"soft" 4 year old boy, any advice?

[ohbugrit]

He's sensitive, emotional, bright, enquiring, obsessed with winning and being the best, but anxious about physical challenges and lacking in confidence, for example with learning to cycle. He gives up or whines so never improves so loses faith in himself.

DH isn't one of these neanderthal homophobic idiots but he has zero patience with DS when he gets upset about things, says "no wonder he's soft" when I reassure or comfort him, eg if he's upset about losing a game. He's worried DS will be gay and doesn't want him to be. In my mind that's fair enough, to have private concerns for how DS's life might hold unexpected challenges if this turned out to be the case, but I don't think it's right to be hard on a wee boy who is sensitive. It's not like it'll knock any gayness out of him or something, FGS.

Sorry this is a bit rambling but I worry that DH will lose the fantastic closeness he has to DS by not loving him for who he is :(

I am off to bed but wanted to say thanks for all the help, advice and perspective given on this thread, it has been really useful.

Yes, pretty much all advice is to the contrary to my instincts and if I am honest that is the advice I would have given prior to having a child like this myself. His worst waking was 24 times before midnight and with me he sleeps (pretty much) straight through so it is a no brainer. It has been a learning curve for DH regarding his expectations but he has realised that all boys don't fulfil a certain stereotype and he is ok now. He took the kids trick or treating this year while I was working and ds2 (2.3 at the time) was wearing a witches dress in pink and black. I was super impressed!

Oh and my ds has never slept a night away from me.

Your husband does sound like a neaderthal homophobic idiot.
Does his reasoning go something like this: my son displays stereotypically girlish behaviour i.e. being weak, unwilling to confront, needy, which is fine in a girl but wrong in my son - this means he will aquire other stereotypically girlish behaviours as he grows up - this means he will be gay.

If so, you've got a lot more to work on that just this one point.

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I don't know, quirrel. I haven't spoken to him in depth about the gay thing beyond discussing that he's worried for DS if he did turn out to be gay. I think that because DS seems so gentle compared to his peers that's the only reason why DH is even thinking about it. It's something we will revisit but last night we were both tired and it felt more pressing that we discussed DH's short patience for what I feel are probably personality traits.

Meant to add, aviatrix, I never suggest the scooter, or the bike, or anything I know DS feels is hard. He requests the scooter and then doesn't actually want to continue when he remembers that it isn't easy. Which is the frustrating bit, but I will try to be neutral about it.

I totally agree with gobblygook's post.

I also wouldn't relate the lack of robustness to being gay, I find it quite an ignorant way of looking at things. Plus, again, we are talking about a 4 yr old, a very, very young child.

My son wasn't the bravest child ever at 4 yrs old. He was also very clumsy then. No way he'd have enjoyed using a scooter or learnt to cycle then. He learnt to cycle at six.
He is now 9 and a half and quite good at a good number of sports. But at 4 he wasn't just ready nor interested in many physical activities.

On the other hand, from what you write, your ds seem to be very mature emotionally, if he is happy to sleep at his aunt etc.

Ah, and I agree with Aviatrix that children don't need the amount of analysis we tend to heap upon them.

OP, my ds at 9.5 is still pretty useless on a scooter (though he likes using it now); but he is a great goal keeper, for instance

I am very happy with my sensitive, loving little boy who is not into boisterous play, fighting and football. He likes to talk and chat, he likes Starwars, lego and building stuff - he es very good at it. He is 6 and over Xmas he built a big lego model (for ages 9-14) with his dad.

We got him a bike with stabilisors at 4, he rode it once and said: no, I don't like it, I might fall off. He learned to ride a bike when he was 5. Now at 6 we got him a 'big' bike and he adores it.

When DS started school he seemed very nervous socially and didn't manage to make friends. It slowly improved and now in Y2 he finally has found his confidence and a good group of friends.

Give your DS time to find his feet and support him in whatever he likes or doesn't like. If your DH has that attitude he will make a very insecure and frightened boy out of your DS, who will not be able to brave the world - what's worse for a little boy than knowing his dad is not proud of him and thinks he is a 'loser'. Horrible thought!

I agree that your husband is the problem but that labelling him as homophobic is not especially helpful. The problem in my mind is the automatic (seemingly) correlation between a particular personality and some projected idea of masculinity. There is a little boy across the road here who sounds very similar, but it would not occur to anyone to suggest that this might translate into being gay later on (have you not met any hpyer-masculine, roidy horribly insensitive gay men?). Yes, so what if it does - but his behaviour is that of a sensitive child, not anything else. Not all boys are physically brave, they do get teased for it (my friend's wonderfully artistic boy gave up drwaing and now obsessed with sport aged 9, because this is how you find friends and acceptance as a boy :() and he might get called gay. Much of the challenge of having children is that they often have personalities that we find complex to handle.

I say all of this as a gay woman who knew (as did DP) at about age 6; I have dds and worry about a whole set of other gender stereotypes.

Awww your DS sounds lovely, tell DH to not be so redicukous'
He is 4!!! Yes he may not be a baby anymore but he'a still very young and some just need more mothering and reassurance than others .
And if he did turn out to be gay then so what?! I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure that that is something totally out of your control, how you treat him is not going to make an ounce of difference to his sexuality.
I've seen my DP do it with his 4 yo DS, if he winges he says 'shut up u girl' and I'll point out that he's only 4 and he'll say. 'yes exactly, he's 4 he shouldnt be so soft'. It does annoy me, altho he's not mine as a mother a want to give him a cuddle and mother him.