I have some concerns with my 5 year old son (6 in 4 months time, so Year 1 at school). This has been building for some time, to be honest I had a health visitor do a brief assessment (translated: at home questionnaire) when he was about 2 because of my concerns, but there were no issues as far as they were concerned. He's had an outburst tonight that has just left me feeling completely deflated and I don't know where to turn.
So as not to drip feed, he is a middle child of three - siblings are 2 years older and 2 years younger. He has a lovely group of friends at school, he does well academically, physically ok etc. His behaviour may have heightened recently as I have started work full time and he now has to attend after school club with his siblings.
There is no one thing that he does, but lots of little things, so I'll just try to list everything I can think of. He struggles to sit still, does not cope well with boredom (moans constantly), bites on his sleeves and is always chewing or putting something in his mouth. He writhes around on the floor at home constantly moaning about something, especially if he can't get his own way. Always seems to be focused on food and whatever meal or snack is next. Really struggling to regulate his emotions at the moment. A TA at his school mentioned to me that whenever he gets an award in class and stands at the front he never seems happy nor smiles about it. To note, the school have not raised any concerns with me at all. He's not really loud, not really quiet but generally a good student and does what is expected. Equally I know that sometimes kids can mask things and have an explosion of emotions when they're home in their safe place. Thinking about it he doesn't really tell us how he is feeling, even if we asked him he will shake it off or say something silly just to avoid responding properly. He is quite strongly attached to his Dad and often openly rejects me, almost to hurt my feelings on purpose it seems. He's now started answering back and point blank refusing to physically move sometimes. All he wants to do is eat and play his kindle it seems. Now, it doesn't help that the house was hit with covid over Christmas and so we were all stuck in the house for almost 2 weeks, which means he's had 3 weeks off of school and it's taking some time adjusting to a new routine. However, this sort of behaviour has got worse over the last couple of months. He's now refusing to go to any school clubs, doesn't want to go swimming anymore and even refused to enter the building for Beavers (his best friend was there, and his older brother was going with him too).
Sorry there is no real structure to anything I've said, and well done (and thank you) if you've got this far! Is there anything anyone would suggest? I'm happy to pay for anything privately if need be. Just so sad to see and hard to experience and navigate through. He's has been the most challenging of my 3 children but equally don't like openly labelling him as such. I'm fully aware we may need to adjust our parenting techniques too and there may be things we're at fault for/need to change.
Any help/advice welcome. I haven't approached the school yet as to them they won't have any issues of concern (I am in email contact with his teacher and have said previously that I had some concerns and she would let me know if there was anything she noticed etc).