Struggling with a sensitive child

[Cece87]

I of course love my son more than anything, we waited a very long time for him, but wow he is hard work sometimes.
He is 5yrs old.
He just cries at everything. If he’s cold, if someone gets the ball from him whilst playing football, because it hasn’t snowed properly here, because his tummy is hurting (which he constantly gets sent home from school with & once he’s home there’s nothing wrong with him) he’ll cry because someone doesn’t agree with him, he just cries, loudly and for ages at everything. Seeing his friends not react like he does is making us question everything. Is there something wrong, with him? With us?
Anyone in the same boat that can help?
TIA

Have you thought about food intolerance possibilities and ASD assessment?

These are both things that might help. We've been down the same chute and it gets easier when they are older and can explain what they are thinking.

It would probably be a really good idea to work intensively on his ability to articulate his thoughts and explain what he thought happened that caused the upset.

When my DC was very young he could explain "what happened" by role playing lego men. His perception of what happened was often very different from other peoples'.

Does he get a lot of attention when he cries? I think you probably need to work on confidence and resilience.

Be more matter of fact when he starts crying for silly reasons, ‘yes it’s cold, it’s winter time, do your coat up and let’s go’

’if you can’t play football nicely with the other children then you can’t play football today’ and take him home.

The tummy ache thing also sounds like he knows what works to get taken home so I’d talk to the school about that.

I’ve thought of an ASD assessment but I struggle to find any other reason apart from the crying. Otherwise he plays “normally”, is learning well at school, isn’t fussy with food texture etc. He did have a speech delay when he was younger, but that’s been put down to a hearing loss in one ear which he now wears a hearing aid for.

One of my nephews was just like that. He’s in year 11 and now grown into a confident sociable teen. He does have Tourette’s that was picked up quite late as in his case it’s more repetitive movement and tics than vocal so I wondered if neurodivergence came into it. He’s not overly emotional now though and is actually very caring and emotionally intelligent so I don’t think it has to be a bad thing.