7 yr old boy - is this normal?

[DrainYou]

I am finding my 7 year old son incredibly challenging; he’s always been very high maintenance, and I’m beginning to think there could be a genuine behavioural issue. Since birth he has always erred on unhappy / angry and has always objected to performing daily tasks. He can be very happy at times, but you never know when he might flip and I feel like I’m walking on eggshells.

At school he is working “Beyond Expectation” in all academic subjects (it’s a private school, hence this rating system), has lots of friends and plays for our local football team. He attends Beavers (where I am an assistant leader) and he behaves really well there.

At home, however, he is objectionable to the majority of requests and really moans and whines e.g. “time for a shower”, “time to do Times Tables Rock Stars”. He will eventually concede, but is angry through the duration (shouting through the entire event how much he doesn’t want to be doing X, Y or Z) and will continue to be angry afterwards.

On the very rare occasion we go to the shops, he will moan the entire time about being bored. The. Entire. Duration. If we go for a meal, the second he finishes, he wants to stand up and gets immediately impatient wanting to leave, even if the rest of us haven’t finished.

When he has friends over, he totally loses his head and has little respect for us or the house. He does silly and sometimes dangerous things. For example, he and a friend were playing out the front of our house and I had to leave in the car (husband still at home, of course!). He stood in the middle of the road with his arm outstretched shouting “Nooooo” as a joke…fine, but after a few seconds I put the window down and asked him to stand on the pavement with his friend so I could leave. He did so. As I accelerated to drive off, he ran out right in front of the car and across the road…I was inches from hitting him. I was totally shocked. I obviously explained to him how reckless this was (and it was the 4th time since his friend had arrived that I’d had to take him aside and talk to him about being rude / silly). Another example is when getting a snack, he physically climbed up on to the worktop in the kitchen and was crouching barefoot whilst he unwrapped it. He’d never normally do this, and I understand he’s showing off, but I am very clear about behaviour expectations and I just thought WTF are you doing?!

He has always been funny about clothes (labels in particular) and will wear the same few outfits on repeat, despite having lots of options. He has also started making noises with his mouth (sometimes a hum, sometimes a clicking noise) near enough constantly.

At mealtimes, we have to tell him daily to sit down, eat with his mouth closed and use his cutlery. We have instilled good table manners from the get go, so I am flabbergasted at us having to continually nag at him.

On the other hand, he is very affectionate, hugely empathetic and sentimental. He has a fantastic sense of humour. I feel like I’m always on his case, and I hate living in fear of him kicking off at any second.

Am I crazy to consider seeking a professional opinion, or is this normal for a boy his age?

Not crazy. He sounds very like my DS1 who has ADHD.

I would get a professional opinion but yes a lot of the things you describe sound similar to my asd son. I tend to avoid things he really can't manage. -Shops a few items are fine but I wouldn't take him on a full supermarket shop. I tend to use things to help him with difficult tasks- tablet/switch/snacks/books as a distraction.

OK, I definitely think it is time to seek some help in that case. It’s been confusing because I know he behaves really well at school, and at Beavers, he is so well behaved and compliant compared to the majority of the boys his age. I guess he must be masking.

Much of what you describe, aside from the behaviour when he has friends over, is a lot like my 7 year old son and some of his friends. He also has tics or noises that come and go for a time. I read about that though when it was worse than it is now and I was worried, but it’s apparently normal. He also has a lot of anger and frustration, finds moving between tasks, even ones that are totally routine and he knows are coming from a mile off. And he then carries that anger into each stage, E.g. of the evening process of going to bed. He also wants to leave the table immediately and is often bored and can’t figure out what to do. But also so curious, full of ideas and adorable. I sometimes think he might be on the edge of something you could diagnose but from what I’ve read many of these behaviours are normal in boys his age. And he seems to be someone who finds life a little more challenging or is predisposed to see things negatively. But there are many people like that in life. We read a book called the explosive child, which helped us see some of the things we find difficult are not deliberate efforts to be frustrating on his part, but a lack of skills he hasn’t learnt yet. And I don’t know what year your son is in, but mine missed a good chunk of reception and year 1 due to covid and my friend who is a teacher says you do see some of these more social skills missing in kids of that cohort. They are all things they work on in reception in particular. My son also behaves well at school but then your home and you are their outlet.

@DrainYou it's very common for children with ADHD to confirm in formal settings such as school & beavers and often these children are highly intelligent. He's using you as his outlet as you are his safe space. I'm sure that behaving so well in school is exhausting for him....the term that's often used for this kind of behaviour is masking. Definitely seek some support for this it will really help you all. Good luck.

Sounds like a normal little boy who’s perhaps a bit spoilt. Needs more discipline. Less on the rules regarding ‘table manners’ pick your battles! He’s only a child.
All children are different doesn’t mean they have a diagnosable condition.
my eldest daughter has always been a battle axe since the day she was born so she requires a different level of care then her calmer more compliant siblings.
seeking a label and a name to some ‘condition’ just gives them an excuse for their behaviour. When in my experience all they need is a bit of training and healthy outlets for their higher energy levels.
look at how you’re parenting him and see what things you might be doing that might be aggravating the behaviour.
for example with my eldest daughter, i discovered that my tone of voice was causing arguments, whereas when I started replying more calmly the arguments stopped.
Even if your son does have a neurological diagnosis for this behaviour you’ll still find yourself having to change your parent to resolve the issues. So it’s worth seeing how you can reacted and deal with him differently regardless.

for context my 7 year old gets silly when have friends over - just pushes it, more likely to be rude, do things not supposed to so maybe some of it is unique to him but certainly losing your head when friends over is fairly standard. And similarly cannot sit at a table really - just requires lots of reinforcement and practice.

i would also remember that they didn’t have friends over or sit at tables when they were 5 because of lockdown so think some of it is just delayed learning of social rules…