I've got a just turned 4 year old who is starting school this September. He's very excited about it and is particularly looking forward to learning to read. He knows numbers up to 20, is starting to understand the concept of simple sums and loves pointing out letters. However I'm a bit worried about his concentration skills in day to day life and I don't know whether it's normal for his age or not as he's my first. I read about ADHD-PI and some of the checklists ring true but they seem to be aimed at children already in school I thought. I don't think he has many symptoms of the other types of ADHD (apart from interrupting adults when talking, and being a bit bold with strangers).
He's constantly distracted when eating even when it's his favourite meals, and more so now his baby brother is eating meals with us at the table. Meals generally take over an hour and he has to be constantly reminded to eat, not talk with his mouth full and drink his water. He doesn't like countdown clocks or anything like that, it just makes him stressed and makes things worse. We're never told he's like this at nursery though.
I asked him to tidy up the lounge before going out at the weekend while I ran around getting everything else ready to go out. 10 minutes later I go back and nothing has been put away at all, and he's staring into space playing with the plastic fruit. When I reminded him he's supposed to be tidying he goes "oh yeah! I'll do it now!" so it's almost like he's forgotten.
Toilet trips take forever as he sits and stares into space. He'll get off the toilet and wander out with pants and trousers down round his ankles but will return when reminded. I'm not sure how much of this is because he knows it winds me up or just forgetting to pull up clothes/wash hands etc.
It takes 45 minutes to get dressed in the morning if I don't intervene. There's always something to do or play with, mostly books or random toys he's taken up to bed the previous night - we don't keep toys in his room.
Getting in from when we've been out, we will always remind him to take his shoes off and wash his hands while we're in the car or walking up to the house etc, but it appears to disappear out of his head the second he walks through the front door and something else always takes precedence.
His nursery graduation ceremony he spent most of the time staring at the audience and not joining in with the songs. It was almost like he was spaced out.
If I take him to a new pre-school class or something, he will prefer to sit on the sidelines and almost sulk instead of getting involved, even when it's something which I know he will enjoy.
Sometimes when asked a question I know he knows the answer to, he'll say "I don't know", because I think it's easier as he doesn't have to think about formulating a sentence. When pressed, he does always give the right answer, or at least provides an answer with some justification.
He has been doing swimming lessons for a year but doesn't seem to be making great progress, and seems to spend most of the time pottering about, half heartedly kicking around instead of listening to the teacher and trying to master what ever skill they're trying to teach that week. He's in a class of about 5 so it's not even as if there's loads of other children to distract him!
He however loves books and concentrates for ages when being read to. He will also sit and focus on tv he likes, and is able to tell me exactly what happened days, and even weeks after. Has fantastic memory recall for events, situations he's been in, places he's been, people he's seen, things he's seen in books or on the internet. He hasn't shown much interest in colouring until recently, but happily sat down and made a card for his key worker this weekend with quite a detailed picture in it which took a while to craft. He loves playing with trains and cars and will focus for ages doing that. He's recently started building quite elaborate Duplo models and trains, and loves mobolo at nursery. He can ride a bike with no stabilisers and learnt this very quickly. He quite often tells us he's lost his toys, but when we don't find them for him, he all of a sudden remembers where they are so I think this might be a more of a "can't be bothered" to think about it first, rather get someone else to do the work instead.
I don't know whether to mention something to his teachers or just see how he gets on in Reception first. I'm also unsure as to whether to ask nursery what they think. It's his final week this week so would have to be soon! What do you think?