Our DS is getting a lot of rejection at his pre-school. Kids won't let him sit next to them and some of the boys say out loud, "Yay! He's leaving!" when his mother comes to pick him up.
Yesterday he said that he makes "different reality" for himself while he's there. I asked him if it was a safe place to be and he said yes, quite emphatically. He said he uses it only sometimes, but it goes a long way to explain why he can appear unfocused and unresponsive to the carers at times.
He tends to to join the girls games (I think because they talk more) and has limited success and even less with the boys.
It's tough being different!
I think this requires an immediate visit with his teacher(s). No child should have to disassociate in order to survive a day at school. My immediate thought when reading your post is "Where is the teacher?!" Not only is your son being put in an unhealthy situation, but the other kids are learning that bullying is okay. The teacher needs to be made aware and together you need to come up with some solution to this particular problem.
As far as the potty training goes, I'm glad to hear it's getting somewhat better. I like the idea of just matter of factly (with confidence) stating, "It's time to go potty now." You don't ask, you just announce it. I also like the idea of, at the beginning of some day, you having a conversation with him about him being ready to use the potty all the time now, that cleaning up an accident takes a lot more time away from his activity than just getting up to go to the potty, and that he will need to clean up (put his clothes on top of the washer, use a washcloth, get a new set of clothes) when he does have an accident. Don't say it like it's punishment, just like now's the time to do it, you know he's ready for it, and that you will be there to help him as he learns to do it for himself. Also, I think if you say that it takes less time away from his activities if he just goes in and sits down and goes immediately rather than sitting there forever, that might be helpful. In that regard, I wonder if he's actually being rewarded for sitting on the potty and not going by the fun math problems. I know that my DS will go into the bathroom for an hour just because that's a peaceful place to read. Maybe try to reward him with the math problems after he goes. Or, alternately, to get you out of the process more, what if you gave him some math to do on his own (can he do that at 4?) while he sits there, without the direct interaction with you? Just throwing out some ideas -- it can be tough!
