Struggling with 4yo DS2

[ElphabaTheGreen]

DH and I are finding ourselves struggling with DS2’s behaviour and aren’t sure if we should seek further help, so I thought I’d try the MN hive mind first. Apologies in advance for the length but I want to give a full picture.

DS2 will be 5 in August and is in Reception. We don’t get too many reports of bad behaviour from his teacher - there’s only been one instance where she had to talk to me at pick up where he had been wilfully ignoring what she’d asked him to do. Feedback at parents’ evening is that he’s a clever boy but getting him to concentrate is hard work. His behaviour mark on his last report was ‘fair to good’.

That’s not bad at school, but we get that times 500 at home.

He ignores virtually everything we ask him to do. We have to ask him at least five times to do something (get your shoes, tidy up, move out of the way so I can do x, y, z). It’s like the world he has going on in his head is too distracting/important to pay any attention to us. Nine times out of ten if you tell him not to do something, he’ll do it anyway then laugh at us - I told him clearly not to mess about with the automatic door at the swimming pool yesterday, then he looked me in the eye and pressed the door opening button anyway. I can’t really leave him to entertain himself for any great lengths of time - he wanders from one activity to another, trashing the house as he goes. I definitely can’t leave him with marker pens, crayons etc as he’ll just start scribbling on the walls, floor...I found him ‘practicing my letters’ on the window in crayon yesterday 😣

We always give him a consistent response that we are not happy with his behaviour, but I feel like I’m bellowing at him from sun up til sun down. Many times, when I reprimand him, he calls me, ‘the worst mummy in the world’, ‘the rudest mummy in the world’ and on particularly bad days, ‘I’m going to make you dead’. I have never used that kind of language with him so I have no idea where that’s come from. We’ve tried sending him to his room for particularly bad behaviour (punching his brother or smashing up his Lego) which seems to work for a day or two, then it all goes to pot again. We’ve tried ‘love bombing’ - lots of 1:1, getting down on his level and speaking quietly with him, but it just seems to embarrass him. He puts a hand over our mouths and tells us to be quiet if we try and tell him we love him or try and get him to talk about why he behaves like he does. He’s a bit better with DH than me, I think because I lose my shit with him much more quickly, but then I spend more time with him than DH so I cop the most of his behaviour and it wears me down.

DS1 (6yo) is the exact opposite, so I don’t know if DS2 is just a ‘normal’ four year old and his beautifully-behaved, enthusiastic, loving big brother is the changeling! We go out of our way not to treat them differently but I’m sure DS2 can’t help but notice that he gets a lot more grief from us than DS1 does, but I don’t know what else to do.

His strengths - he’s a total clown and can be very funny. He’s creative - they’re having a superhero day at school and while all his friends are going as Ironman, Spider-Man etc, he wants to go as Freddie Mercury because ‘rock stars are superheroes’. He loves any and all music and especially going to theatre shows. I’d be concerned about possible ADHD, but for the fact that he sits riveted, fascinated and motionless through 2+ hour adult musicals and ballets. We do try to use this as leverage (e.g. we confiscate his beloved show programmes for bad behaviour and give them back for good) but it doesn’t work as he doesn’t really seem to care after the initial removal. We’ve tried to capitalise on his interests by sending him to dance lessons where he concentrates fairly well but I don’t know that he completely makes the connection yet that what he does in class translates to what he sees on stage, although he is very excited that his dance school will be doing a show next year that he’ll be in.

Thanks for reading this far 😳 I’d be grateful for any advice you might have.

Hopeful bump?

Your post sounds massively similar to the situation we have at home with DS1, also 4 and also displaying the same behaviours and pushing of boundaries as you're describing.

I came on today to search for help so I'm afraid I'm not going to be much use, but I hope that knowing you're not alone helps

Thanks Liskee

I guess everyone else’s four year olds are perfect...

Bumping this again because his behaviour is still awful and we just don’t know what to do.

We’ve had his hearing and vision assessed and both are perfect so it’s not that.

The other day he started hitting himself in the head and I asked him why. He said, ‘I want to make myself dead so I’m not silly anymore.’ It made me burst into tears.

I’m getting really worried - please help?

