Summer born or ADHD? How do I know?

[Gertrudetheadelie]

In summary, the school have said that DS has 'traits'. They've not really elaborated other than that he's easily distracted and he finds it hard to stay still in his seat. They say that they have to remind themselves to make allowances and that he is harder to settle than other children in the class. It is, apparently, a particularly exuberant class and he is definitely immature and prone to silliness.

At home he's a bit fidgety in his chair at the dinner table sometimes but he's quite happy sitting quietly for ages reading, doing jigsaws, quietly playing with his toys. I wouldn't say he's particularly impulsive either. In fact, if anything, he's a planner at home! He does start projects but doesn't finish them but they are often things like 'writing an encyclopedia about machines' so I'm not surprised!

He was born right at the end of August and the other boys in his class are winter babies so I'm not sure if I'm just in denial or if they are looking at his relative immaturity and drawing bigger conclusions! Can anyone advise, please?

I should have added that he's 6 and in year 2.

My dd is referred for assessment and its not really about fidgeting etc.
She was hyper as a baby almost never napped. She was always do things she shouldnt
She put peas and sweetcorn up her nose multiple times at 3
At 5 put a bead up there had to have a GA
She would touch everything in shops
Would never sit for singing and story at groups.
By reception several incidents of hitting or scratching or biting.
And was just about able to scoot without too much risk of her crossing roads.
She also got in trouble at least once in every club shes done and excluded from one

@Pieeatery thank you for replying. My DS is hyper cautious and fearful if anything! He is a bit of a fiddler and will take pens apart if given chance though/take anything apart to work out how it works.

I don't know - I am wary of being confident that it doesn't fit my child when they are clearly seeing something, but I'm just not sure if they're right...

This parenting thing is bloody hard, isn't it! Thanks again for your input 🙂

Whats his sleep like? Any night wetting?

Disturbed nights/difficulty getting to sleep, not napping, getting up really early. And late night wetting can all be signs.

I have 2 with adhd and some signs are shared (like above) and others arent. One still can't sit through a film aged 10. The other one can if he enjoys it.

@TadpolesInPool thanks for replying. Nope, no problems sleeping or night wetting.

it would still be worthwhile to have a private educational psych assessment.
they are experts and will be able to tell the difference between august born-immaturity and add/adhd.
the assessment will include helpful hints to help your son going forward.

I'd say if you get to year three and school have concerns I'd look at pursuing an assessment. Ed psychs know the difference between lacking maturity and adhd

There is a horrible stat about the proportion of summer borns diagnosed with SEN.
its so unfair that schools can be really dismissive of the summer borns disadvantage and instead blame it on the child rather than the fact they’re being expected to act up to a year older than they are.
i have known friends of ours with august born children who also struggle at school and one was referred for an adhd assessment and the psych said he didn’t have it, he was just a summer born!

I think you're right - we're just going to have to cough up for an Ed Psych.