5 yr old son, shy and anxious

[Blondenurse]

My 5 year old son has always been 'sensitive'. He is shy and worries about a lot of things. Although he went to nursery from the age of 2 and loves school, he won't try any new activities. He prefers to sit alone doing Lego. I'm worried that going along with this will set him up for a lifetime of fear and anxiety, but don't know how far to push him. He is signed up for swimming classes soon and I am dreading it because I know he won't go in the pool. I signed him up for lunchtime sports at school and the teacher asked me to stop sending him in his sportsgear because he wouldn't join in. I took him to mini tennis this wknd and he refused to go in. He wouldn't even go on a tag-along we hired recently, because it was different! He is a very loving and helpful boy, and really bright, but he has few friends and doesn't enjoy most of the activities that his peers seem to. My mum and brother both suffered terribly with anxiety and I don't want my son to go through that. I just want to help him get the most out of life :-/ Any suggestions?

There's a really good book by Dr Sears called something like 'your high needs child' It makes a lot of sense of all sorts of situations!

Thanks BlooCowWonders, I'll check it out.

hiya,

I would ask the teachers for some advice.

I would also take a step back on things like swimming, especially if this means being taught by someone different from his familiar teachers. I'm having great success with teaching my son to swim this summer. He is nearly seven. But when he was five, he simply wasn't ready to hold his breath and go underwater. The more I pushed him, the more he refused, and the more anxious he got.

This summer, he has said that in principle he would be willing to go to a tennis minicamp or a dodgeball camp providing his brother goes too. Last summer that would have been terrifying - so for us it's a question of patience and acceptance and being content to work with him at his level, not the level our neighbours' children are at.

It's really hard when other children take to new things like ---well like a duck to water and ours don't. But that is how things are, and pushing them won't change it. You have to go back, all the way back, to his comfort zone, and inch forward holding his hand. That's what I've found anyway.

I don't know if it helps but I was a really anxious child and extremely shy. I even remember crying at my own birthday parties when I was six or so because I didn't want to join in. I remember that crippling fear and unfortunately my ds suffers a little from this too.

All I can say is that I'm nothing like that now and probably grew out of it late teens or so. I'm pretty outspoken now and certainly no wallflower.

What I try and do is just encourage my ds to do as many activities as possible and if he doesn't want to join in I don't force the issue. At birthday parties it takes him at least 1.5 hours before he has the courage to join in and then it's nearly time to go home .

My dd used to be like this, it was emotionally painful for me to see her so anxious. We wanted her to do out of school activities like swimming so we did 1-2-1 lessons for a while which built up her confidence. Same with music and tennis. It's a lot more expensive but it helped a lot. Then we got a couple of her friends to join her 1-2-1 sessions and gradually built her up to going in to larger groups. It took a while but now she happily does swimming, dance, tennis and gymnastics in a group. It's hard but that is their personality and it's about boosting confidence while they are assured that they are safe and fine with other people. Now I am having problems saying no to activities as she wants to do everything!

Ah, thanks for the positive and helpful comments. Its reassuring to know that he will hopefully grow out of it. It is frustrating to see all of his peers doing extra-curricular stuff, but it seems pushing may make him even more unhappy. I will discuss with school in the new term and in the meantime stick with the cuddles and 1-2-1 play. Thanks