I'm not sure I have much advice because we also struggle with our son who is also in reception, but 6 in Sept. I will say its improved a lot over the last year, so there's hope! We find he actually can't hear us when he's absorbed in something, so we have to get his attention before asking him to do something. He also struggles with transitions, so lots of warnings are important. He can't do multiple instructions, he forgets and gets distracted - so there's no point saying "go upstairs and get your socks and put them on and come back down for your shoes" as he'll get half way up the stairs and forget. So we go with him, or just ask him to get socks. We also have to be on him ALL THE TIME if we want to change a behaviour, and totally consistent. So breaking him of drawing on anything besides paper meant never ever leaving him with crayons and taking them away as soon as he started drawing on the table, or insisting he held my hand or handed over his scooter until he consistently showed he could stay close on roads/ stop at corners etc. Never giving mixed messages is key but so so hard.
I really recommend "the book you wish your parents had read" by Phillippa Perry and "how to talk so kids will listen" and "how to talk so little kids will listen". Both were super helpful to us in terms of our approach and attitude.

Thanks Hump - sounds identical!

I’ve read both of those books. The last time I tried speaking empathetically with him using ‘I statements’ he slapped me across the face

I’m not sure if he’s ‘bad enough’ to ask for help through the GP, but I’m assuming he’d just sit on a CAMHS/IAPT waiting list for years? Don’t know if we should look privately into a child psychologist...?

I would look into a child psychologist. We're waiting for an assessment of DS via the school because oohs his behaviour there. He's never been violent to us, though, and although he sometimes hits other kids, it's always for what he sees as a good reason, like they broke up his Lego creation. At the very least, they may be able to help you with strategies to cope with him.
I'm sorry you're going through this. Parenting is so hard.

I did wonder if it’s worth chatting with the SENCo at his school but he’s never that bad at school, just with us and in a couple of his extracurricular activities (his poor swimming and gymnastics coaches 🤦🏻‍♀️), so I wondered if it might be a case of ‘not my department’ but I suppose a chat can’t hurt.

It is so hard. Just when you think you’ve pushed that shit up to the top of the hill it rolls right back down again!

My son is now 7 nearly 8 and he has been very similar to your ds. I think he is finally growing out of the bad behaviours but attention span is still an issue. He has also doing the stuff like hitting himself but not for a while. That used to really upset me. I think he used to do it because he was frustrated with himself for misbehaving and knew it was wrong but couldn't stop himself or articulate why he bahaved in the way he did. He seems to be more articulate now verbally so maybe that's helping. I'd try to focus on positives rather than negatives and ignore as many negatives as you can. I think it's important to give warnings rather than jumping straight in with punishments. Try and offer rewards for things such as good listening and following instrcutions. Whether the behaviour is normal or not I don't know. I've wondered whether my son does need extra support but never sought it and I'm finally starting to become less worried about his behaviours. He does karate which is good for discipline and concentration and they give a lot of praise. I think that's really helped my son.

I think he used to do it because he was frustrated with himself for misbehaving and knew it was wrong but couldn't stop himself or articulate why he bahaved in the way he did.

I’ve often thought this about DS2 and hoped that with more language development it would get better. This is why I’ve tried to use the ‘How to talk so kids will listen’ stuff where you try to articulate their feelings for them, but he just seems to get embarrassed.

He also seems to lack confidence and grit, which I think leads to his lack of concentration, which is such a contrast to his big brother who will stick at anything until he’s cracked it. He seems to start from a position that there’s no point in trying because he’ll get it wrong, or he’ll deliberately self-sabotage and try and get laughs from anyone watching to cover it up.

The problem with ignoring negatives is I really don’t feel I can ignore hitting, kicking or horrible rudeness (e.g. poking a tongue out or blowing a raspberry at me if I ask him to do something). But I’m stuck (as is DH) as to what I do, especially when we’re out and about. A stern word and a hairy eyeball is really it. He gives no shits about consequences, natural or created. If he misses an activity because he refuses to get dressed, he doesn’t care (unless it’s a big event like a birthday party). If you take his food off him because he’s flinging it or eating with his hands and ignores repeated requests to use cutlery, he doesn’t care. If he kicks his brother and gets sent to his room, he doesn’t care. He’ll come down later, give a grudging sorry, then probably do it again the next day. He doesn’t care about sticker charts - they tried desperately in nursery to use sticker charts to get him potty trained but (surprise, surprise) he didn’t care in the slightest and was only just barely out of nappies when he started school. He still needs close supervision for wiping after a poo or he gets it everywhere.

