Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Please or to access all these features

Parenting

For free parenting resources please check out the Early Years Alliance's Family Corner.

Does anyone's four year old go "manic"?

14 replies

YoniBottsBumgina · 29/06/2013 22:53

I'm really struggling with my DS at the moment and I don't know if this is normal. Fairly often he gets into a totally hyperactive state where he is just manic and won't listen to anything, can't/won't sit still, talks "at" you constantly demanding "Look at me, look at me!" refuses to follow instructions, answers instructions with something along the lines of "Okay bum!" while doing totally the opposite, giggling manically. Clambers on people, talks at you and totally ignores any attempt to communicate with him, runs off to do something he's suddenly thought of when I'm trying to get him to focus on something else.

It usually culminates in him ending up in his room "to calm down" which does work but he's not happy about it, trying to bite/scratch/pinch me all the way up the stairs and kicking and grabbing at the bannisters/walls because I end up carrying him, and takes 10 minutes before the "timed 4 minutes" even start because he's shouting down the stairs/through the door trying to talk to me, or pulling the door open and if we're out and there's nowhere to restrain him then all is lost because you can't put him somewhere to calm down as he just says "Haha, I can get out!" and runs away.

He has also started punching me which I'm really concerned about because I just don't know any other four year olds who do this to their parent - he doesn't do it to DP but DP lives abroad so I think the principle of "non-usual carer" comes into force, you know how they're always much better behaved for grandparents etc? He gets glowing behaviour reports at nursery and from the CM and has never so much as pushed another child away, he is passive to a fault - except with me :(

He also "goes manic" in the mornings and at bedtime and refuses to dress himself or undress himself especially if we are in a rush and asks for help but then is incredibly unhelpful, not sitting still, getting himself into the most difficult position to put trousers on, sitting halfway up the stairs to put his shoes on. I can't put him in the car half dressed because we don't have a car. I have opened the door and cheerfully said "Alright we'll go like that then!" and he screams, cries and refuses to move but then still doesn't pick up the pace or suddenly become co-operative. I can't drag him down the street half dressed, we live on the same street as the school, and it would be a literal drag! At bedtimes the hyper period repeats again and again until he finally crashes but sometimes this isn't until 9 or 10 pm. Baths, stories, etc don't help to calm him down because he will be calm for the duration (or not - often the stories are read with him sitting down because I don't read them until he is sitting properly but I can tell from little body movements that he's not really relaxed) and then suddenly go manic again. Having a period of rough/physical play like a tickling game again doesn't help because he will calm down immediately afterwards but then, for example tonight I got into a tickling thing more to divert my own urge to throw him out of the window, and then I said one more go, and he happily stopped after that and picked out some stories to read, which was fine, but then he had to arrange them in a special pattern and count them four times and do a little choosing rhyme as to which one goes first and I said come on, just choose your stories and bring them here or we won't have time to read them all and that seemed to flip the switch into manic again. It's like it's just waiting there under the surface all the time.

The thing is if I do get him to calm down in his room, afterwards (and at other times when he's not being manic) he's perfectly fine, happy to talk about his behaviour, discuss ways we can help each other, etc, but when he's in it he forgets all of that and acts impulsively and I can't get through to him at all. He doesn't do it anywhere else though - not at nursery or CM's (I don't think?! He definitely reserves the hitting and unhelpfulness only for me) and he doesn't do it at his other grandparents' (they see him about once a week) because they would say something. He does it so much when my mum is here that she doesn't want to babysit any more, although I don't think he does it when he's alone with her. It's making the individual behaviour issues, like the dressing, really difficult to deal with though because they either only happen when he's in this hyped up state (in which case there's no point reasoning, threatening or bribing and the only possible solution is if there is a physical one e.g. removing him) or if it's something like him taking 10 minutes to do something which takes a matter of seconds because he has to attach a complicated ritual to it, then trying to hurry him up seems to push him into either screaming/violent meltdown or he goes into the hyperactive phase and the 10 minute ritual turns into 20 and I'm already annoyed. But equally, I don't always want to be hovering around his demands which make a simple thing take much longer just because I'm afraid he will take even longer over it if I object.

Aargh! Is this just normal four year old stuff or have I broken him? :( I can't help think it's just me that's at fault since he only ever does it with me. We're moving to live with DP in the next couple of months and DP reckons once we're over there we can sort of "start again" with firm boundaries and he will be around to back me up if I'm struggling or if DS isn't responding to me. I don't always react in the best way, partially because DS winds me up, partially because I am knackered trying to cope with it all. I try my best but occasionally we end up just shouting at each other which doesn't probably help. DS is really into magazines at the moment and he has asked me for a behaviour/reward chart so he can work towards a magazine but I don't know how to do one and I have a feeling it's just not the right kind of thing for this kind of behaviour problem which seems to be all related rather than a set thing I can tick off as achieved/not achieved. Anyway - any advice or input or even a "This too shall pass" (will it??) would be much, much appreciated.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Primrose123 · 29/06/2013 23:07

My DD was like this at this age. Usually well behaved, great in school, but had these manic episodes. She wasn't naughty exactly, just very wound up as if she had too much energy. It was often after eating certain foods, which took us a while to work out. It turned out that she could eat chocolate, but nothing that was chocolate flavoured. Sometimes it seemed to be for no reason though.

