My little boy is terrified about going back to school.

[postmanwatcher]

Ok my son is the youngest of three kids and in his first year in primary the teacher terrified him. She had a natural affection for the girls in the class but the boys were terrified of her. My little boy is a quiet child and was bullied by two of the louder lads in the class. When I went to speak to her she told me he needed to realise not everyone in life would like him! We stumbled through the rest of the year and started P2 positively. However he has learned very little in P1 and struggled academically. P3 he had a great teacher and she got him extra help and he caught up but suffered the stigma of being in Special reading group and while open bullying didn't happen he suffered stigma of that. Flash to now he's starting P4 on Monday and he's terrified. Sore tummy nightmares very emotional and crying a lot. He's worried the teacher won't like him. He's worried he can't do the work. He's worried about lunch time!

What can I do? I tried reassuring him until I'm blue in the face. Please give me as much advice as you can. I'm at my wits end.

Message the school and find out if you can take him in one day prior to starting to meet his teacher. Have a chat to him/her and bring them up to date with his school time so far.

LittleCandle the teacher is not going to be there on Sunday!

Ring the school early and let them know or ask send the teacher a note. Are any of his school friends nearby that you could ask to come and play on Sunday afternoon. Kids will often reassure each other.

Ok, you misunderstood what I meant. I didn't mean just exactly one day before I meant one day in general. I would have thought it was a pretty obvious solution.

Thanks guys. The school weren't up for a visit but I spoke to the teacher is will keep an eye out for him.
I have also registered on the school run app to see if I can help him solidify any work he does in school so at least that's one thing less for him to worry about.
My mother seems to think DS is far to clingy with me and that is making him anxious in school. I really don't know what to do to help him.

My DS is yet to start school, but as someone who left school when they were 13, and started this when I was 10 I can try give help as best I can.

With me I suffered really bad anxiety and panic attacks as a child, started as I thought someone was picking on me in assembly (in reflection it was a comment made, but I made it worse for myself and refused to go into assembly from there, into not going at all).

Sounds like this has spiraled a tiny bit, and the more it spirals, the more it gets out of control (or it did with me anyway, he could very well right it himself).

Listen to him, tell him to talk to you and reassurance is key (my parents didn't do this and treated me like a naughty child). Have you bought him stationary ect yet? Maybe make a big thing of taking him to pick a new bag, new pens ect.

Hell probably find, the worst is going in but once he's there he relaxes more into it. Is there anyway you can have a chat with them and get teacher to check before he goes to lunch he's doing OK? But again it's making a big thing of it, if kids notice somethings going on they home in on it.

Maybe suggest as well end of the week he can have a friend over for tea? Give him something to look forward to.

Good luck, having been through this I feel for him not wanting to go, but make sure you really do listen to him and deal with it positively xx