Bribery works slightly but that has its limits (I don’t always have something desirable to offer immediately following a desired behaviour) and I refuse to use chocolate/sweets which are probably the only things which would motivate him consistently. He still doesn’t seem to have any real concept of time so if we say, ‘If you carry on like this, you won’t be allowed to go to X, Y, or Z next week/month/whatever’ he does not get it, unless it’s happening that day.

I’m just at a loss.

It might be worth talking to your GP and getting a pediatrician referral. There are also behavior/developmental pediatricians (perhaps privately) that can help determine if behavior is a physical issue such as language/vision/processing or behavioral. My kid has severe special needs post suffering a stroke including behavior and development and o found them wonderful and supportive and non judge mental. Good luck it's exhausting dealing with a strong will child

The needing consequences the same day I think it completely normal
For his age. Many children much older need consequences to be the same day to have any impact.
What about tv or electronics as rewards? I used to do something for such as 3 smile faces would equal 30 mins tv/ use of iPad.
Things like blowing raspberries is typical attention seeking. I would definitely ignore and distract those sort of behaviours.

I have wondered about an auditory processing issue EKGEMS. He’s better with, ‘DS2 - coat ’ than he is with, ‘DS2, can you put your coat on, please?’ It’s like he can’t identify the key words from the rest of the noise, hence why we got an audiology referral done. He passed with flying colours. His vision is also perfect - tested in school a few weeks ago, and we take him annually to the optician anyway. He is very slow - slow walker, last in all his races in sports day at school, slow, weak and a bit floppy in gymnastics, has cracked a two-wheeled pedal bike without stabilisers but will only keep going for about 30 seconds as he says it gets ‘too fast’ for him or he hits a slight hill and decides it’s too much like hard work. DS1 is, again, the opposite and a complete dynamo. Going out solo with both of them is horrifying. If I had a pound for every, ‘Come ON DS2...DS1, stay where I can see you, please!’ I would be bloody minted!

His behaviour escalates with screens, ohh. Yes, it’s a brilliant reward which he’s very motivated by, but then getting him off it after a specified time period turns him into a worse, screaming horror than he would have been if he’d never had it in the first place. The only time he’s allowed on an iPad for this reason is closely supervised to do the maths homework set by his teacher which he’s not terribly enthusiastic about. The time on the screen is motivating enough for him to do it for a bit, but the activity itself makes it nicely self-limiting without drama!

He gets an hour of TV in the morning with his brother, mainly so DH and I can get ready for work without having to worry that he’s trashing the house, left to his own devices. They’re not allowed any screens after 6pm as I’m paranoid about it affecting their sleep - they were horrible, horrible sleepers as babies, to the point of almost giving me PTSD about it now. A lot of his horrible behaviour surfaces near bed time so I can’t give electronics as a reward then. (Yes, I’ve tried an earlier bed time - no dice. I’m just left with an un-sleepy child roaming the landing.)

I feel for you, our DS1 is really similar. Sometimes I see the lovely, funny child shining through and wish we could have that more often, but mostly he's rude, loud, and boisterous, doesn't listen, ignores requests, and can't amuse himself for more than 30 seconds. I spend my life telling him off.

It might be worth reading up on Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA). If nothing else it could provide some different techniques to try rather than traditional motivators e.g. sticker charts, time outs. My niece was diagnosed with autism with demand avoidance tendencies (apparently PDA isn't a diagnosis itself but a profile of autism). There were certain things about your posts which rang true (not caring about punishment, deliberately defying requests/demands, concerns about hearing) and if you're concerned then do speak to the SENCo and your GP. It's good to get your concerns documented and discuss potential areas for support for you and your DC.

Thanks Hippo. I’ll definitely look into that!