She did grow out of it gradually. I'm not sure how common it is though.

YoniBottsBumgina · 29/06/2013 23:09

Yes too much energy is exactly what it seems like. I suppose it could be linked to food but I wouldn't know where to start.

OP posts:
choceyes · 29/06/2013 23:24

My 4yr old DS is very similar. Except he doesn't hit me usually but does it do his sister as and also at nursery. I've been getting bad reports from nursery recently. Its really worrying me. He goes through phases of good behaviour and bad behaviour at nursery. I don't know what to make of it. Like your ds, mine goes through these manic periods too, often when he is overtired. His behaviour is mostly "annoying" - acting silly all the time, being a bully to his sister and nursery kids. I'm worried its some kind of behavioural issue. I feel like throwing him out if the window its so frustrating. He used to be so easy to get on with till about 3 months ago. I don't know whether I'll ever get back my relaxed, interesting and easy going ds Sad

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about these subjects:

YoniBottsBumgina · 30/06/2013 10:22

I think he probably only hits me because he doesn't have a sibling to take it out on! In fact that's probably a good point, most other 4yos I know do have siblings so perhaps the hitting only me isn't such a particular worry when I look at it like that. Obviously still needs to be dealt with though.

OP posts:
MadMadamMim · 02/07/2013 21:25

Oh YoniBottsBumgina I so feel your pain. My ds is seven and a half and still does this, has been for about two and a half years. The school referred us to CAMHS because they've noticed that he is unable to cope with change or any kind of distraction - essentially he goes into the hyperactive mode almost exactly the same as you've described.
We met with them for an initial assessment a couple of weeks ago, and they initially thought ADHD, but also considered ASC. It's not just due to the hyper phases, it's also his inability to recognise any kind of sarcasm or tongue in cheek humour, or to understand how he upsets people. I meet with them again on Friday to hear if they can offer us any extra support. Somewhat unhelpfully, my ex-H, his Dad came along and said that essentially he didn't have any problems with him (which may be true, but kind of breaks my heart because it suggests that I'm obviously getting something wrong).
I'm sorry I can't offer any kind of helpful suggestion, but I wanted you to know, you're not alone!!!

YoniBottsBumgina · 03/07/2013 13:46

Thanks for your reply. You know, my mum mentioned ADHD and I ruled it out because I thought if he had that it would manifest at nursery too, and it doesn't. However I did have a word with his teacher about the frequent weeing thing and she said she would ask the SENCo.

I really hope he doesn't have ADHD because we are moving to Germany soon and from what I have heard the school system isn't great for any DCs who have SENs. However hopefully it won't come to that - it could just be a phase.

I would imagine your ex is fine with your DS because he probably avoids any conflict and lets him do what he likes!

OP posts:
MadMadamMim · 04/07/2013 16:08

Fingers crossed it is just a phase for you Yoni. Let me know if you find anything that stops the 'hyper'!

YoniBottsBumgina · 04/07/2013 17:23

Grin Funnily enough I was just coming back online to look up relaxation tips for children! Thinking maybe he's built up a routine almost about playing up at bedtime and if I can change the routine, I can get him to sleep easier. I decided about an hour ago, okay, let's see if he'll snuggle down and relax into bed and have a little chat and hopefully he'll be relaxed enough to have a little sleep. It didn't work, because he just turned it into a mad game where I was a pizza-pie and he had to chop me up and throw my eyeballs out of the window. It was only when the Kleeneeze man knocked on the door that he stopped! Now he's watching TV which does seem to be his "thing" that helps him relax, but I don't like TVs in bedrooms so have not tried it for sleep... feels like a not great thing to rely on to me.

OP posts:
MadMadamMim · 05/07/2013 13:07

Count yourself lucky he stopped when the kleeneze man came - DS1 would have just carried on regardless which is REALLY embarrassing! DS1 will also totally calm down if you let him watch TV, or if he plays a computer game but it also makes him moody, so I like to avoid it. Have you tried story CDs at bedtime? DS1 really likes those, although now he's reading properly he's moving over to books at bedtime

FrazzledMum2024 · 30/09/2024 10:08

Hello. Your post really could have been written by me! This is exactly my four year old son and I am wondering if he has adhd or even a mental illness. We are really struggling with his manic episodes, which mostly happen at home. Please could you share what happened? Did he ever get a diagnosis? Thank you!

