The fact that your son does not ask for his pacifier when he is in the presence of other children is promising. I'm very confident that he will continue to outgrow his pacifier as time goes by and eventually give it up completely.
Since he uses it as a tool of relaxation, perhaps you can replace the pacifier with something else whenever he asks for it. A friend of mine would give her son a juice box each time her 3 year old asks for his pacifier. Another friend "sabotaged" her daughter's pacifier by poking a tiny hole in the teat. Her daughter gave up the "binky" after realising that there is no more resistance when she sucked on it. She threw it away herself because it didn't "taste the same". Alternatively, you could go the extreme route and just tell him that his binky went missing.
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