To think filling in HV questionnaire honestly will not give an accurate picture?

[Nmmk]

I have a two year old- 25 months but been asked to complete 27 month questionnaire.

She seems a normal toddler for her age to me- talks a lot, runs around, plays.
However completing this questionnaire I cannot get her to complete some of the tasks.

When trying to get her to copy me drawing three vertical lines she draws one and then announced she is going to draw a picture of Elsa instead.
She does draw a reasonable Olaf with a circle shape and nose- but she certainly won't draw what I ask on demand.
Similarly queuing up rows of toys- I'm supposed to get her to do four- she did three before she said trains go on the track and moved them all.

I feel like I'm going to have to answer no to quite a few of the questions but she understands perfectly what I'm asking and can do it- she just doesn't want to! She is bad at organised activities in general- if she wants to do something she will concentrate for ages, but if I try and make her do something (like football or a specific craft) she will just run around, play imaginary games, hide, throw things and giggle.

My perception was that this was pretty normal?
Should I put that she can do it on the form just to save me grief?

That’s completely normal, please don’t worry!

Never done at questionnaire as opted out of HV with all my three, but that all sounds totally normal to me.

So she won’t copy three lines and did her own drawing -
what’s wrong with that? It’s okay, honestly.

You can do either - it's not a problem. Just explain how you filled it in when they come to discuss it? It's not a compulsory thing - it's meant to be there to help you and your children. Occasionally HVs can be a bit 'by the book' and might say 'well, if they've not done it I must write down that they can't do it,' but it's not a big deal.

(Oh, and yes, totally normal!)

Oh and my youngest is 3. she will do nothing that she doesn't want to. Even if she is doing some thing she does want to, we can’t be too enthusiastic as she will stop doing it, even if she loves it, because she always has to go against the grain.

Her teenage years are going to be carnage 🤣

These tests are always really funny. I remember dd1 failing the fine motor skills test in one of them because she wouldn’t thread a string through a cotton reel in the HV’s room. Dd did however reach from where she was sitting and take the very sharp pointy drawing pins out of the HV’s notice board and scatter the paper everywhere. HV looked horrified and ticked that fine motor skills were ok after all…

Dd2 just bossed the HV around, so never really did any of it right.

Both are pretty normal DDs, and the HVs seemed to find it funny too.

Be honest. Your child is more than capable of the most of it, just go through them with her a few times (if you are allowed) and if she does something different just explain that. I don't think it's meant to be a contest, more like a benchmarking exercise. I did a lot of these type tests on kids aged 2-5 as a social researcher. The Mums were of course all desperate for their child to get every question right, but that's not the point. There's no need to pretend she can do things she hasn't done.

Dd was like that too. But she was ex-prem and had her 2 year old check at a hospital appointment with a paediatric consultant. Turn pages in book? No, would rather eat it. Stack blocks on a table? No, want to carry the chair around to a different part of the room. Drawing? Dream on, there are toys in that box. You get the idea! She was hilarious in retrospect but I was so worried at the time. Consultant just shrugged her shoulders, said "that's two year olds for you" and commented that dd certainly knew her own mind. (And still does 🙄)

I'm a HV and it really wouldn't worry me
We all know what two year olds are like 😂
It's not just the questionnaire that counts- we can see what is and isn't concerning during the contact

We had a bit of this with DD so i just wrote a note next to the question that said "DD did not want to complete this task". 😅 Her 2yr check was done by neonatal outpatients at the hospital, as she had a NICU stay when she was born. Consultant wasn't bothered that there were some gaps. Did the same for the 2.5yr check and HV was also fine about it. Our 2.5yr check was quite a long appt and there was loads of time to get into specifics with the HV and for her to observe DD in action.

This is totally expected. Don’t overthink it. It’s not about getting ‘full marks’ but identifying those children who do have additional support needs.

I’ve undertaken 100s of these assessments and if a parent said ‘I know DC could do it but they chose to ignore the instruction’ I’d usually mark it as a yes. (Unless the child really clearly wasn’t at that level).

Not all health boards still use these questionnaires (in Scotland anyway) I wouldn’t worry too much I think it’s more just a quick ‘easy’ way for the HV to see if the child is wildly out of milestones as some ppl may genuinely not have noticed. My little boy is 26 months and certainly does what he pleases I don’t imagine he will follow much instruction when I get the questionnaire