YoniBottsBumgina · 30/09/2024 11:40

@FrazzledMum2024

Well this is a blast from the past!! (I now post as BertieBotts but it won't let me change my name on this thread)

Yes he eventually got diagnosed with ADHD, and the school thing wasn't a problem at all. I now have a 6yo with extremely similar behaviour. We have an appointment for assessment in November

With the benefit of 11 years' experience, DS1's "manic" behaviour was dysregulation expressed as hyperactivity, caused by a combination of the fact he had ADHD but also I had very bad, unmanaged undiagnosed ADHD myself and if I am totally honest in hindsight, I was probably making it worse, because the entire environment around him was chaotic - messy house, unpredictable timetable, way too much TV, confusing response to behaviours (sometimes I was patient and kind and sometimes I would have a v short fuse). We also didn't have good routines and I was always running late for everything, so it was stuff like when we had to go out, I was trying to cram 10 different demands (stop playing, get dressed, get shoes on, eat, adjust to different plan, be quick! etc) all at once which would be too much for a NT child let alone an ADHD one!

He probably picked up on my general mood, overwhelm and stress too. And I frequently felt like a failure because I couldn't "make" him do normal things a parent should be able to do.

What I do with DS2 differently is that our house is much calmer and better organised, I try to be proactive with things like meals, sleep, toilet use, focused attention/connection and physical activity - because any of these he doesn't get enough of, it gets worse. I am a lot more organised, I have a better sense of time and know how to go slowly towards things we need to prepare for rather than stressing at the last minute. I also have a confidence that I didn't have the first time around and I am able to see myself as being the adult compared with a child. I did not honestly have the capacity to do the proactive stuff with DS1. I was seriously struggling at the time. Though I can also see now that if I had put in the time/effort to have the proactive stuff sorted, I would have been less worn out by the behaviour, so it is a chicken and egg situation.

I also have a better sense now of how to respond when he has started off on one of his spirals, and I am less likely to get frustrated. A good book which is helping me with this is Big Baffling Behaviours by Robyn Gobbel. I'm not a perfect responder at all times but it is better.

DS1 did calm down on his own without me really doing anything in particular - I had tried various emotional literacy things and behaviour management approaches, but not sure if they had a cumulative effect or he just grew out of it - at about age 7.

I do wish I had had better support and understood better what was happening when he was 3/4/5/6 though because I don't think I handled it that well and it was a very stressful time which I think damaged our relationship - although we have a much better relationship now Smile

OP posts:
coxesorangepippin · 01/10/2024 02:53

It's at that point that you send him out into the garden to kick a ball/trampoline/bike ride whatever

FrazzledMum2024 · 04/10/2024 10:03

Thank you SO MUCH for coming back to me with all this info and experience. I can't tell you how helpful that all is to hear. Especially because weirdly enough everything you are saying about yourself also applies to me!! So it's hard to hear 😳But gives me hope of how to improve things. I just feel so exhausted and at the end of my tether all the time (both due to his behaviour / intensity and my own mind) so it's really hard to get on top of things (and I have a baby). Our life/house is also quite chaotic and I am usually (always) late and then stressed and rushing. Did you take medication for your ADHD? Has that helped? Thank you again - so much 😊

YoniBottsBumgina · 04/10/2024 12:55

I do take medication and it really, really helps. I wish I had had access to it earlier - I only started taking it about a year ago. There were other things that helped other than medication, but it's like medication is a sort of glue that helps improvements that I make stick, rather than falling off all the time. Because previously it felt like I would work on one issue and that would get easier but everything else would get worse, so I would turn to something else and the original thing would get worse and fall back to the baseline of chaos again and I could never ever catch up, which was pretty depressing.

I feel like I function at a somewhat "normal" level now which I really didn't then! I say "somewhat" because I do still feel that I fall short of what other mums do - I know I rely on DH a lot more, based on what my friends say they have to manage in their homes, but I no longer beat myself up about this, and I'm sure there are also trade offs like maybe I notice details other people might not etc.

The hole I was stuck in where everything was chaotic, and every individual issue was sort of spreading out and affecting all the others is a REALLY common ADHD issue. I think of it like a plate of spaghetti. If you took one strand away, you wouldn't notice the difference. And sometimes as you take one out it snaps and sprays sauce everywhere. But little by little as you eat each strand of spaghetti, you can start seeing the pile get smaller and at the end when you only have a few left, they are spread out and don't touch each other any more.

