My DS will turn 4 at the end of Jan.
He is very active. Always running around, jumping just lots of energy. There was talk of ADHD but as he concentrates in small groups and can focus on a task for a while, this has been discounted.
His issue is that he just does not listen. He is in pre school 5 days a week. His teachers constantly complain at pick up that he was not listening. Usually it’s during group time when he is told to stop running around. He ignores them and keeps running or starts doing somersaults in the middle of the group circle. When they tell him to stop running for example he stops for a few seconds, looks at them, laughs and then starts running again. I constantly get told they had a frustrating day with him. One of the workers wants to involve SENCO. The speech therapist saw him about his speech a year ago (at their request) and I mentioned their ADHD concerns. She dismissed it and he also passed his speech test with flying colours so no concerns there. Part of me thinks the nursery is just fed up of his disruptive behaviour. I’m separated from my husband and work full time so get given the mum guilt of ‘oh it’s because he was getting tired as his 8-6 days are long’ but on the flip side I’m told to tire him out and take him on really long walks during the weekend so he is tired and stops running around during the week at pre school .
Separate to this is that I am concerned I don’t know how to get him to listen to me and how to discipline him. Today we were on a train. He was running around and wouldn’t stop. I had to restrain him in my lap and he starts shouting ‘mummy don’t touch me you’re hurting me’. You can’t reason with him and after the 20th time of trying to get him to sit down I have to trap him in my lap. Then we went to a restaurant with his dad and he kept running into the kitchen which is open. The staff get annoyed understandably so I eventually put him in his pushchair and strap him in but he can wriggle down and get his neck caught in the straps or he can use force to topple the pushchair back. His Dad unhelpfully blames me for not disciplining him but I don’t know what to do. We have a chat before going out but once we are out he does what he wants and forgets our chat. Sometimes I say ‘we’re going home’ and he says good or I say a bad person will take him if he runs away from mummy and he says ‘I want a bad man to take me’. I’m at my wits end and was crying in the restaurant today especially when the staff were annoyed at me and his Dad was blaming me.