DS1 is nearly five, and will be starting Reception in September. In lots and lots of ways, he's a delightful and contented child - he's very bright, curious, and generally rewarding to be with. However, he is chronically shy/self-conscious, and as he gets older this is increasingly causing problems. His behaviour can be quite odd, but I will try to describe him as best I can! He doesn't relate all that well to other children - he can play very nicely with one or two other children that he knows very well, but is generally intimidated by groups. When we have children round to play (or we go on playdates) he really looks forward to them, but when he/they arrive he generally sits and plays on his own, always wants to stay in the same room as me, and often just lies on the sofa looking a bit stressed out. He's even developed some little 'coping mechanisms' like falling on the floor on purpose or pretending to be very busy with something, to give him a reason not to join in. He does usually warm up a little bit evenutally (not much!), but generally only once it's nearly time to go home. He's very much the same at parties and so on. He's particularly bad at saying hello/goodbye - when asked to do so, he completely clams up and no amount of persuading makes a difference. With adults he knows well, he's generally very good - loves talking to them - but he still finds hello/goodbye a problem (basically anything where he's effectively put on the spot), even with adults he sees every day like pre-school teachers. With strangers, he's frankly a nightmare. He cannot be prevailed upon to speak to anyone, really, in any situation, and just looks at the floor if anyone addresses him, which comes across as incredibly rude. It's not just interactions with people - his self-consciousness means he also hates any situation where he feels under pressure to make a choice, or draw attention to himself - so he will never enter a competition or a race or something (in case he wins!!) and refuses to be bought anything in a shop or given a sticker or anything.
When he was younger, people were quite indulgent of him, but now he's getting older I'm quite concerned about how people will react to him (which is such a shame, given what a lovely boy he is). It's got to the stage where I dread anyone coming and talking to him (eg offering him a sticker in the dentist or offering him a snack on a playdate etc), because I know how he will react.
I'm getting quite desperate now to help him adjust. I am quite aware that I am probably part of the problem - I am by nature quite a critical/perfectionist type person, and although I try and try to be patient and not to let him see this side of me, I find it very hard to maintain that all the time. If I get (unintentionally) cross with him it usually just ends in floods of tears and occasionally aggressive behaviour (which is very out of character), but trying to take it slowly and patiently hasn't done much good either. I'm not expecting him to turn into a social butterfly - I expect he will always be quite an introvert, with a small circle of friends - but I just want him to master the sort of basic social graces that you really need to get through life without people thinking you're very rude.
Can anyone help? Any thoughts or strategies from people who have been through something similar would be so welcome...