Interestingly there is actually research about this - people who struggle with executive functioning (which is behind ADHD, and these skills are what enable you to do all the proactive stuff, like keep the kitchen counters clear, keep up with laundry, anticipate what children will need, know when you're going to run out of groceries etc) are not actually any worse at doing the tasks themselves, but people with poor executive functioning skills tend to live in chaotic environments so for example while someone with a neat and tidy house can simply take a clean chopping board, knife and pan and ample ingredients from their fridge/cupboard and start assembling a meal, the person with poor EF will often have to wash up the things they need, wipe down the stove, clear a space on the counter, reassess the recipe 3x because they are missing key ingredients. So that all makes the task much harder and more exhausting and time consuming. Which then has a vicious cycle effect where at the end cleaning up after yourself feels impossible and overwhelming (because it's not just a pan and a knife, but every other pan and plate and cup you own standing in a line next to the sink or a dishwasher waiting to be emptied etc). Which may then lead to less desire to cook properly, tendency to just eat biscuits to stave off hunger etc so you will have even less motivation and energy, etc.

And as I tended to find, when I solved one issue e.g. I might have got in a really good routine of keeping the counter clear for example. That helped with one aspect, but I still had to wash up the saucepan, chopping board, knife, wipe the stove and reassess the recipe 3x. So the end result was that it didn't feel like my change had made a difference, which was demotivating and I wouldn't keep up with it (which is why my habits never stuck), which then fed into a loop of negative self-talk like "Why am I so useless?" "I can never do anything properly" and the resulting low mood would also tank my motivation and energy, just like the fact I would live off biscuits and cups of tea for days at a time.

If I could go back or to give advice to someone who is stuck under the pile of spaghetti Grin

I would say to first of all identify any elephants in the room which are basically sneaking their own spaghetti onto my plate (very fussy eaters, those elephants).

Addiction/Abuse/environmental hazards (e.g. mould)/Stressful job, isolation, childhood trauma.

It is not easy to tackle any of these things but they are worth being honest about with yourself, because they are likely to be making everything harder and a lot of the effects of them are outside of your control - you have to deal with it from the root by e.g. separating from the abusive person, leaving the job.

Also get yourself on an ADHD waiting list if not diagnosed and in the meantime, go to the GP and ask for blood tests to screen for any medical causes of tiredness/brain fog, such as vitamin deficiencies and hormone issues e.g. thyroid. Consider a sleep study if revelant e.g. potential sleep apnoea. Ask about anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication, which GPs can usually prescribe, and consider DBT if it is offered in your area - this tends to be better for ADHD than general CBT. ADHD-informed CBT is good but that is unlikely to be available without a diagnosis.

Then try to list out all the factors that seem to cause issues and affect everything else, or things you feel guilty about/think you "should" do but can never seem to manage. Don't be daunted if it's a long list. That just tells you that you are dealing with a lot, more than most people, and in fact you should be proud of EVERYTHING you achieve because you have hurdles in the way which most people don't have.

Go down the list and see if any of it is a responsibility which you can reasonably drop. For example, are you volunteering at school? Strike this off because you have more urgent priorities at the moment. Are you managing stuff like your partner's family birthdays? Hand it back to him. This will immediately remove some things from your plate and that will help. If you're anything like the average ADHDer you'll also have loads of half-formed ideas in there like wanting to paint all the walls and make the entire family's diet more green and exercise more and write a novel and retrain as a social worker and etc etc etc. Having them all written out there makes it more obvious that you literally can't do all of those things at once.

Then pick one or two items off the list which, if you could tackle them, it would make a difference (even a small one) to the ease of your day to day life. That leaves one or two slots for anything which is urgent and unavoidable (e.g. things which have filled this slot for me: Pregnancy, having a newborn, starting a new job, settling child into childcare, moving house, potty training toddler).

Those are your THREE FOCUSES and NOTHING else is a focus. Ditch the guilt about excess spending, screen time, nutrition, exercise, gentle parenting, whatever it is which is not on the focus list. Give yourself total permission to be lazy and take shortcuts in those things. You will get to those later, but right now you are focusing on the three top things.

Focusing on it means, literally, use your hyperfocus - read books about it, watch documentaries about it, search old MN threads (or start a new one), watch youtube videos to find out the best way to do it. Invest in new tools/materials/systems, even courses, if you want and it will help you get excited about it.

I did this before medication and it helped a lot - previously I'd think I was doing useful stuff but it would be all over the place so it would get absorbed back into the spaghetti mess and then I wouldn't understand why it didn't help. More intense focus on one specific area actually created change which stuck, and dropping the guilt on everything else meant that I wasn't constantly beating myself up for all the ways I was "failing" because I knew that I had identified that as a problem, but I was not prioritising it yet, for a specific reason ie, I was prioritising this other issue which would in turn make the next thing I focused on easier. And it works. It really really does.

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page