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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My 5 year old is both shy and extremely sensitive to perceived or actual slights by other children.  If another kid pushes him or says something unkind, unlike most kids, my DS has a hard time asserting himself as well as letting the incident go....and it will ruin his whole day.  The difficulties are more likely to arise in unstructured settings....like recess.  Summer camp was really hard for him as every day a kid said or did something... I talked with the camp multiple times and at the end, they were basically supervising him the whole time to make sure nothing happened.

We work a lot with him on how to assert himself when other kids are unkind.  We talk with him when he is upset and work through any distortions in his thinking about whether an action by another child is really purposefully mean or is there another explanation for the behavior.  We have him enrolled in martial arts to boost his confidence so he can feel good that he can defend himself.  Right now I have him at a small private school and so the teacher can assist when there are any difficulties and thus, he has had a great year.  I am looking to reduce my work schedule so I don't have to put him in camp all summer and just a few weeks instead.  Unfortunately, due to finances, we will have to move him to public school next year, and I feel there will be a lot more difficulties with peers, because of the number of kids to staff ratio.  Please let me know if you have a similar situation and any advice [/quote]

OP - my son is very similar. He always hated summer camps. He struggled a great deal in the very good public school he attended from K-4th grade. The level of supervision and personal attention is more akin to summer camp than private school. There a lot of kids and not enough teachers and time in the day to give your son the reassurance and protection and personal attention that he needs. I am so sorry to say this, but it was a huge problem for us, heartbreaking to watch, and ultimately drove us to private school. Private school has been a life saver. I wish we'd known to do it sooner. If there is any way you can keep him in his current setting where he is happy, I highly recommend that you consider doing that. [/quote]

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