I don't know what to do, I don't even know if this is something to be upset about but I've just spent the past hour crying about it.
I took my son to everything when he was little mum and baby, groups, football, karate, swimming, play dates, all the parties, thinking that I was building him socially, I slowly pulled him out of football , karate, swimming as he would just kind of shut down, not crying but just sit on my lap his face buried into my chest refusing to acknowledge anyone including me.
On the rare occasion an instructor could pull him away it wouldn't last longer than 5 minutes and he'd either be straight back to me or up against a wall sulking sucking on his fingers.
Then covid hit and everything stopped, after covid I've tried getting him back into clubs and except for swimming (which he does seem to enjoy) he's refused to do anything else I've suggested having some friends over that he's mentioned, but when they are here he ignores them and sits in his room. He went to a party a few weeks ago at a trampoline park and wasn't overly social but did speak to a few of the kids and mainly followed around one kid who he identifies as his best friend. And to be fair I was happy with this because he was happy playing even if some of it was by himself and he wasn't attached to me every minute.... fast forward to today and he went to a laser tag party, we walked in and the kids all said hi to him asked him to come and play and were lovely and once again he shut down just sat on my lap and refused to interact with the other kids or even the parents who tried to speak to him. I kept trying to get him involved in the laser tag or the basket ball game said I'd stay with him but he just wouldn't budge, I ended up getting upset and took him home.
I don't really know what to do the school doesn't seem concerned when I brought it up in the past as i thought it might have been anxiety, but they've always said he's happy to play with his group of friends and gets along fine in school and is a bit of a joker. He goes to after school club and I'm friends with one of the supervisors and even she said he's never like that in after school club either...so now I'm stuck with the issue being me and I don't know what to doa and need some advise ...please