To expect my DC not to act feral in public?

[BlackFriYay]

I've three DC and they are 8, 6.5 and 4. My 8yo has been diagnosed with autism and ADHD, he used to do this but has calmed down a little now.

It's my 4yo. He's being assessed for autism but I suspect it's ADHD he has. If so, that won't be confirmed for a couple of years.

Any shop / library / anywhere we go into he's touching everything, taking things off shelves, running, jumping, rolling on the floor. It's non stop and I find it so embarrassing as we stand out.

I'm constantly on at him to stop it, don't touch that, walk nicely please, hold my hand, stop trying to run off, get off the floor, get down. Firm tone, redirection, consequences, even bribery.

It's as though he cannot control himself.

Eventually I get cross and tell him off after endless looks of judgement and disapproval from other people who look on expecting me to "control my kids"

He gets upset, then 2 minutes later he's off again.

We spent the train ride home being glared at by a man on the train, and DS was reasonably calm by that point 😳

Am I being unreasonable to expect him to not behave like this? I was sharing this with my friend (she also has a neurodiverse DC) and she said, gently, that he can't help it and I should try not to worry so much about what other people think.

Your thoughts?

Have you not done much research about Autism and ADHD?!

Your friend is right! You need a thicker skin.
That said, there were places I would avoid taking my dc if I knew he wouldn't be able to cope eg a library.
I didn't see the point of dragging dc somewhere that he wouldn't get anything out of and that would result in us all getting frazzled.

Well shops are very busy at this time of year, plus not the best environment for a 4yr old.

Ok, look at this objectively:

3 days before Christmas
Three kids
Library
Shops (Christmas time)
Train ride out, train ride home.

And you're surprised he's excited???

If he has adhd then his behaviour really isn’t unusual, and he is also just 4. They’re busy getting into everything at that age, very curious by nature and full of energy.
Kindly, if telling him off constantly isn’t working then all it’ll do is cause you both stress so the constant telling off needs to stop, it doesn’t help either of you to emotionally regulate. Also, causing him to have a feeling of shame for the constant reprimanding if he’s just hyper and full of energy is not going to be good for his self esteem long term. If he’s not actually doing anything bad, but is just being a bit of a nuisance, then what is the harm. Pick and choose your battles.
Additionally, screw anyone that glares at you! Even if he is being naughty, it’s absolutely no one’s business and if that was me I’d be going real momma bear to make sure people know their place and I wouldn’t allow them to feel comfortable acting like that towards my child or me! Stick up for your child and stop being so embarrassed by him. He will sense that and again it’ll affect his self esteem.
I know it’s really hard and exhausting at times. But try take a moment when these things are happening to reflect if he’s either actually doing something bad or in danger, and if it’s a no to both of them, just let it be.
Emotional regulation for you is key here…

I think you need to change your expectations. The poor kid literally cant help it. Of course he was super overwhelmed, think of the sensory overload of being out and about 3 days before xmas. I think you need to do some research about neurodiversity and learn some specific skills to manage him. 'Normal' parenting advice doesnt really work on a kid who isn't seeing and experiencing the world the same as you. Honestly you will give your poor kid a complex of him constantly feeling like a failure because he can't do anything right and he is getting in trouble for just being himself.

If he is really “feral” and you absolutely can’t avoid these trips, special needs pushchairs exist or large standard ones fit a 4 year old too. If it’s to keep him and others safe it’s not a bad thing.

Also schedule in time where they can make noise and run wild. Train (still), park (run free), shops, park , train for example may work way better. Let out their beans!

My ND 8 year old still fits an Oyster Zero ok for example. He’s not short.

He’s overwhelmed. But I found these types of experiences excruciating with DS (who has ASD and is now 7 and a dream in public).

I just didn’t go to places that were overstimulating and awful.

Don’t feel like you have to go to the library to be a ‘good’ mum if it’s hell on earth for both you and him.

Thanks for the perspective.

He isn't intentionally badly behaved, just very hyperactive, which yes is to be expected with neurodiversity.

He doesn't have the language and understanding limitations that my older DS had at 4, so I'm probably not cutting him enough slack with my expectations.

I can see I'm part of the problem here. I worry too much about causing a scene, judgement and what other people think.

I love him so much, he's the sweetest boy and it breaks my heart to hear I could damage his self esteem. You're right though. I'll concentrate on what I can control, my own outlook.

Tomorrow is a new day.

Change your destination. All kids are hyper wired 3 days before Christmas. The park is where you need to go, not somewhere you reasonably know he’s not going to cope.

DM says kids are like Labrador’s. They need long walks, rolls in mud and wide open spaces.

