I'll keep this a short as I can!
DS is four, and has been at nursery for the past year. He is a very chatty, bright boy at home, his vocabulary is great, he is beginning to understand reading, knows all his numbers colours, has an incredible memory. He is also very, very stubborn, and a total drama queen, but can be teased out of it.
The nursery raised concerns about him last year, and are now doing it again. When he is there, he is very quiet, and doesn't play with others, preferring to play alongside, doing his own thing. They say he "zones out" and he is frightened by too much noise or too much happening all at once (sports day in the school hall was a nightmare)
They want us to refer him to an educational psychologist. They won't say exactly what it is they think, but my impression is that they think that there is a diagnosis needed, and that there is something wrong with him.
The way I see it is, that he has never been that interested in other children, but is perfectly sociable with adults that he knows, and his cousins when they come here. He plays with his little sister, they are very close, and play together a lot (she is 2) He understands sharing, he understands other peoples emotions, he checks out how people are responding to him.
The zoning out thing - I do it, my father does it. When we are concentrating, we completely block out the rest of the world and don't hear anything. Its actually very useful. Also my DS is clever, and as I have said stubborn, and has worked out that if you pretend you haven't heard an instruction, you can ignore it. He does it at home, and when you call him on it, he giggles, so we know it is deliberate.
He is timid, not sure about new things, and not physically brave, but then neither am I.
The nursery are being quite pushy about this, and say that if we do not act now it will damage his education. I feel like they are trying to label him for being a bit different. I alternate from worrying that something is really wrong, to being angry that they are spoiling my enjoyment of his childhood by making me anxious. I don't want him labelled unless it will carry a benefit for him. I think he's just not very sociable. Its a family trait.
WWYD?
(thanks, sorry its so long!)