unreasonable behaviour???

[snat]

Hello, I have a 3 and a half year old son who is fantastic in every way but his timid/sensitiveness/wussy behaviour is driving me mad. He has always been a very clingy child and is always wary of strange places, which i know is a good thing in some ways. My problem is that he will not use public toilets for fear of the hand dryers, he runs inside the house if he hears a plane or big vehicle on the roads (these are not loud noises), he has a splinter at the moment which is sore on his thumb but he almost fainted yesterday at the thought of me looking at it properly, he was hysterical. I understand that all these things may have some normalalities about them but its the level of his anxiety that worries me. He goes to nursery and he is sociable but I fear for when he starts school. I just wanted to see if anyone has any opinions on whether to contact HV's about this behaviour at this stage?? Thanks in advance x

Ds isn't clingy but hates the hand driers. Lots of children do.
I wait until they're asleep for splinter observation and extraction.
Obviously I can't tell how distressed he gets on these things but they sound perfectly normal to me. Ask nursery. You may well find he copes with them fine in that context.

Go easy on him. He's 3 and a half, and he's sensitive. My son was just the same at this age. The good news is that at 4.5 he is still sensitive but his reactions to the same things have moderated considerably and he has developed coping mechanisms. At 3.5 he would refuse to do stuff or scream or run away etc etc, at 4.5 many of these things are not even on his radar anymore, and he readily says stuff like "I used to be afraid of hand driers, I'm not anymore but I don't want to use it".

Try to support and should think he'll be more "normal" like my son by the time school starts.

Thank you. Feeling slightly less anxious about it this morning. I just hope that is the case for him.
x