My ds can be a bit like this as well @BlackFriYay , not quite to the same extent but it is as if he can’t help himself. We went on the polar express at the weekend and he was just charging towards the wrong carriage. I was shouting at him to come back, so were the train conductors but he just kept on. I know he can hear us; it’s as if he thinks everyone is permanently talking to someone else. And like you I just find it so bloody embarrassing. I know I shouldn’t care but I don’t like others judging me as a bad parent. So no advice but a lot of sympathy,

Yes YABU because he is only 4 and he can't help it. Stay calm, keep trips out short if possible and ignore the disapproving looks of others. They are ignorant and their opinions don't matter. Try and keep him occupied with fidget toys, or get him involved with helping 'can you find me 3 big carrots, can you put them in the bag' etc. Most 4 year olds have little capacity for prolonged shopping trips or train journeys without adding in his likely additional needs. Above all, stay calm and praise any tiny bit of good behaviour. Do you use a visual schedule? Or social stories? They can be useful for preparing him for a trip out or journey - children with autism and/or ADHD benefit from knowing what the plan is before you go, it helps set expectations also. So you could say we're going on the bus to the library where you can choose a book, then we'll go and have lunch at the cafe, then we're getting the bus home (use visuals to support his understanding) - you can also use the schedule to remind him while you're out and about.

I voted YABU because you can't just "expect" things of DC and they will magically happen - you have to actively teach them social expectations/not to be feral. Otherwise yeah, they will be feral, I mean why not? Everything is exciting and if they don't know not to touch everything and explore everywhere then of course they will follow those impulses. There's actually an interesting evolutionary theory relating to this apparently (it's why human children are danger-seeking missiles for years whereas baby giraffes can run away from a predator about three minutes after birth).

But also because if he has ADHD and/or autism, then he probably can't control himself very easily, and going on at him or telling him off in the moment is unlikely to make a blind bit of difference, you need to manage his behaviour proactively instead and "teach him social expectations" is probably going to be much more of an involved and careful process rather than whittering on at him constantly (which he will probably completely fail to take in).

In this sense your friend is half right. You have to develop somewhat of a thick skin to what other people think of your parenting, and stop doing all the performative stuff for other peoples' benefit that doesn't work anyway. Going on about the rules while he ignores you is not helping him learn the rules. Telling him off to appease other people is unfair, even if he is misbehaving. If you're going to tell him off, then do it because you think it will give him some useful information about his behaviour. If you don't think he will get anything from being told off, then it doesn't make sense to do it. For one of my DC in particular this would just escalate things massively, if we ever need to have a "telling off" type conversation it's always at home, in private, more neutral in tone and focused more on either the logic/reason behind why the behaviour is a problem or what he could do better, rather than being focused on what he's done wrong, otherwise he gets so wound up he can't take the message in anyway.

However in another sense I don't think it's helpful to shrug and say oh well, he probably has ADHD he can't help it. You maybe don't use telling off but you can notice patterns of behaviour and figure out which are the more urgent things to tackle and look at addressing them from a more bottom-up/supportive way, and in the meantime use control of the environment to manage anything where you need to do something that is likely to exceed his capacity. This is much easier at 4 than it is at 6 - I stuck my 4.5yo in a trolley seat today even though he looked like he was trying to castrate himself hanging out of it, because I knew there was absolutely no way he could contain his urge to run around the supermarket which was obviously packed with stressed out Christmas shoppers, and I didn't have the capacity to remember my list, make decisions, direct the criticism-sensitive and easily-overwhelmed 7yo calmly and also retrieve the feral 4yo from the freezer without exploding myself.

Normally I wouldn't even take the two of them into a supermarket three days before Christmas, I would leave them with someone or do an online order instead but for various reasons we needed to be physically in there so that's the way we did it.

This is 17 years into ADHD parenting. 10 years ago I absolutely would have been exploding, having to dive into freezers with everyone staring and I would have got home and realised I forgot 90% of the list and then had a meltdown and bedtime would have been a disaster. Today somehow I only really forgot a couple of unimportant things. I did go into an overstimulated shutdown for several hours after this shopping trip, but luckily DH was around to do bath/bed and because the actual trip was relatively calm despite supermarket chaos, the children were fine.

I probably need to prioritise the running off with the 4yo in the new year. What I'll probably do for this is plan some calmer trips out to quieter places at quieter times and/or without the 7yo and do lots of prep for it to explain to him about staying with me before we even leave the house and again before we enter the place. I might also give him a job to keep him busy. Through these experiences he can build up what the social expectation is (walking not running, not touching things unless putting it in trolley) in an environment which is more manageable before I let him loose in a normal supermarket let alone a busy pre-Christmas one. I also recognise that it's much easier for me to lay this out having written it out as a mostly hypothetical post which contains one anecdote from my real life. Often I am too distracted or overwhelmed or exhausted myself to really look at what behaviours to address at any point in time but when I don't do that, that's when things build up and I get overwhelmed and feel like the DC are "feral" and why don't they behave like other DC, or I get into bad habits of just avoiding or accommodating behaviours that they don't really need me to accommodate any more because they could actually do the thing I am not expecting of them.

I really admire your response. You’re open to constructive feedback and you clearly love him so much, but naturally you’re feeling pretty overwhelmed with it all.
Changing your perspective and working on your reaction (or reduction in reaction) will make a huge difference. He might still be doing the same things, but by reacting differently will leave you both feeling less upset.
Tomorrow is a new day indeed. You’ve got this ♥️