sensitivity in ds – help please

Alice, is your son an only child?  I babysat a really sweet 5yo boy from our church once or twice a week a few summers ago, and although my 3 kids enjoyed playing with him, it seemed to me that he was constantly complaining about them not sharing, playing too rough, etc.  It wasn’t that they were being mean or anything, just a slip-up here or there, some playful wrestling that got out of hand, and so on.

It sort of got on my nerves because my kids had gotten used to me telling them, “Don’t complain or tattle unless you’ve gone to the other person and asked for an apology.  If they don’t apologize, then come to me.”  (Kind of Matthew 18:15 for kids.)  However, another one of his babysitters, a woman from our church, told me she thought that a lot of his reactions/complaining was due to the fact that he was an only child (raised by a single mom).  Her thoughts were that, at home, the boy has all of his “stuff” to himself (no sharing/meanness/rough-housing issues) and he has his mom’s sole attention in the evening as she teaches him kindness and other virtues, largely through her example.  In his home, the expectation is of kindness and obedience, and there aren’t other kids around to challenge this expectation.

The boy in question seems to have outgrown much of this as he has gotten older and interacts more with other kids over time.  (He is now 9 years old.)

I don’t know if this correlates to your situation, but it was just a thought that crossed my mind.