I have 4ds and I would say this time of the year is very difficult for them. They are exhausted and all of my a lot worse than usual. I'm sorry to say this but my ds2 is the most difficult out of them all. Always struggled with his behaviour. He is a lovely boy but very strong willed so we always had huge battles. I found that they all have their difficult time at some point just some last longer than others. Your little boy is also very young so perhaps being a bit patient with him and realising he will probably grow out of it x

Also I think the worst thing you can do is compare him to ds1 who are most likely are sensible and life by rules. I found he is more adventures and his imagination and creativity is brilliant. Try and appreciate his personality and give him some slack. Have a morning where you are just with him and be as silly as you can. It's easier from an outsider but I know that both of us are quite uptight and find it difficult to let things go and sometimes children find that difficult to relate. Try and find some common ground to connect with him however silly that might be and maybe things seem a bit different...

I have a challenging 4 yr old boy too, although challenging in different ways (he may be Asperger). What helped us a lot recently was going to see our council’s educational psychologist. We found the council runs a drop in one a month to see the team. We had to book an appointment in the drop in period. It was really good to talk through some aspects of our son’s behaviour and try and work out what is normal for the age or not. She told us how to get further help later on if we decided to go down that route. Is it worth finding out if your council has something similar? An edu psycho would be able to talk through his concentration issues for example.

And on bribery and sweets, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. It’s only for a short period for example we’re just about to start a reward chart for my son for if he independently gets himself dressed in the morning. If he does he gets a star and After 5 stars a lollipop or a couple of jelly babies so it’s like once a week. If your son couldn’t wait that long it could be something really small like a jelly tot. Once he’s cracked the getting dressed I’ll stop the rewards so hopefully in a few weeks. We’ve done a different one in the past with pastas in a jar, when it was full we went to a trampoline park. The threat of having a pasta removed was a great incentive for him.

I will admit that this sounds outside the range of what is ‘normal.’ I don’t want to fling diagnoses at you because I am not a doctor but the poor muscle tone and floppiness stood out immediately to me. I have a toddler who was born very prematurely and had a brain injury so we are under constant consultant care. And among my friends there is indeed a correlation between delayed physical development and neurodevelopmental issues.
I would ask for a paediatric referral and go to an educational psychologist and don’t forget to tell the Ed Psy about his physical issues.

Hi,
Raise concerns with school and see if you can get them to get doctor referral to paediatrician. If you don't need it and behaviour suddenly improves, great, but at least you're in the system as it takes a long time.

Our DS was similar and recently diagnosed ASD and ADHD. I found the book 1,2,3 Magic helpful. Im still learning with parenting and make mistakes but a few key things have helped. Prep for what is going to happen, set out simple expectations, use rewards, understand behaviour isn't malicious often it's just not thinking things through or signs of not coping, keep well fed and well rested and manage your own expectations as well as theirs.

Good luck. It's a bit exhausting but I think it's getting easier at 6.

Thanks Otter46 - that sounds like a really good scheme with your council. I’ll definitely have a word with our school SENCo and hopefully she’ll know something about services like that. When he was potty training we did resort to mini chocolate buttons for a while but they did nothing to move things along. He loves food and, because he’s not naturally energetic, I do worry about his weight. I’m 99% sure he’s fine BMI-wise (need to check what he came out as at school when they did Reception heights/weights) but I think he’s always going to be someone who likes his stodge and puts on weight easily like his mum so I really want to avoid food as reward altogether.

Potol I’m an occupational therapist who started out in paediatrics so DS2’s ‘floppiness’ has always been on my radar and I will certainly mention it if he’s ever formally investigated further. He’s a lot like me build-wise, however, and I’m naturally weak and hypermobile so I think he’s low-tone end of a normal spectrum rather than it being indicative of anything developmental. He’s hit all his milestones within date and he can keep up with routines in his dance class - he can skip properly and do a great alternating-foot hopscotch which none of my hypotonic eight year olds with developmental coordination delay could ever do, plus he can ride a pedal bike without stabilisers as I mentioned above. His fine motor skills are bob-on - scissor skills are great and he’s age-appropriate for letter formation and pen-grip. He mostly doesn’t much like moving or getting out of puff. The OT in me has always coaxed him towards the stuff that does work on strength and coordination given his lack of both of those things - he does tap, ballet, gymnastics and swimming. Gymnastics is the only one where he looks a bit behind the other kids, but then he’s one of the youngest in a group of 4-7 year olds.

AutismorArsehole I agree - I’m always one to ask for a referral that can be cancelled rather than taking a wait and see approach when it comes to NHS waiting lists. I work for the NHS myself and take very much the same approach with patients so definitely do the same with my DCs!