Another Sensitive Toddler

[revolver]

My son is 3 in a couple of weeks time. Generally speaking he's ok but when he's with other children it only takes the slightest thing to go wrong and he starts crying. Eg When we dropped him off at nursery the other morning he started playing with some plastic bricks. Another much smaller boy took one of the bricks off him and he burst into tears.

He's been going to this nursery since he was 6 months old so he's known the other children for some time. Most of the time he's happy and content and is a normal boisterous little boy but I'm getting concerned that he seems to be much more sensitive than other children of his age. Am I worrying unnecessarily?

Hi Revolver, Does your son get aggressive too? My DS1 is also nearly three (in a month). He is generally outward going and reasonably friendly, but has recently developed a sensitivity that is quite out of proportion to events going on around him. Infact, if I look back at the last three days, he has been having the crying-fest of the century -- a small fall resulted in 20 minutes of hysterical tears, he was almost in convulsions in a restaurant when the food came a little too hot for him to eat straight away, and he has been hitting/pushingover/generally abusing DS2 like crazy if DS2 walks by/touches any toy in the house/or even smiles. His playschool teachers also say he has been crying often and for very little apparent reason.
I'm just hoping he's going to be a little more normal tomorrow.....

Am I glad to read your messages! My son is three next week, and in the last two weeks has started crying inconsolably when I leave him at playgroup or in fact whenever he has to leave anything including his toys to have a meal. We did move house in the summer to a different part of the country so I was putting it down to getting over that little trauma, but perhaps it's a pattern of this age. He is also quite aggressive at the moment, sometimes towards his little sister and then us - this is not really in character but perhaps it's all part of the same thing as you suggest Lorien.
Have either of you got any techniques for dealing with this crying? I don't feel I'm handling it very well and was even considering keeping him back from playgroup for a while, which I'm sure is a backward step, but I've never left him crying anywhere before (he's always separated with no problem from 9 months) and it's not very easy!

Hi, Sorry for the delay in replying.

Lorien, my son isn't especially aggressive other than the fact that he likes a bit of rough and tumble but that's normal. Having said that the other day at nursery he made several other children cry by kicking the bricks they'd carefully built up.

In a bizarre way I found this encouraging because for once he wasn't the one bursting into tears, although I realise that this sort of behaviour shouldn't be encouraged and thankfully the nursery teachers told him off - which of course made him cry!!

Nosser, I certainly wouldn't keep your son away from playgroup as it'll only make things worse when he has to go back and I think that children benefit from spending time with others their own age. Leaving a crying child with someone else is one of the hardest things to do but the alternative means that your son will become more and more attached to you and will never gain any confidence.

As for dealing with tantrums our policy has always been to ignore our son and let him get on with it, even walking out of the room. He soon realises he's not getting any attention and after a short while gives up.

I have to say that your messages have given me a lot of encouragement. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with any of our children and that they're all just going through a phase.