I have a 4 year old boy (only child) who started attending reception in September. We decided to have him start school earlier because the nursery fees were too much for us to handle despite being full time working parents. Even with the 30 hour free childcare, we were still having to fork out a lot of money to pay for nursery fees hence we decided to have our son start school at 4 rather than at 5 years (if we could have started him at 6, even better).
There is a free school bus that picks up our son from the village. There are about 7 other kids that take the bus from the same stop and they all go in it together. Out of all of the families there, we are the new ones from the block. The other children are slightly older or about the same age as our son but they have older siblings who attend the same school.
The past month, Ive noticed that my son is pretty much left out of the group whenever the kids are waiting for the bus to arrive. He tries to engage with the kids sometimes but they leave him out. He now spends most of the time playing by himself. When I ask him if he wants to play with the other kids he says, 'No, I don't want to' nonchalantly and continues to play on his own. He doesn't seem bothered by it so I just leave him to it. I, myself, was like that as a kid. Even now, I don't really socialise with other parents. I say my morning greetings but don't actually strike up a conversation either.
Today, when the school bus arrived, I asked my son if he wanted to get on the bus with *Albert (name changed). He said 'Yeah, but can you tell Albert to stop pushing me because its not very nice'. I said, 'Ok but if Albert does it again, just tell him to not push you because its not nice.'
Albert and his mum got on the bus and so did we. My son's seat was at the very back and as soon as I sat him down and buckled him in, my son said, 'Mummy, can you tell Albert not to push me.' I looked at Albert and his mum who was buckling him in and turned back to my son and said, 'Ok but not right now because Albert's mummy is making sure he is safely buckled on his seat. Albert is also watching on his tablet so I can't talk to him at the moment.' My son said okay but in my mind, I was wondering how to approach this as a parent. I didn't know if Albert was actually pushing my son at school or in the bus and I didn't want to discuss this with his mum without knowing what was going on.
Thankfully, the teacher who always gets on the bus arrived so I quickly asked to quickly talk to him in private and brought up the matter as he was the one always present whenever the kids were driven to school and returned to the village. He immediately understood what I was talking about and cleared any misinformation. Apparently, the previous day, my son had sat himself down on a different seat (they all have their own allocated seats) and Albert was sat in front of him. My son had begun to kick Albert's chair and Albert did not like it so Albert started pushing his chair back (with his back) so to stop my son from kicking it. My son associated this motion as 'Albert pushing him' but it was actually Albert pushing the chair back so that he doesn't get lurched forward from the seat being kicked.
As a parent, I was really embarrased by my son's behaviour. Ive seen him 'hurry it up' push Albert and the other kid in front of him once on the bus when kids were getting off. When I saw it happen, I immediately called him to stop and he did. My son loves to play and he really does like having friends but his persistent tantrums at home, getting easily annoyed, has difficulty staying still and listening to certain topics, etc. makes me wonder if he is a bully in school and that's probably why he is being left out. My husband once told me that one of the parents was giving him and our son a dirty look when he picked our son up but my husband just ignored it. I don't want to label our son as someone having autism or ADHD because he is still only 4 years old. Im not ruling it out either because I have ADHD myself so its a possibility.
My husband and I love our son but we aren't ones to give in to his whims. We are strict and we implement rules and consequences at home when these rules aren't followed. My son hates being told 'no' but that's most kids. He just gets triggered by the word 'no' more intensely than others. I would like to ask his teacher how my son fares with playing with others as I did not manage to ask him that during the parent-teacher day. Im sort of wondering if we made the mistake of having our son start out too early and maybe he isn't ready. I don't know what to do. I don't want my son to be a bully and I don't want him being left out either.