First post here (sorry, a long one!) - looking for some advice or encouragement for DS who is 3 years 4 months.
He is wonderful in so many ways and we have definitely seen an improvement overall in lots of ways since the summer, but there are some things which remain challenging or have gotten worse. He can be so defiant and come across as rude in a way that I don’t notice with lots of other toddlers I know. He can refuse to say hello/goodbye, get deep into the “I don’t want” phases but said in a very whiny way, kick off about things like not wanting to eat something, leave the house etc - things which we know he likes. When he’s not ill or tired, this can be better but it never properly goes away. I was hoping that things would start be getting better now he’s nearly 3.5 but it lingers on. We have always tried to be positive, offer suitable choices, ignore negative comments etc.
He started preschool in September. Before that he was with a childminder. Preschool have referred for some SEND support and a paediatrician appt (won’t be for another year or so). At preschool, he struggles to share, started pushing other kids, behind on his social skills and struggles to listen. The childminder had commented on him struggling to share and listen, but not to the point that preschool have said. He was never aggressive until about a month ago.
Whether he has a diagnosis of anything or not, I don’t really care. It’s so far in the future still that we just want some help for him now. But on the diagnosis side, I’m on the fence whether he would get one. His defiance certainly is a problem and I do notice he is less bothered socially compared to peers, but he does watch them, do parallel play and spontaneously acknowledge them. With guidance, he can share and he knows the sort of things to say/ask peers - he just doesn’t do it. He has a one year old sister and he does try doing things with her spontaneously. He does have an awareness of other’s emotions but I do think he struggles to use the words to describe them. He likes routine but can break them fine. His passion is vehicles (trains in particular), but he plays with a variety of toys and does imaginative play (but it is mostly vehicle related). He does do things like line his toys up, but when you ask him about it, he’s making traffic jams that he’s used to seeing in our town. His speech has always been good. He does repeat some phrases, but it seems to be when he is processing what they mean and he talks a lot with original language, throwing in some of the phrases in appropriate places. His eye contact is good. Whilst he might struggle to connect with kids his own age easily, he can connect with adults fairly quickly. He’s good at making jokes. We never struggled with things like toilet training, sleeping through the night, eating (though he has gotten pickier), settling into childcare. Since speaking to preschool, we have definitely been worried about him and it seems to coincide a bit with him ramping up the defiance - he’s possibly picking up on our anxiety.
I wondered if anyone had any advice about things we could do to help him through their own experiences or if you had a similar child who worked through it and some of the challenges got better. We feel confident that he can learn a lot of things and will improve, but it all feels quite daunting and we just want to do the best thing to help him whilst he’s still so young.