Reply to Anxious and introverted four year old won't participate in anything

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Reply to "Anxious and introverted four year old won't participate in anything"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Honestly [b]OP, in the nicest possible way, it feels like you're overwhelmed and frustrated and you want him to just do a dropoff sport already because you've got your hands full with three kids and need a break. And he's probably picking up on that and it's contributing to the separation anxiety[/b].

You need to maybe ratchet down your schedule and reduce your stress level overall. Yes he needs exercise, yes he needs to improve social skills, but right now team sports are not delivering on those goals. Stop beating your head on that wall and come up with another approach.[/quote]

This is really unfair and untrue. None of these sports are drop off activities. We stayed the entire time, right next to him, on the field or in the water. None of this is about "getting a break", it's about trying to help him. [/quote]

And when I say "drop off activities are better" I mean he has zero separation anxiety at camp and school, hunting right in. [b]This is about him not feeling confident to participate in physical activities like swim lessons.[/b] [/quote]

DP. OP. I think you need to think about how he can work on one thing at a time. Participating in a group is a skill in and of itself. He needs to work on that skill by itself: social skill groups are good places to do that. Learning to swim and participating in a swim class are, at least, two different skills. He should have a one-on-one for swim lessons (either parents or a private teacher) and then, when he has pretty good swim skills (could be years), try putting him in a class. Same with soccer or t-ball or whatever. First, he works on those skills in isolation at home with parents (or a teen coach) or whatever. Then, when he has some basic skills down, you join a rec team.

Both my boys got so much out of doing informal sports in the yard with DH. Throwing and catching footballs, frisbees, shooting baskets, kicking a soccer ball, etc. He mostly just focused on having fun and then would give them pointers every now and then. They started to think of sports as fun, and then wanted to do it with other kids. My confident but disorganized was much quicker to transition to "team" sports than my language delayed, anxious, uncoordinated kid, though. That kid has done much better with "team" sports on the playground, and then individual sports in the community (tennis, ninja, a little swimming).

It sounds like you don't have a lot to choose from in your area, so you may have to get creative. [/quote]

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