Please Help! My 6 year old's behaviour has taken a dramatic turn....

[Sophieishilarious]

First time poster. Looking for genuine advice from any parents who have encountered a similar situation please....
As title states, our 6 year old DS's behaviour has effectively changed, overnight in a dramatically shocking way. Background and history - at school he is a bright and happy boy seems to love it and meeting expectations for his age so all good there. BUT his behaviour has been flagged to us by teachers in recent times for distracting people at school and sometimes arguing in the playground (poss emotional dysregulation). We had noticed this a little bit at home - but it was nothing beyond what we believed you would expect of a 6 year old boy. Also background, 8 months ago we welcomed a new sibling into the family, making him a big brother.
Cut to these current Christmas holidays. In the last two weeks DS has become a COMPLETELY different child, behaviour wise and mood wise. He can be totally normal and articulate, engaged and happy one minute, then the next minute with no real trigger to speak of, he flips and has a major mood swing that involves hitting us, screaming in our faces, digging his nails in until we bleed and spitting in our faces, saying he hates us and damaging things in the house purposefully - this is all elevated behaviour, something we have not seen from him on this scale ever before. These situations last anything from 5 minutes up to 90 minutes and it can take ages for him to calm down. To give some examples in just the last week alone : Daddy was tidying up the kitchen and put Christmas present money in an envelope that was his, so it didn't get lost....he hated the fact his money was touched and threw keys at Dad's head. Yesterday, he lost the soap in the bath and got so angry about it that he poured water out of the bath, threw it up the walls and flooded the place until everything was dripping, it was unreal. Tonight I don't know what the trigger was at all, but he was furious after dinner and basically hit me at bath time, purposefully wee'd on the floor instead of the toilet, screamed and spat in my face then proceeded to trash his bedroom - took about 1 hour to calm down. After all these instances, he will eventually calm down and say with remorse 'I'm really sorry Mummy that I hit you...and I threw X at you' etc so he seems to sit with it for a while, then apologise. After he's calm, he riverts bac to his normal happy self and you would never now anything bad has happened. Best way I can describe it is...a real Jeyll and Hyde moment.
What am I asking for? I am wondering if you have encountered similar behaviour, which feels like it has come out of the blue. I can't stress the out of the blue bit enough. He's SO incredibly hard to manage right now and I'm really worried about returning to school as he has become so different in these holidays. I keep racking my brains as to what this SUDDEN CHANGE could be... could it new sibling related? could it be ODD? We are currently in the early stages of investigating with a doctor to see if he has ADHD due to school concerns, but his behaviour has changed so dramatically since we saw the doctor about poss ADHD (only 5 weeks ago) this new behaviour feels like more of an immediate issue. He is being violent towards us but not his baby sibling at this point. He is not self harming but keeps saying we don't like him, which is new. We are a really loving family so this language is also a shock and makes me really sad. We've tried punishment, ie. 'don't throw that please else I wont take you X' and followed that through which cues more anger. We've warned and said we will have to remove favourite toy and done that....we've also shouted. We've also tried the calm approach, none of these work. He is the only one who can calm himself down when he is ready. We really need to get his behaviour under control immediately and get to the route of the issue. Is this behaviour familiar to anyone?

Would appreciate any helpful thoughts...... Thank you!

@LOttyered great q's thank you. Well it was a private appointment in a doctor's office and I specifically asked do we bring him for the appt prior to going, to which he told me he must come. It didn't sit right for me, knowing fine well my DS is switched on, it felt cruel to me. He did involve him to ask him various questions which he got correct. Ever since that appt 6 weeks ago his behaviour has gone downhill - but then in the last 2 weeks as I say a completely different child who can literally flip like a light switch....then immediately (once calmed down which can take a while) come back and be bright breezy and happy and apologise about what he just did. He really can go from 0 to 100 in a split second and cant get out of the anger rut. In the last few days I'm watching everything, watching what I say and today alone I think I headed off two explosions by my careful language and distractions! Essentially I think its emotional dysregulation on a major scale which needs help.... right now.

We don't think it is ASD as doesn't have late speech, any problems with routine. Yes he does clubs too.

Hi OP, my son is ND and does an eye blink / stare / roll stim when feeling under pressure. It started during lockdown and comes back at times of stress. He also makes a lot of auditory stims such as singing, tapping, humming, sometimes sniffing or throat clearing. He enjoys sensory squish toys and focusing on special interests to regulate. He's older now but we used to have some intense episodes of anger and distress
It helped me to read about ASD (in his case) and I can empathise and understand more what he's going through. It may help you and your son to look into ASD traits and behaviours, even if you don't want to pursue a diagnosis.
I hope the advice on here might comfort you. He's still your lovely boy but may be struggling a bit with everything right now. Try not to let it overwhelm you. Empathy and understanding are powerful tools for you to try. Good luck!

