4yo behaviour

[Eryouwhat]

Aibu to ask for your suggestions of what to do?

4yo dd. Absolute dream at school apparently.

Doesn’t listen to me, dh, dgps etc when we’re out and about. Runs off, doesn’t come back, bolts into roads etc etc. Really struggling today as just had a nightmare trip to shops. Seemed to be surrounded by well behaved children staring round eyed at my screaming struggling whirling dervish. No sen.

What do you do when you’re out and about and they behave like this? I can’t cut trips short, I’m out for essential reasons and sometimes unavoidably have to take her. Everything I read say consequences for this age group should be immediate, so time out/naughty step/loss of treats when we get home etc are pointless

Please help!

@BuggerBognor

DS1 was diagnosed with Asperger's in May. Most clinical psychologists still refer to Asperger's as 'autism level 1' is not a term most people understand.

Pep talk definitely helps before you go out. Clear description of what’s about to happen ‘We’re going to the supermarket to buy bread and milk. We’ll choose our stuff then queue up and pay for it.’ then outline what behaviour you expect ‘I want you to hold mummy’s hand the whole way through. I want you to show me how nicely you can behave with no shouting or demanding’. and then lay out what will happen if bad behaviour happens ‘if you’re running away or whining for something we’ll have to put your reins on/ abandon the shopping and leave’. and 100% do it. I’ve walked out of a few shops/playgroups/friends houses with the child under my arm like rolled up carpet.

When it comes to shopping especially I always found it helpful to enlist them. I put on my brightest CBeebies presenter voice and get them involved ‘Ooh I can’t remember do we have blue top milk or green? I can’t find the green milk can you? Can you help me count the bananas out?’ Keep then too busy and engaged to strop.

@BuggerBognor Apergers is still sometimes used, in some circumstances, by some trusts. My own DC has an Aspergers diagnosis given in early 2020. I queried it because I had read so many times that it is no longer used, but it is, and as it happens is an appropriate diagnosis for my child.

Also, @BuggerBognor, I find some of your more recent contributions to this thread offensive. Your assertion that my child’s diagnosis was not given by a ‘credible professional’ is wrong - the diagnosis was given in the usual way by an NHS panel (twice as it happens because I queried it). And your comments about my potential motivation to use the Aspergers label are at best unkind and ill informed, at worst prejudiced.

Are you a professionally qualified psychiatrist? If not you should probably refrain from giving your opinion on the specifics of a complex diagnosis process. If you are then you should know that sometimes professional opinions differ.

@Eryouwhat what is she like at home? Is the behaviour just out of the house.

You are correct that discipline at this age should be immediate and logical (unfortunately for you the only logical step is to curtail your trip, but distraction and bribery have their place sometimes).

if the child has an underlying neurodiversity, such as ASD then the behaviour isn’t deliberate - she could just be overwhelmed by being out and about.

@BuggerBognor classification and nomenclature for autism is still a huge area of debate within the autistic community and the research community.

You are in the wrong to be so black and white about what is 'right'.

My just turned 4 year old went through a phase of this a few months ago. I started taking his reins with me and warning him before we left if he run off I would put them on him. He did run off a couple of times so he got reins put on everytime. He threw a couple of mammoth tantrums but soon got the idea that if he run off he would get put on the “baby reins”. He is also a very well behaved boy at nursery with no SEN needs.

My eldest has Autism and ADHD and unless you are seeing sensory processing, social and communication issues etc it’s more likely they are behaving like this because they think they can and are not able too understand the full dangers of it yet.

My eldest did used too run but also learned via the same methods that running away meant he would go on the reins however his running away was clearly triggered by sensory overload as it was combined with hands covering ears, head down, running in circles and stimming. I taught him too also use his voice and tell me it was too much but did put him on the reins to for a short while too take him out and keep him safe.

Thank you for the suggestions everyone.

I think I will have to take her back to the car at first and see if that makes any difference. I appreciate people taking the time to offer suggestions.

We’ve never used reins and I’m reluctant to start now. She’s in school and I’ve never seen these being used there.

It’s not that I’m in denial of potential sen by the way - she literally just doesn’t have any of the signs I’ve read about, unless I’m missing something?

Do you generally feel confident in what you ask him to do or do you feel anxious knowing he probably won't do it?

I know this sounds bonkers, but I have found it makes an incredible amount of difference. It's why there's often a huge difference between home and nursery because nursery staff are totally confident in their own authority. If you're a bit of an anxious leader (I am) or struggle with boundaries in general, young children can pick up on this and it makes them insecure.

