4 year old issues, fab but hyper...

[oopsadaisyme]

My 4 year old is fab, over confident, sings, dances, knows his days of the week, numbers, can write his name, just brill - not starting school till sept, but he's a sept baby and nearly a year older than some starting, and it really shows.

Have brought him up on musicals as I love, from Les Mis to Wicked to Little shop of horrors, he can sing you songs from all and in accents,

He's wonderful, but I'm bringing up now on my own, and taking out has become a nightmare - even shopping he will run off and shout at people, checkout awful - tried to take out with my older son for a meal and just threw meal everywhere, he's just awful when around other people, and I don't know how to make better???

[AwfulMaureen]

Hmm. He sounds delightful but the hyper stuff must be hard on your own...does he eat well? What does he drink? Much processed food?

My DD is just 6 and she was very hyper....also bright....I noticed that even if she had the smallest glass of squash, then she went nuts so I stopped her having ANY refined sugar.

That means she can't have cakes from packets, no squash ever....jelly is a no no.

I do let her have home made cakes and for a treat, chocolate as it's one of the least processed sweet foods and seems to affect her less...but only on Fridays!

She has a mini muffin in her packed lunch...I make them myself.

[willitbe]

Randomly came across this post, have you tried firm boundaries and giving him things to do when out and about?

For instance as he is so bright, when out in the shops, get him to have a mini shopping list and find certain items, to put them in the trolley etc. If he is bright, he might just respond to being given specific tasks to keep him occupied.

Bright children sometimes need to be given tasks and activities to help.
Firm clear boundaries, ideally with clear consistent consequences for certain extreme behaviour (pick your fights carefully!). Making sure that any threat of a consequence is always carried out, as any inconsistency will lead to further misbehaviour! Rewards for good behaviour too.

Using the traffic light system, can work well. Or what about reward chart for good behaviour?

These are just some random ideas.