My beautiful DS doesn't seem to like people!

[LauraGas]

Am at my wits end. I have a beautiful 3year old DS. At home he is chatty, funny, bright and seems happy. But he doesn't seem to like anyone outside of the immediate family. When we're with friends, or if friends come to us, he whines, screeches, clings to me and won't have any interaction. It's heartbreaking watching dear friends of ours (his godparents) who he sees very regularly trying to chat & play with him to his screeches of "noooo!". He has been going to nursery since he was 9 months old so I would have thought he might be a little better at interacting than he his. He doesn't really have any friends of his own age (outside of nursery)apart from our next door neighbours who are 3 and 4 and his reaction to them is to cling to me, whine, etc. We have just been there to drop in the 3 year old's b'day present and DS would not do anything apart from cling to me saying "Go home now". I worry on 2 levels - I am concerned that my beautiful little boy is going to be very lonely and also that the older he gets, his reactions will be seen as him being rude and bad mannered.

I feel like a complete failure as a mother as if somehow I have maybe treated him in such a way that he now seems so insular.

He's very young. He will no doubt grow out of it.

If he stays how he is, then yes, when he's 20 he probably would be seen as rude, but do not fear. He won't stay like this! He will grow out of it. When he's a teen and he's in the house so rarely that you keep a photo of him by the front door to compare before you let him in you'll look back at this in a totally different way

On a more serious and possibly more helpful note perhaps a good thing to do would be to invite people with small children over to your house (nursery playdates and the next door neighbours children) so that he can interact with children on his own 'turf' so to speak. Might make him feel more confident - as long as you are ready to intervene in any sharing 'issues'

And most importantly, unless you've kept him locked up and tasered him every time he looked at another human being, you haven't done anything to 'make' him like this. don't doubt yourself.

I have no advice only to say that DD has just turned three and for some months now has not been happy with visitors to our house. Says to them "bye - bye" and basically whinges until they leave. I am at a complete loss as to how to cope with it. I just explain to her how rude it is and then just ignore her but it is an uncomfortable situation all round. I just hope she grows out of this behaviour.

Good advice from Hecate.

I would add that I wasn't happy with selected visitors as a child of 3/4 - I remember it myself, not because my mum has told me I was like that (I have a long memory!)

From what I remember, I just took a dislike to some people. Don't know why. Didn't last I am happy to say and by 5/6 I was fine with them.

I do think that I was a little bit shy as a child unlike my confident older sister. Also, my sister was at school when I was at home pre-school and I felt a bit exposed without her around to protect me.

Also, I felt under pressure to "perform" in some way. I preferred watching rather than joining in initially, perhaps your DS is the same.

Could you give your friends a small gift to give to your DS when they visit, particularly something interactive like say, Fuzzy Felt? this then takes the pressure off general chat and playing and gives a shared focus to your DS and your friends as they can explore the game together. Sort of the back way in as it were.