To live in fear my happy go lucky DS9 will seriously injure himself one day

[Jedimum1]

My primary school DS is energetic, enthusiastic, and has an absolute joy and curiosity for everything. We suspect some undiagnosed ADHD but we haven't decided if he really needs a diagnosis at this stage, as we heard that medication is not recommended until much older. He is a lovely kid and keen to behave nicely, so his recklessness is not due to misbehaving or pushing boundaries. Nevertheless, he shows little awareness of danger and sometimes I feel he has no common sense. We have to constantly remind him to be careful on the stairs and we still find him bouncing down without looking or playing with a balloon whilst getting down. He would run after a ball without checking for danger, even if we just talked about the nearby road two seconds ago. The amount of times he has banged his head on a wall, a door, a post or a piece of furniture is in double digits. I find him climbing furniture, the sink, the back of the sofa, whatever, every now and then. He hides where you cannot see him for a cheeky jump at you but sometimes this might mean you could hurt him if you were not fully aware and on the lookout (eg. if he's behind a door, so you don't open it completely; or behind the car). His legs are always full of bruises and to be honest we are almost surprised that he's never injured himself in a serious way. I helicopter all the time around him to slow him down, remove things that would trip him over, think two steps ahead so I can prevent this or that... I'm constantly worrying. We have nightmares about him getting in a serious accident for not paying attention. I look at him and my heart fills with love but also a piercing sadness that one day I won't be able to be around and he's going to seriously injure himself, at best. I keep thinking about all those stories of overconfidence going wrong: balconing, excess drinking and swimming, reckless car driving, silly dares... And I don't know how to either stop worrying or help him steer away from that. I have stayed awake for hours sometimes just worrying about scenarios. He's reaching an age where there will be residentials at school and sleepovers with clubs... And no way he's ready to do any of that. With family, with full attention and warning, fine. But neither DH or I think he's ready for being away with light supervision (as in "not fully supervised at all times"). He's scared of little hurts and scratches, though. The sight of his own blood or a cut makes him cry in panic. He just doesn't seem to put two and two together and pay extra attention next time to avoid hurting himself.

AIBU and this is just a very normal boy's behaviour at this age? Will he grow out of it? Can I chill out?

Those of you who had kids behaving in this manner... Have they changed? Have they grown out of it? I go through periods where I cannot get out of my head a teenage -years tragedy and it's something always in the back of my mind. Please tell me to calm down and give me lots of examples where they just learn to keep safe as they grow 🙏

There are a lot of articles which list "no sense of danger" or "risky behaviour" as connected to ADHD.
Some examples:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd/symptoms/
https://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/adhd-dangerous-risky-behavior

It is possible that this is the cause for your son, too. A diagnosis does not automatically equal medication, as you should have a say in whether he is prescribed something, but if ADHD is confirmed, it could help you as a family understand this better and put strategies into place to reduce the risk.
For example it might be possible (I don't know your exact situation of course) to teach him to stop and look both ways before crossing a street regardless of the perceived danger. So that he does that no matter whether he thinks this could be dangerous or not, as an automatic learned behaviour. He might agree more to this, too, if he was aware of the ADHD and that such methods are to keep him safe.
A diagnosis could also help you with regard to the school and school trips, to either make sure there is enough supervision or other safety provisions.

Thank you, this is helpful!

Interestingly my kid like that had never had anything other than bumps and bruises, my cautious kid has broken both wrists and his foot!!

I don’t know. However as everything takes ages you may want to look into diagnosis now.

My ds was diagnosed later in adulthood with ADHD but like your guy was all over the place from a young age. He was hugely into sport which did serve to use up all that energy. However he went through a very difficult stage in his teen years with reckless drinking etc but soon calmed down and is pretty stable since. His biggest ongoing difficulty is reckless managerment of money with a lot of impulsive spending. His cousin had the same issues, giving all of us many moments of fear but is now
a very committed musician.
I have taught children who were medicated at a young age..10! It was amazing the difference it made to their behaviour and the day they forgot to take it was a long day for the teacher.

He's never going to learn a) not to do things because they hurt, b) how to not massively overreact to minor injuries if you're hovering over him and stopping him from learning the consequences/having new experiences because he's 'not ready' to be allowed to be more independent.

I'm not suggesting you send him off with an illegal e-scooter to play next to a motorway, but falling two foot off a sofa onto the carpet, stacking it on the last couple of stairs or having to patch up his own grazed knees from doing knee slides down the hallway doesn't require you body shadowing him and constantly saying 'Don't do that, you'll hurt yourself', etc.

I think you’ve answered your own question of whether you need to pursue diagnosis. This isn’t “normal”, in so far as the vast majority of parents don’t have to worry so much about their kids at this age. Diagnosis can take a couple of years, better to get started. In the mean time, why don’t you look up parenting advice for kids with ADHD - whether or not he has it the same parenting techniques are likely to help and certainly won’t hinder.

He does sound very like one of my friends. He’s always floated through life with zero sense of danger, but somehow has also entirely stayed out of danger! I don’t think he’s ever even broken a bone. Took him until almost 30 to be able to concentrate properly and learn to drive a car. Was diagnosed with ADHD at almost 40, which surprised exactly none of his friends!