I have a 4 year old who is starting school this September and recently my DH has been making comments that some of his behaviour isn’t ‘normal’ and he wouldn’t be surprised if there was ‘something wrong with him’. My DH’s wording is very clumsy and borderline offensive but what he means is that he thinks DS could have ADHD or be on the Spectrum etc.
I however think he’s just a typical 4 year old.
He’s on the go all the time but I just put it down to excitement. He’s very clever, he was saying his alphabet by the age of 2 and can now say it backwards, including saying it backwards using alternate letters, I.e he can do it by saying z, x, v, t, r etc etc. He can write his own name and knows how to spell and write various other words without me or DH having to spell them out for him and he can also count to 100 and count down backwards from 100. He’s being doing all of this since he was about 3.5 and whereas I just thought he was clever, DH is saying that it can be a sign of him having autism?!
Sometimes DS has outbursts that seem crazy and disproportionate but this happens very, very, very rarely, maybe once every couple of months.
At times where he doesn’t get his own way he will stomp into his bedroom and start throwing his cuddly toys around but again, this is only 1-2 times a month, on the other occasions where he doesn’t get his own way he just gets a bit stroppy.
Ok, throwing his soft toys in anger isn’t ideal, complete with shouting, but I just thought that he’d got himself into a state and that it’s something that young children just do sometimes.
Although he loves to be on the go and appears quite excitable and hyper at times he is also perfectly capable of sitting down and focusing on activities that he’s interested in, for example he will sit down and do arts and crafts with me, he will sit and read with me, he likes doing jigsaw puzzles, he can sit and watch a film, we play board games and he generally just enjoys us doing purposeful activities. He also loves creating his own games and is very imaginative and can also play nicely and appropriately with other children.
My DH is always saying that DS never listens, which ok, I can agree with somewhat, but again isn’t this typical of 4 year olds?
Since he was 10 months old he’s had two childminders, been in a nursery and did a stint in childcare and none of the settings mentioned any concerns about his behaviour. His current childminder has said he likes to be active all the time but she didn’t seem concerned. He’s been with her for 4 months now and during that time there have been two incidents where he’s hit another child (not forcefully but still on purpose) because he wanted what they had, but again the childminder has said it’s just something 4 year olds do sometimes.
I haven’t been too worried about any of the above but my DH’s constant comments are starting to wear me down and put into my mind that maybe my son does have problems?
How do you know what’s normal 4 year old behaviour compared to behaviour that perhaps needs investigating?