Looking for insights into my 4 year olds behaviour. For a few years now he has been extremely reluctant to do/try anything to the extent I'm now worried that he is starting to slip behind peers / seems very young for his age / just generally worried about his happiness and well being.
As examples: age 2 he wouldn't try his scooter, for 1.5 years just looked at it whilst friends whizzed around.
age 2-4 wouldn't try his balance bike. Literally touched it a few times, has never made any progress with it.
Age 2-4, has never and still won't try anything at the playground, will go on the smallest slide and the baby swing and that's it. If I encourage the larger slide / suggest he try the big boys swing he just freaks out.
Absolutely terrified of heights, won't try any activity that involves climbing. No bad experiences here.
Terrified of bouncy castles, won't try those. Hates soft play.
age 4 - wouldn't try his bike with pedals. eventually he rode it a few times, and actually made a bit of progress and then the next time we were back to square 1 and he just screamed and whinged when we tried to encourage him to try it again.
Won't go in a swimming pool unless clinging to a parent. just sits on the side splashing. Currently he's doing swimming lessons and is the only child not entering the pool after 4 sessions. He just sits on the side playing with the floats.
Aside from all these adventurous and supposed to be fun activities that he won't try, he is also completely (strategically?) incompetent with life more generally everything around getting dressed. He will not try to put on any clothes just wants me to do it, won't try to brush his teeth (just throws his toothbrush at me), won't try to learn to wipe his bum, won't put on his own shoes. He has started school this month and so I've been making a conscious effort all summer to try and upskill him a bit, and he just wants me to do it and generally just screams at me if I try to make him try. It's like his confidence is at rock bottom but I don't know why.
We have had some actual behavioural issues as well at home - hitting and pushing over little sister constantly, weeing all over the house and won't stop, spitting at me.
He's our oldest so all the phases he enters are new. however now that his sister is 2 and has basically overtaken him at everything in life bar vocab/talking, I am increasingly concerned. She is a real 'me do it' and it just stands her in such good stead in life and is such a lovely attitude to see.
On the plus side he - has a great vocabulary, speaks 2 languages, eats all sorts of different foods,can be great fun, can be affectionate (to an extent). But he really struggles socially and is only really happy at home / with younger children
On the one hand I feel I just need to allow him to be a child / meet him where he is. Parenting advice online seems to be to not try and push things and say he should listen to his body. BUT I want him to enjoy life, and develop normal life skills, learn to take a few risks. I am worried he is missing out on so much. For his birthday this year I didn't even know what to get him as a present as he just seems to hate everything we try to engage him in. I feel like i've tried backing off and he just then does nothing as a result (for months on end) and we see no improvements and he just gets further behind (not being competitive in terms of academic outcomes or anything, but just in developing normal skills!)
Does anyone have any advice?