Socializing The Bear

The Bear at his first day of Stay and Play at the Y - refusing to go in.

Firstly - the Bear is a completely different animal than Roxy. It's amazing they come from the same gene pool.

Secondly - maybe I'm just a paranoid Mom? I have this fear that if I don't nip this in the bud right now, he will have many years of expensive therapy in his future.

Me: Maybe he's antisocial. Maybe he's on the autistic spectrum. Maybe he's depressed. I'm probably just doing something wrong.
Chris: He's just different than Roxy. It doesn't mean there is anything wrong with him.

So, here's what I'm talking about... he's not real good around unfamiliar people. He makes everything difficult. He pesters. He gets things done by making others do them for him (future executive?). It's hard to get him excited about things.

He's okay at home where we pretty much (most of the time) know how to deal with him. But around other people, he doesn't really make eye contact or conversate much. I know he's 3 - but I've been watching other kids and he's just, well... different. We go to parks and sometimes he will play with other kids normally, sometimes he doesn't at all.

In an effort to thwart this before Pre-K starts less than a year from now - we've taken some steps to socialize the Bear to be a proper almost 4 year old. Most recently, we enrolled him in a 3 day a week/ 2 hour 'Stay and Play' at the YMCA. This week was our first week. The deal is that I drop him off at the Play Center (which at our Y is a kick ass climbie structure with slides and awesomeness) and he plays for 30 minutes - then the teacher gathers the children and goes to a classroom for the remaining 1.5 hours for crafts, snacks, stories, songs, etc.

So far he will not let me drop him off at Play Center.

So far he has screamed for Mommy for at least 10 minutes before he settles in. The second day, he didn't settle at all and had to leave early.

He leaves 'school' saying he had fun and can't wait till the next school day - but when we get there it's been a different story.

I will keep trying. I think every day it does get a little better. I just hope I'm doing the right thing. I pray for patience to deal with this kid every day.

My current doubts... Maybe I'm pushing him to do something he's not ready for? Maybe he's just meant to do other things and I'm not sure how to deal with his unique personality properly? Maybe I need different perspective. My worst fear is to mold my children into something they aren't meant to be.

At the very least - I hope he knows I'm trying.