21mo is only entertained by danger or trashing my house

[KL92xxxx]

My 21mo never stops, I love it because it’s just how he is, he is lovely and endearing and inquisitive and loves the world and all it has to offer but it’s exhausting at times.

We live in a small 2 bed terraced house. With a small and never will be child friendly yard. He has toys and we have activities like paint and felt tips etc., we have basic age appropriate jigsaws and lots of books. I try to play with him and get (for example) the paper and pens out, he’ll show some attention to this for maybe 2 minutes and then he’s gone. I try to play with his cars and he runs off. Nothing holds his attention.

At the moment he wants to run around the house and climb, he not only climbs onto the sofa but then onto the arm of the sofa and stands up on this. He’ll open the fridge and throw everything out of it constantly. If we ‘play’ in his room it involves him just chucking all his clothes out of his drawers and wardrobe. He just wants to run riot 24/7. I just want to play with him!

I have no idea if this is normal, he seems to have less attention span than what he used to have. He will play a bit more with toys at other peoples houses, maybe because he doesn’t have as much access to them. At the moment I have to literally follow him around the house at all times as I cannot baby proof any room enough for him as he’ll find danger everywhere he goes. I also feel bad as there’s little ‘play’ involved, I just follow and sort of watch him and we talk, but there’s no play as such.

Is this normal?

That does sound exhausting.

You're probably doing thieve already but some things that helped us were:

Getting out each day. Things like the park where he can run about are great. If you haven't got wet weather gear for him you can usually find it on eBay.

Packing lots of the toys away. I found the more toys that were out, the less attention they had. I'd often swap the toys when they napped or at night when they slept.

Reducing screen time. It does give you a break but they can often be hyper afterwards.

Baking. If you don't bake with him already I'd give it a try. You'd be amazed how much more they can concentrate when biscuits or cake is involved

My son was like this. It was disheartening because I wanted to do fun things and buy toys for him but all he wanted was to trash things. So I stopped buying games or toys which had many components and went for things like balance bikes. I took him out into the woods a lot and he was happy with a stick going at the nettles. By the time he was 9 he'd grown out of it. Peer pressure seemed to affect the way he saw himself more than anything I had to say. Male teachers or younger men ( his dad is in his 70s) were the people who impressed him. He probably needed a young dad to get out there with him and kick a ball about. Perhaps your son has a lot of unspent energy, is what I'm getting to, and needs outdoor activity. Forest school or rugby tots. Mine loved soft play centres and swimming.

Get a catch/lock thing on the 'fridge so that he can't open it. Or, keep him out of the kitchen (door shut/with a lock on

His wardrobe - tie the door handles together/stop him from going upstairs

Take him out, to tire him out. Even if it's raining, put wellies and waterproof clothes on him,

My almost 3 yo ds is still like this. He is destructive and just now he has managed to up his game where he concentrates on arts and crafts from 2 mins to 10 mins which is worth celebrating. He goes through everything, climbs on the resting part of the sofa, always busy and on the go. I've also removed a lot of his toys and rotate and now he plays longer with them. And for the fridge, I've used the stick on latch which keeps him out. I take him to soft play on rainy days and pray there are likeminded children who like to play rough and chase each other around and get really anxious if there isn't which means I have to helicopter around going up and down the frame.

I take him out everyday to the park if it's not raining, he runs around, picks up sticks and it's very difficult and exhausting to manage because I'm not a outdoorsy person either. He is literally from a active dog breed where if I had the choice, I would have picked a pug which is calm and content. I guess opposites attract.