Since my 5 year old started school last yr they’ve developed quite anxious behaviours at times. He never had any issues like this before (he was in nursery from being 1yo).
He tells me he has ‘worries’ and I offer to talk about them if he wants. Some of these are worries I expect from a 5yo, monsters under bed, are ghosts real etc.
But others seem really niche. They’ve done a lot about ‘the pants rule’ at school and we also discussed at home as there were some ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’ behaviour in the toilets involving a lot of kids. He seems to have took these talks at home and school so seriously that he is overly cautious and almost frightened. An example would be we walked into the toilets at soft play and a child was on the toilet but left the door wide open, we just went into our cubicle, but he was terrified that he’d seen the child on the toilet and it almost plagued him for the rest of the day. He also had a day not long ago where he was terrified cos he thought he was going to ‘swear’ (the word ‘idiot’).
We talk through each worry and I try to be as breezy as I can, whilst still taking it seriously as a worry. I’m really sad that he seems to be struggling. We never shout at him and we always try to have open conversations but there have been times where we’ve had to tell him if certain behaviours happen there would be quite big consequences. I think between us and school we’ve scared him and I don’t know how to bring it all back into the realms of normality.