9 year old in trouble at home and at school

[Cortana]

DS has just turned 9. He's a nice boy, not a nasty bone in his body, nice to a fault at times. He's very excitable though and is becoming shouty and overexcited at the slightest thing.

He goes to an amazing school and has a brilliant teacher, the teacher seems to like DS for who he is and has commented before that'd he accept him being a bit boisterous as his excitement for school and learning was great.

Unfortunately it's recently gone from quirky character trait to a problem. We've had a note home from school today about DS, the note states that since Christmas the behavior has become a problem and it seems that DS is going from "easily overexcited" to being very disruptive and shouting out rudely. We've noticed it at home too. He'll talk at you and not stop, we can say "Stop, we're having a conversation, wait a moment" and he will just keep going over you. It's like he doesn't register that anyone else may have anything important to say. If he's on a topic you can not pull him from it in any way.

I've emailed the head requesting a meeting, obviously we'll take all advice on board from there as we do think a lot of the school and respect their judgement.

We're banning consoles and I'm thinking more exercise might help, he writes a lot and I want to continue to encourage this to help him get his ideas and thoughts out.

I was hoping that if there's anyone else who has had this problem they could share how they managed it?

could it be frustration? boredom? wanting more independence? being able to make decisions?

if you can allow him more freedom to choose certain things, he'll feel more responsible and in control (and proud of himself!) that could help nim calm down for a while

There might be a medical explaination, possibilities include echolia (sounds are repeating through the hearing system, you'd notice things like him talking to himself, repeating lengthy phrases just after they have been mentioned on TV etc), there is also a condition called (something like) verbal dyspraxia, in the same way some muscle movements are difficult to control for some people, speech can flow and be difficult to control for others.

Am sure there are other speech disorders that may well manifest in the pattern your seeing - might be worth checking out the medical side before trying to get him to fix it from a behaviour angle.

Hoping it's not boredom amazing, he's been put up a year in school and for the last 7 months it seemed to be working. He's knuckled down and enjoyed the challenge.

In terms of independence and freedom, again I think he does ok for a 9 year old. He dresses himself for school, washes his face and teeth without prompting, fixes his own breakfast and is responsible for his handing in his own homework and school bag.

In the evenings he comes in, changes into his play clothes (his choice) and brings his stuff down for washing, does his homework, gets himself a snack then plays for a while. Sometimes he helps me cook dinner and he has the job of settling and clearing the table. Once that's done he tends to have a read before bed, he gets his clothes out for the next day, he sets his own bedtime as he just goes when he's tired, he never needs waking in the morning, and has never indicated he needs more sleep.

God help you if you ask him to do something though, he needs a full set of instructions, doesn't listen and gets in a muddle. He'll talk over you while you're trying to explain doesn't seem to understand the correlation between that and ending up in a muddle. I've tried to make clear that "Now we need to listen, can you listen now please?" And he either stares at the floor or past my head, I can see he is not listening, if you suggest he isn't he either gets upset or claims he is.

Rosemary, you've listed some stuff there that I had never heard of never mind considered. Will book in with GP and get his hearing tested. Interesting you mentioned the verbal dispraxia as his speech has no flow and he struggles to maintain a conversation in a flow IYSWIM, i.e. verbal cues but we assumed that was his ASD.

His ASD has also manifested itself more as routine and obsession with physical tics so I didn't mention it in the OP as it can be a red herring when dealing with behavior.

We're seeing the head and his teacher this afternoon (Why do I feel like I'm the one in trouble!) and hope to find out if there's a pattern to his behavior and just how badly it's affecting him at school. My biggest fear is him getting the "naughty boy" label and losing faith in himself and no longer enjoying school.