I don't like lifts and will walk up 20 flights of stairs if I have to. Crowded rooms make me uncomfortable, too, although I can sing to a stadium full of thousands of people no bother.
It's depressing and scary, but he needs to know the world around him because he's fourteen now and in two years he's going to drive. He needs to know what goes on out in the world. I'm not going to always be there.