I found this very useful. Of course I might be totally off the mark!

www.janetlansbury.com/2012/09/respectful-parenting-is-not-passive-parenting/

Sorry, I just realised I got your child's gender wrong!

@Eryouwhat - it’s hard to say. If you consider the controversial ‘high functioning autism’ term, that is ASD that is not associated with any development or learning delay, some of those children will have fairly typical development for the first 5 or so years of life. Indeed, I didn’t have any inkling that there was anything unusual with my own child until he started school, and he had his diagnosis at 5.5. Looking back, it’s always been there, he’s always been difficult to parent, more challenging and less easy going than other children, but nothing obviously ‘off’ about him. For me, it’s when a child has a big mismatch of intelligence and ability to cope with every day life that I begin to wonder, so if your child was excelling academically and unable to cope with a simple shopping trip I would be paying close attention. Another thing to look for is early fluency with reading, or extreme fussy eating. None of these on their own is a definite autism thing, but they can be useful indicators that a child might benefit from assessment.

@Flamingolingo agree with your points. DS1 was reading at 3 and this sounded massive alarm bells for me. He's 8 and academically able but is constantly overwhelmed by emotions and has lots of sensory needs that I don't think are fully addressed.

Thanks @MoodyMarshall, for us it began with friendship problems, and issues with school settling. He was seeing a speech therapist at the time (stammer, incredibly advanced speech as a young child), and she was wondering about some of his eye contact, dominance in the session etc, so that’s where the referral came from. But the first signs for us really were a disconnect between academic and emotional ability. We were lucky really because as he’s growing it is becoming more obvious, but probably only to us because he masks well in all settings except home.

@Eryouwhat

Thank you for the suggestions everyone.

I think I will have to take her back to the car at first and see if that makes any difference. I appreciate people taking the time to offer suggestions.

We’ve never used reins and I’m reluctant to start now. She’s in school and I’ve never seen these being used there.

It’s not that I’m in denial of potential sen by the way - she literally just doesn’t have any of the signs I’ve read about, unless I’m missing something?

I think reins probably would have helped with DS had I started with them young enough. But I totally agree with you, by 4, there's no way you're going to get a strong willed child to use them.

For my DS, it was more a matter of being realistic about what was achievable and taking what we could from the parenting books that seemed to work with him and struggling on!

Had I been more organised, I think taking him to burn off some energy before things where I needed him not to run off, may have been helpful.

Some of it cam from curiosity though, not just energy. For example, having a meal in a cafe / restaurant/ pub was hard as he wanted to explore every room, which you can't do, of course. I remember standing outside in the street with him on family special occasions, running up and down the street together or looking on windows or whatever as he just couldn't sit still there.

He did grow out of this, though. I can't remember exactly when, but I think it was when he was 4 or 5. I would be surprised if she's still as hard to manage, this time next year, so hang on in there! You've done the difficult bit already, I feel!

It’s not that I’m in denial of potential sen by the way - she literally just doesn’t have any of the signs I’ve read about, unless I’m missing something?

I would have said the same, when DS was your DD's age. And to be clear, I'm not saying your DD is autistic! Just that this behaviour really reminds me of my DS, who is autistic. So, maybe, it's just something to keep in the back of your mind, just in case you find she has other struggles later on, it may help to build up a picture.

For what it's worth, some DC with autism it's obvious when they're very little; for others it's much later. e.g. My mother's never been formally diagnosed and it wouldn't be at all obvious unless you know her very well.

With DS, I could see something was up from year 1, but his teacher couldn't see it. She said she thought he was "just emotionally immature, like his best friend" and said they'd both grow out of it eventually. (Said best friend, has now also been diagnosed with autism, incidentally).

I didn't feel confident enough to push for a diagnosis until DS was 9, he was diagnosed eventually aged 10.

My DS is now a lovely 12 year old. I'm so very proud of him. He doesn't run off any more . His autistic traits do cause issues for him but also are such an integral part of his personality, I can't imagine him without them. He gets fascinated with various topics and learns about them in amazing depth. He's also sociable and I'm pleased to say, does have lots of friends now (something I really worried about in primary). I think the advent of multi-player internet based computer games has made it so much easier for geeky kids like mine to find other kids similar to them. And he's a member of forums where he can talk at length about his special interests with other people who care as much as him about them.

To be honest, I don't even know if my DS ran off all the time when he was little because of his autism or just because of his personality! Perhaps it's got bugger all to do with his autism and just to do with him being strong willed (as am I tbh!).

Being strong willed and having a can be a great asset as an adult, and your DD's personality type may stand her in good stead! As a mother you just need to find a way to get through this bit with your sanity intact!

