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Need advice - 10 yr old DS behaviour issues

3 replies

ohdearwhatdoidonow · 23/03/2012 09:22

My lovely DS has always been unusual. Anyone who comes into contact with him tell me how funny he is, how bright, energetic etc.

He has a really individual style - doesn't follow the crowd wrt music, clothes etc etc. He is bright and very easily bored.

This was always perfectly manageable until recently. He has always wanted to be the centre of attention - hence the making people laugh bit, but now it's becoming too much, and am wondering if there are some underlying behavioural or psychological issues I should be addressing?

He is seeing a learning mentor at school, because he has become aggressive and easily frustrated, distracting other children with his antics, trying to get the teachers attention, trying to make his table laugh. He is now the same at home. I have stopped him doing some EC activities because we (me/EXH & School) felt it may be making the frustration and aggression worse, and replaced them, with other things that may help him express himself better and that he also love, eg art and music lessons.

He is always either very UP or very down. Extremely disobedient one minute, tells lies about simple things like having a shower, taking money from my purse, won't get up for school, and then wanting cuddles, laughing joking etc the next minute.

He has also in the last month or two developed a fear of death, last week he was in panic mode because he thought he had testicular cancer, yesterday he banged his head out playing and was convinced he had fractured his skull and wouldn't wake up this morning.

Now I have an older DS - so I know that probably all of what I've mentioned above, are normal "phases", but with my lovely son all of what I have mentioned seem to be at the extreme end of the spectrum.

So how do I know whether this is normal and will pass, or whether there is an underlying psychological/mental health issue, and how do I address it? Who do I speak to? If I had to describe him I would be using words like manic, hyper etc

OP posts:
TheEpilator · 23/03/2012 09:33

Wow that sounds really hard for a 10 year old to deal with. His intelligence is obviously causing him to worry about things far beyond his years. The manic/hyper descriptions would definitely make me wonder if its worth speaking to a professional - have the school said anything about this? It may be that they are considering it too, but haven't mentioned it yet in case you take offence.

I have a DS a little older than yours who displays a lot of the same behaviour but without the attention seeking (he is very shy to the point of not talking to or acknowledging friends when he sees them in public) and I have always had suspicions that he has something, but as he is perfectly behaved at school a label wouldn't necessarily help him. With your DS it could help school to provide better for him if he were diagnosed with something specific.

Not sure thats very helpful, but didn't want to read and run!

ohdearwhatdoidonow · 23/03/2012 09:36

Thanks. School have said they want to see what happens with the learning mentoring and if there is no significant improvement "it may be worth getting him assessed". However his mentoring sessions are on hold as the lady doing it is in LTS.

I feel I need some intervention but don't know what and in the next breath think am I overreacting?

OP posts:
TheEpilator · 23/03/2012 13:25

Well hopefully the school will put you in contact with the right people if they think its necessary, and I'm sure you're not overreacting - as a parent you can sense things that are more difficult for others to see (everyone thinks my DS is a total delight and can't understand why we get so exasperated with him!)

In some ways it would probably help you to deal with it if there is a 'proper reason' behind the behaviour, although it may cause its own problems for your DS. Good luck.

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