or both. Get him assessed.
This is laughable. OP is describing behaviour that is really normal in a child that age, especially an only child, and is also very influenced by how you parent. You cannot arm chair diagnose neurodiversity from that! If it was an older child behaving this way, perhaps, but not a child this age.

This. I'd look at asd.

Yes I’m lost at it because school identified this but didnt offer support they said there are children who need supp More than him and cant help him atm

They are telling you because you are the parent and its your job to work on these sorts of emotional and social skills at home. As they say - other children need support more than him, that should tell you these are mild behavioural issues that it would be helpful to correct through you helping him at home, not SEN warranting school intervention.

Schools aren't qualified to tell if a child has asd or adhd and frequently miss it in children who don't present very very obviously. That said if you don't feel it is I respect that. No one is diagnosing I hope, just suggesting it's a potential issue and something worth looking into.

Think of it this way op. Imagine that the situation here is maths skills and not emotional skills.

The teacher might feed back to you that DS is inconsistent on number bonds to 10. Nothing to worry about, but practice at home would help.

There might be children in his class who are naturally able at maths, who grasp number bonds to 10 with little effort. There might be children who don't grasp it so easily, but who have parents who tend to play lots of number games and things anyway, so they've improved through practice.

You'd go home and work on his number bonds at home, right? You wouldn't immediately think "omg he's got dyscalculia & learning difficulties", you'd just think he needs a bit of help on this.

This is the same, but for emotional skills. Some children this comes naturally to. Some live in homes with siblings where interactions with other children happen more and earlier and they get more practice of what to do.

Your DS just needs a bit more help with this. It does not mean he has SEN or autism. The teacher would be flagging that and suggesting assessments etc if she thought that.

That's interesting. What are the school doing to support him with his social issues? My daughter is on an ILP. She has targets and they have strategies to support her. For example she is doing more work in small groups and pairs. She works better with a smaller group. She has set roles in the classroom. She is doing mindfulness techniques at school. It's just deep breathing to help her regulate. If she says something she shouldn't they ask her to reflect and think about how she could say it differently. It's no good telling him off but offering no support to change things. A SALT could help with his social communication. I'd push the school to offer support to build friendship groups snd reflect on interactions.

Despite saying you understand the teacher’s concerns - the rest of the post makes it sound like you see him as the victim most/all the time. That is probably why he sees himself as the victim all the time. I think you have two sets of tasks to do here - (a) he could do with some better resilience when things don’t go his way (including when another kid is actually mean to him) - try helping him to find other solutions that will work for him without being you being nasty about the other kid involved eg do you really want to play on that swing right now or would it be just as fun to run around with your ball; and (b) helping him realise sometimes he is the one hurting others and it doesn’t mean he is bad but it does mean he’s done something not nice (I make my 24 month old say sorry when he pushes his sister even though she is absolutely fine).

I’m a children’s professional- this is one of the traits we’d focus on when querying neurodivergence. OPs son might not be upending tables or biting, kicking, scratching others or stimming in the corner somewhere but if he’s neurodivergent, then he’s neurodivergent and his difficulties will likely become more pronounced as he gets older. Ffs, stop trying to pretend you’re a professional and know better.

Yes I asked him about the incident with the child and the hand holding. I said why didnt you want to hold hands and he said because the child was pulling his hand to get out of the line and the adult had to tell the other child off, so the other child got upset because my son told on them and they didnt want to hold hands anymore and my son was upset they dont want to hold his hand anymore. But the adult said because my son didnt want to hold their hand first he shouldnt be upset.he goes to 2 clubs one is swimming the other is football he is fine there no issues.

This stuff is a parent’s not a schools responsibility to work on with their children. Luckily you also have much more power to guide your son’s character than school ever will.

The issues with him aren’t consistent they dont happen every day but usually the teachers takes him to a small corner to stop crying. He doesnt lash out or hurt anyone. She said he listens when she talks to him and does what she asks him to do.

I dont have the power when he is at school

And you stop clinging onto every little thing and over diagnose children who turn out to be just fine when they become adults

dont see him as a victim i posted those examples to show how he reacts to challenging behaviour. I did a role play with him and asked him what could he do differently instead of shouting stop or crying he said he could just walk away. I know its easier said than done, we will work on role play and using calm voice no shouting.

Yes I absolutely tell him when he is wrong and why and how our actions can hurt others. I also said to him we cannot change how people treat us but we can change how we react to them.

Thats why i posted for some help and advice not for people to tell me asd, adhd and its my fault for everything. Its very easy to judge a stranger online I posted for support. Im a single parent, work a lot everything is on me its my job to help him i posted for support.

Role play situations so make him the person who hand wouldnt be held and you be him. Then ask him how it felt and show him how he could have reacted differently

He is used to having things his own way and doesnt like it when he doesnt get it

Social stories around sharing, taking turns, being unkind etc could work too

Also discourage tattle telling and work on how he can resolve situations himself

I would suggest Beavers/Cubs for your DS. Not just football/swimming. He needs to do less structured stuff which builds social skills and resilience. Sometimes they go away on camps etc, this can really help with resilience building once the child is ready. Whole of life is figuring out the social stuff, especially later on at work. The more you work on these skills now, the better.

For indoor stuff, group Lego clubs where they have to work together to build (if you have something similar locally).

If you're a single parent then yes of course his emotional development is all down to you. Yes, its fucking relentless.

The comfort that can be taken from 'its all my fault' is that it's all within your power to change.

A single parent with a single child is going to have very different parenting challenges to a single parent with 3 children.

He's used to having the adult deal with issues that arise for him because that's always been his default. You might need to change a few things to help him.

Sounds pretty normal, young children are self centred and see things only from their own point of view. Hopefully considering other people and seeing two sides of a situation come later. For some children it comes more easily than others, gently pointing out other people's wants and feelings helps, but it is difficult for young children to comprehend.

I said why didnt you want to hold hands and he said because the child was pulling his hand to get out of the line and the adult had to tell the other child off, so the other child got upset because my son told on them and they didnt want to hold hands anymore and my son was upset they dont want to hold his hand anymore.

See when he gives this response, you need to not really dwell on why it happens or the fact that he's upset by it, focus on teaching him he shouldn't have told on the other child? If someone is pulling, he just needs to let go of their hand if its hurting or say, please don't pull. If it's just someone pulling unconsciously as they turn to see another friend etc can he just be a bit tolerant of it or give them a gentle tug back into line? The key message he needs to absorb is to stop running to adults for everything and to learn to manage interactions with peers by himself.

Ask him why the other child might not have wanted to hold his hand - help him see that him telling on them & getting them into trouble over something not very significant, won't make them want to hold his hand

And honestly op, don't stress. Its really really normal for a child this age to be like this and there's lots you can do to help. My nephew was a bit bad for exactly the sorts of thing you describe, he sort of learned the hard way a bit, peers didnt want to play with him because he told on them any time anything happened that he didn't like. He realised eventually and learned to recognise how others might see a situation & then made some good friends.

Does the school have an ELSA trained TA who can do an intervention with him? You might also want to explore Zones of Regulation by Leah Kuypers. Can your son recognise and name his feelings?