None of the interventions for ADHD really work unless the child is medicated, so it's all just delaying tactics really, mainly because the media have done such a brilliant job of consistently drip drip demonising ADHD meds over the last ~25 years so parents are terrified of it. If you're under doctor care then they will want to find a profile which has minimal or no side effects. Don't scare yourself googling, let the doctors do their job in explaining this.

That said though you usually need symptoms consistent over 6m+ for ADHD, so if it's come on suddenly, it might not be that clear cut. Unless the symptoms were there previously but not as obvious/severe? e.g. he could have always had ADHD but was fairly happy with his life/had his differences accommodated well until the new sibling was taking up more of your time and attention combined perhaps with a very punitive model at school - you say yourself this approach doesn't work well for him, and IME with ADHD you can get a sort of "snowball effect" very quickly where the child becomes dysregulated, adults try to manage this as behaviour which just leads to more dysregulation and more behaviour and it can get quite quickly out of hand especially if the pattern is being exacerbated at both home and school.

I agree the assessment process can be quite brutal on kids - if at all possible, I would always try to take two adults to any appointment so he can be taken out of the room when you are discussing his difficulties so he doesn't have to hear. Or ask in advance whether they actually need to have him present at the appointment. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't, it depends what information they are expecting to gather.

Late speech isn't necessarily a thing in ASD btw. I and my eldest son were advanced talkers and we're both autistic.

@SalmonOnFinnCrisp thank you and I like honesty as long as it's kind, ha! Well I think the school does have an oppressive element to it the more I think about it!

A key thing I should add - a few weeks ago they put him on 'reward charts' so we can see how he is in each lesson - but he knows they are behaviour charts - they talk them through with him end of day - and he said to me Mummy I dont want to be on these charts I want to be like my other friends' ....and I think...we are paying the school to make our DS feel like this. (!!!!!)

Half the time I find myself thining if we were at another school I dont thin we would have been pushed to go for an ADHD diagnosis. It could be that school is exasberbating everything for him. One of my teacher friends thinks its awful. It's SUCH a complex situation and is driving me utterly mad and you just want to do the right thing for your child.

@Frannyisreading thank you for your thoughts. Yes! He really is SUCH a wonderful boy we love him so much, he's a very happy and fun boy - I know he is clearly struggling going through something, we just desperately want to do whatever we can to help him. I also feel the school at the moment doesn't deserve him, but that's another thread....!!

@BertieBotts yes I asked weeks before the appt, but the doc was adamant he should come and if it's your first rodeo ...you trust the doctor's judgement and call, right...but I do think it could have been handled far better, as children are switched on!

Agree with your thoughts on meds and the media and the 'snowball effect' - that makes perfect sense to me. Appreciate your thoughts on this!

One of my daughters wasn't diagnosed with autism until she was 15. Her younger sister had been diagnosed seven years earlier, so we thought we knew what autism looked like, but we didn't really understand how it presents in so many different ways.

I am not suggesting your son is asd - I'm just saying, don't discount anything atm.

If you can, I would suggest you get him assessed by an educational psychologist, speech and language therapist and sensory therapist. This will give you the most information about your son. The therapists will pick up on anything that suggests adhd or asd and you can then progress this with appropriate professionals. But the reports themselves will give you lots of info.

I did this re my younger daughter. I took advice from an educational charity called SOS!SEN which gave me details of appropriate therapists to use.

But re private v state, if you are in a private school that's not delivering useful help, it will be difficult to get them to change their tune. If you do switch to state, I would suggest a bigger school with lots of resources and experience.

😢😢😢😢😢

A key thing I should add - a few weeks ago they put him on 'reward charts' so we can see how he is in each lesson - but he knows they are behaviour charts - they talk them through with him end of day - and he said to me Mummy I dont want to be on these charts I want to be like my other friends' ....and I think...we are paying the school to make our DS feel like this. (!!!!!)

@Sophieishilarious this is so so sad.... and intense...
The equivalent would be something like...
Your employer puts you on a PIP with semi undelivarable objectives... they score you daily and THEN you have to post your score on social media for the world to see....and your friends comment on it...
How would you feel?
I'd be explosive too...

I would really be looking at the school.

Why are you sticking with this school?
Is your dh massively attached to this school- is it a legacy thing???

I really cant understand this... presumably you are paying something like £20k per year for them to make your son feel inadequate and generally lacking....