@BuggerBognor

I repeat: Aspergers has been removed from the DSM. HFA has never been in it. It’s not me saying that - it’s fact. If clinicians wish to use those terms then I hope they also explain that their limitations and the very valid reasons why they are no longer deemed appropriate to be included in the manual.

MN is the sort of place where I would expect to find the kind of pearl-clutching, “no my DC can’t possibly have a learning difficulty* mothers who defend the use of those terms, so thanks for proving my point.

I volunteer with ND kids (or I did, pre-Covid) in the most deprived borough in our region, kids without a pot to piss in AND ASC. Amazingly, I’ve never seen their parents describe any of them as “Aspie” or “high functioning”. Why is that, I wonder?

I don't think anyone is proving your point tbh. I mean this kindly, honest, buy I think you're demonstrating your existing bias on this is clouding your judgement.

I explained carefully, above, how I see HFA as a different concept to Aspergers.

I'm certainly not in in denial about DS having SEN - goodness knows I had to fight to get the diagnosis! Why would I deny it? I also don't think it's remotely embarrassing to have autism or SEN. You're imagining things that aren't there. My own mother is autistic and I have ADHD, information which I share with people freely. It's part of me, I'm not ashamed of it.

I'm sorry to hear of your struggles and your DS's. But that's my point. There needs to be some way of describing those who are on the spectrum but who don't have huge struggles.

It's partly out of respect for the struggles many autistic DC and their parents go through that I need a term like HFA to describe DS's experience. Because, DS's autism doesn't affect him in a negative way as often as many others on the spectrum. When DS was younger, he was really difficult to manage, and I didn't understand why I found parenting so tough when my friends didn't seem to. But this was before I even knew he had ASD.

These days he has difficulty getting some people to even accept he has autism as he doesn't show a lot of the classic signs (e.g. he makes good eye contact and is sociable).

Since he started secondary in September, I've only had to contact the school to explain to his English teacher that he really does mean it when he says he can't put himself in someone else's shoes to do an English assignment and also why he struggles with understanding metaphor. Also, the school going against it's own rules on coronavirus measures in certain circumstances was causing him anxiety, so we spoke to them about it and it was resolved.

At home, we work with his quirks (we're a pretty quirky family all round tbh, I suspect we'll end up with a full set of diagnosis before too long).

I think it's unfair on those who struggle every day, not to distinguish between those who struggle profoundly every day, and those who, quite simply don't. And not because of any pearl clutching but because it reflects reality - I recognise that our struggle isn't the same as many others with autism and I think it's not fair to act as if it is.

Also, DS needs a word to explain his autism to those who say he hasn't got it. Pursuing diagnosis was always about giving DS the words he needed to understand his own mind. HFA has been a useful term for us. It doesn't need to be in the DSM for that.

Shall we also get overwrought about whether it's autism or ASD or ASC and whether it's autistic people or people with autism, or maybe we should just use neurodiverse or neuroatypical? Or maybe no term at all as each person is just an individual? Perhaps we'll just assign people their ADOS score?

I shall, of course, defer to your better understanding @BuggerBognor as my 20 years as a specialist teacher for the above people and MEd in autism don't compare. No middleclass axe to grind here, I don't have a child of my own in any of the above categories.

Sorry, that should have said

Being strong willed and having a strong sense of purpose can be a great asset as an adult, and your DD's personality type may stand her in good stead!

@fastwigglylines - thank you, you put it much more politely than I could. But I completely agree - Apergers/HFA for me are both shorthand for not having difficulties related to development/learning. This is a blessing, but also a curse, because it means that most people have no idea about my child’s diagnosis or his difficulties. He appears pretty much neurotypical a lot of the time, but can also have strange/erratic behaviour which is hard to handle and I’m sure makes people judge my parenting strategies sometimes. Sometimes it looks like I’m being ‘soft’ because I know it’s just not a battle that’s worth getting into. Sometimes I probably seem very harsh and it’s because he needs consistent boundaries for his own sake.

God forbid other people should use descriptions that are meaningful or helpful to them, eh? Never mind, bit of vitriol from you should help them see the error of their ways.

@BuggerBognor it doesn’t ‘make me feel better’ it is literally what is written on his diagnosis paperwork, from the NHS, endorsed by the lead clinical psychiatrist at the local children’s hospital. What would you have me use instead?

And it is controversial because whilst it may have been removed from the manual, it is still being used.

@BuggerBognor

Our clinical psychologist used autism level 1 in the report as per the DSM, followed by Asperger's in brackets. He told us to use Asperger's when discussing with professionals. Everyone on here is saying that, for ease of communication and understanding, Asperger's is the layperson's term.