We have a (just) 5 year old boy who I'm really struggling with at the moment. I keep asking myself if he may have autism or something of that ilk. We have 2 other children in the family; my almost-8 year old step-daughter and our 2 year old daughter. I'm expecting another little girl in a few weeks time.
My son is very different to the girls and always has been. He's hard work. He struggles with communicating (he can talk and met all of his developmental goals but he doesn't seem to be able to get his point or feelings across effectively, what he wants to say never seems to come out in a coherent sentence) and gets frustrated / upset / angry very quickly. He wails several times a day when things aren't going his way but generally can't tell me why he's crying. He cries way, way more than our toddler does.
He seems to be unable to show affection to anyone other than my husband and me. He won't kiss or cuddle his sisters or even our dogs. He won't say "hello" to people (even his grandparents) when they come round unless we force him to and even then, he won't make eye contact with them. We struggle to get his to say "thank you" when he's given gifts which I find extremely embarrassing. We have no such problems with the girls who are generally polite and charming.
He's had a bit of a tough time (I think) and my DH always puts his behaviour down to this; my DSD can be difficult / jealous and has picked on him since he came into the world. We've always intervened as soon as we've seen it happening and stopped it though. He had bad reflux as a baby until he was 15 months and lots of associated sleeping problems. He had to have quite a bit of surgery when he was 3 to correct a kidney problem he was born with. He's the youngest in his school year and although his teachers have said he's where he should be academically, he's struggled to keep up socially and behaviourally. My step-daughter comes and goes and his teacher did call us into school once as she was noticing he was at his most tense on the days my DSD was due to come back to my DH.
This summer we moved so he's just started Year 1 in a new school. He regularly asks for our old house back and says he wants to live there and go to his old school which I suppose is understandable.
We socialise a lot with other families so he has loads of opportunities to interact with other kids but when I watch him, I can see that his behaviour is different to that of the other children. He seems to be incapable of perceiving what is going on for the other kids or recognising the impact that his own actions / behaviour has on them. He often shouts over them and what he is shouting is often irrelevant or inappropriate to the game they're playing.
My main worry though is that he never really seems happy and it breaks my heart. He nearly always seems to be disgruntled or frustrated or distressed. When he is smiling and laughing, it tends to be when he's hyper and is usually followed by a massive melt-down.
My DH insists it's a discipline thing. I'm not so sure and have spent countless nights up reading about ADSD / autism / bipolar and God knows what else. I did speak to his teacher about my fears and she said she doesn't have any concerns about him and that he's just "young for his year" and a "boy".
Physically he's quite capable; top swimming group, really good at skiing for his age, happy to go on long walks etc. Not at all keen on team sports though - I took him to a group tennis lesson yesterday and he spent the fist 15 minutes crying that he wanted his Mummy and the last 15 minutes shouting very inappropriately the "boys won" when it was quite clear that the girls had won.
He sleeps well now (well he goes to sleep quite easily at 7pm each night but tends to get up very early) and has a healthy diet, plenty of exercise etc. He was quite difficult to toilet train and was still having 'accidents' until he was 4.5. By contrast, both of our girls were dry by 2.5 years.
I don't know what to do or if I'm making a mountain out of a molehill! I think he's a really unhappy little boy and I'm desperate to change that. Any thoughts or suggestions Mumsnetters?! Thank you.