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Can a 3 year old be bi polar?

2 replies

Yellowcar1 · 02/01/2023 11:48

My three year old grand daughter is displaying really odd destructive behaviour and it's getting more frequent. When she's in my home/care she's fine but when she's at her own home the moment her mums back is turned, ie bathing baby brother, she is deliberately destructive. This morning she climbed on the worktop and took down a loaf of bread and a full tin of baby milk and ripped the bread up and threw it all over the lounge and emptied the baby milk everywhere also. A few days ago she climbed up onto the bathroom windowsill and took down cleaning products and squirted them all over the carpet. She also hits her mum and tries to hurt her when ever she can. Her mum is at her wits end and very depressed with the lack of support or help. Health visitors are no use at all and a specialist nursery nurse who came out said to ignore it! Her GP won't even give her an appointment to discuss it either. Anyone else had this sort of problem?

OP posts:
StillMedusa · 02/01/2023 20:27

No toddlers can't be bipolar!
What she can be is ...a toddler, wanting attention, feeling jealous (which is perfectly normal) and acting out because she doesn't have the ability to express her emotions verbally (because even an articulate 3 year old is just that..3) and because she's 3 she's acting out the only way she can.

Does she get one to one time with her Mum? Or is it just when she's at yours. Children pretty much always take out their emotions on the person that they need/love the most.. it doesn't mean anything is wrong with her, but it does mean she is struggling.

TheShellBeach · 02/01/2023 20:29

Toddlers cannot be bipolar but they can be very destructive, especially when there's a new baby in the house.

She'll grow out of it.

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