Hi all! First time poster, long time lurker 😅
my DS is 3.5YO and keeps seemingly getting very overexcited and/or overwhelmed when around other children (and dogs!)
He only attends nursery for 2x 3 hour sessions a week as that’s all they have available currently, and has been attending for around 10 months.
He apparently used to just ignore the other children, or push them away when they tried to get involved with whatever he was playing with, and was very quiet, but now it’s like he’s finally got his confidence around them/nursery and takes playing a bit too far. It started with trying to cuddle them a lot, but today he started pulling hair and grabbing them (and we got to fill out a super fun incident report, yay)
Personally, I think it’s because nursery is still a bit of a novelty to him, so when he does go it’s like “OHMYGODIMSOEXCITED” as he attends so little he can’t quite get used to it, and he acts in a similar way around my MIL’s dog (who thankfully has the patience of a saint!) because we don’t see her very often.
Has anyone got any advice, or a bit of reassurance that it’s a normal part of development? As we want to help nursery all we can. His teacher doesn’t seem too concerned by it, thankfully, but I still want to nip it in the bud if I can!
also worth adding that we’re currently awaiting an ASD assessment for him, so any other parents of neurodivergent kiddos please let me know your experiences!!
TYIA!