In Scandinavia they dont even start school until 7.

I have a delightful funny wonderful and veryyyy strong willed child and in the school environment ypu describe she'd be struggling and probably very angry at how little choice and control she has

You sound really caring and you are 100% right to want to intervene / address this urgently now.
I see some threads on here where parents are 3 years down the road and are like "what do we do?" And I think the ship has probably sailed as its gone on too long...

Also and its a separate thing. I don't agree with single sex primary. We know large groups of males with no females to moderate generally dont end well.

There sounds a lot to look at first without assuming ADHD and drugs.

It may be horrible at school day after day. Something bad may have happened with friends/ other boys. And he has the change of his parents no longer being just his.

My sister works with primary school children and does various assessments. The first things to always check are vision and hearing. If those are fine then progress on to other assessments.

Op it sounds like there's lots to think about in terms of school environment, new baby.
Shipping posters mentioned pans/pandas. Had anyone in the family had a recent sore throat or illness?

@Sophieishilarious Oh yes believe me I'm on this FULLY... I'm watching how the next few weeks go and we'll be taking a view of it all. I've seen others carefully 'managed out' - which has never sat right with me.
No nothing legacy going on re the school. We really liked it at the open day, was our favourite for various reasons - we had no idea how lacking in the pastoral care department it was, it's pretty military - but despite all this I did think my DS was happy there and getting on well academically too. This has all stemmed from his teacher saying he's a little bit 'busy' and sometimes blurts out answers. He's 6, I mean come on. I could go on a much bigger rant about it, but I shall refrain....for now! 😣

@ScrollingLeaves @k1233 @ContentedAlpaca really appreciate your comments. Noted re having new sibling and the hearing and eyesight tests - have booked eyesight already after reading this thread. Yes have had a family member who had the flu recently and lost their voice/hurt their throat...?!

I was worried I might get some nasty unhelpful comments on here (there are a fair few I've read on other people asking for genuine help!!) but I'm so pleased to see everyone here has been so helpful and kind! Phew and thanks!

Please know that no one would be anything other than sympathetic.

@ScrollingLeaves well thank you, I know now. This is the place for honest and impartial advice. What a fab tool.

I would be looking, alongside vision and hearing, at finding a private OT to do some work with him, and possibly a counsellor, before looking at an ed psych. Someone to help him understand his body and brain an little to help make sense of how to regulate.

Funnily enough I was talking to someone at weekend who had something similar happening with a much younger boy, (jekyll & hyde) it turned out to be a reaction to a food colouring. Any chance it could be this.

I don't think that school sounds appropriate for him, and I've moved two of my boys at different times to different separate schools when they were young, they are all different and what suits one personality may not be right for another, he sounds like he needs a more nurturing/less rigid environment.

My DS (almost 5) was like this after a new sibling, although it was a bit earlier (more like months 3-6). He was completely emotionally dysregulated and totally different. Thankfully it all calmed down and he is now back to his lovely self but it was a really worrying time. I would personally try and give him lots of reassurance and 1:1 time, and try to keep routines in place.

Hi OP has he been poorly recently? Infections can trigger a condition called PANDAS (mentioned earlier in the thread). This sudden change sounds very much like it.

@Mossstitch I don't think my DS has had a reaction to something as we generally have the same ingredients all the time, but good thought.

I know, re school - currently watching intently to see how he is daily at school and importantly, how school treat him this term. I want to make sure they are not knocking his confidence and doing positive rewards.

@Covidwoes thank you for this. I had read about this because another poster on the thread brought this up. I did mention it to the doctor this week who proceeded to dismiss it saying there is no evidence for that.... I've read up on PANDAS and I understand and believe it's possible though.

@BilboBogginsAndHisNoggins thank you for this.... am looking into all options, including get everything checked out.

@koalabearboombox thanks for this. I understand what you are saying. Can I ask how different did your child become? If you see my original post did you see similar in being physically violent with parents and damaging things? (these are in no way just small crying 'tantrums' they are epic and can go on for a long time with us being hit and things thrown. Then once it's over, DS is totally fine again and very remorseful saying sorry for X and Y.

To update, since starting school again this term he is already being calmer... and nothing epic has happened as yet....

We had hitting and kicking and SCREAMING for the first time, all very very out of character. He was extremely angry. I wouldn't say they went on for hours. Probably more like 30 mins for the bad ones. That said, he was 4.5 at this point. So I wonder whether a 6 year old would have more of a complex emotional response?

Truly I cried most days because I felt like he was broken. I didn't know if he'd ever go back to who he was but it did happen.