humming 8 yr old boy new trait

[allywilliams5]

my 8 yr old has recently started making odd humming noises. he is unaware he is doing it and his sister has started to take the mickey! he is a bright boy with a real talent for maths, slightly obsessed with numbers, actually, although alsoloves sport, very active. he makes small hums at random times, is he going through a stage/ not the aspergers/autism spectrum ? should i be worried or ignore it? been a few weeks now.

I would try and stop it by doing something to disrupt the habit before it sticks. It may just be a phase, but imho you should stop it before he gets the mickey taken out of him/bullied at school for it. I don't think this alone and his numbers obsessions make him aspergers, you would need more than that (eg social problems, oddities of speech). My boy is ASD and I have recently managed to stop him making a keening sound, which his classmates were already starting to take the mick out of him for / bully. Others have a more laisser faire attitude to these kinds of noises, but I know that the teenage years are coming and teenagers are cruel about kids who have funny quirks. Why not try stopping him every time he does it, consistently for a few days, so that the pleasure he gets from it becomes unequal to the peskiness of having mum nag him every time he does it? They say habits take a week to break. Good luck!

thank you, have tried to nag, but he seems to then pretend it is something else, e.g, 'i was saying yum'!!will keep trying, though.

Hi, allywilliams5,

Sorry to give conflicting advice, but 7 or 8 is the most common age for vocal and/or motor tics to start, so it could well be a tic. Most children grow out of them after a few months or years (although you may find one tic being replaced by another, and future ones may be even more embarrassing...). They are surprisingly common - your ds won't be the only one in his class doing weird humming, gulping, blinking, sniffing, coughing, head twitching etc. The general advice is not to draw attention to them if you can, as they are not considered something that is entirely under the child's voluntary control, so stressing them out about trying to stop them generally makes them worse. It can also result in the tic being replaced by another one, which may be less obvious but may also be infinitely worse! If the tics get very bad, the first treatment normally tried is teaching relaxation techniques, as whilst stress doesn't cause ticcing, it can make it more frequent and more obvious... Obviously, the extreme end of motor and vocal tics is Tourettes syndrome, but the vast majority of children with mild tics don't have Tourettes and do grow out of them. And whilst they have them, they aren't "curable" - ie you can't stop them happening.

interesting, am grateful for advice. my initial reaction was to ignore it, so will try to again. may be useful to tell older sis too!

Ally my 7 yr old has a few tics, he does a kind of head twitch and makes a gulping sound.
It's pointless pointing it out, he's not aware of it and it just makes it worse.
It's definitely stress related, when he's worried or anxious it becomes much more obvious, other times it doesn't happen at all.
asteameds post rings very true with me.

mine does it when watching tv, relaxing, or concentrating, also when eating, but you are right, no idea he is doing it at all.

you're right, mine does it then too, but it's whether he's generally stressed at the time.
I've not noticed it at all since the holidays started, but a couple of weeks ago it was all the time.

will give him a few days to get into holiday mode, he prob knackered and therefore more hums. thank you xx

no problem.
BTW don't worry about it, the quirky, individual children with all their tics and foibles are fantastic!

I work with a 50 year old woman who hums when she is nervous or anxious ( which is most of the time, actually, but that's a whole different story)
it annoys the hell out of me and i actually find it quite scary when she starts doing it, as if she is suddenly going to lose it and blow

but as a child, I had a few weird habits myself
I used to sigh a lot, for no reason, drove my mum mad
I also used to count syllables in words on my fingers and liked to have even numbers and 10 was the magic number
what I'm trying to say, is I think we all have different quirks and foibles

true, am going to just go with the flow!!

Ignore it .... perfectly normal. My ds1 went through similar and then went on to blinking furiously for ages. The humming lasted about a year annoying, I know, but don't make fun of him as it could make it worse. I spoke to my GP about it and he said it was normal developmental stuff related to anxieties, stress and habitual behaviors.

Hey there, hopefully you will see this seeing as it's 11 years later... what ecer came of the humming? My 9 year old has been doing this a lot lately and wondering what I should do, if anything.

My 9 years old son is humming when watching tv or eating and enjoying his meal, it’s so scary I keep telling him to stop and he keeps saying sorry , I don’t know what to do

Just came across this while trying to research the same thing. Lb is 7 and has started making odd humming noises for no apparent reason. He struggles with reading and writing but is very good at math, and sport. He has no issues interacting with both adults and children, but I am wondering if this is a phase or something more?