Four year old - not ND but very, very challenging

[dashingthruthesnow]

I really struggle with my four year old. I thought four would be a bit easier but it’s proving challenging as three and two were (and one!).

He attends preschool who have no concerns and I do think he is probably not ND but equally I think his behaviour is at the challenging end of normal if you like.

If he is told firmly or sternly or even shouted at not to do something he responds by getting angry and shouting NO at you. I hate this; it’s so rude and I’m worried about him doing it next year at school but preschool have never mentioned him doing it. He also does the stonewall trick where he just doesn’t respond to you at all.

I know I’ll probably get replies like ‘parent him’ but I guess what I’m asking is how, when no sanctions or consequences really have any affect on him at all - he just isn’t bothered.

Okay. Firstly, so sorry to read everything you are going through OP. It’s so hard when you are trying your best, doing everything that works for other parents, but nothing is making the blindest bit of difference.

We are roughly a year on from you. You absolutely know your son best…but I thought I was reading about my own son here. The only slight difference is DS gets silly and loud and physical in the face of demands/telling off/consequences as opposed to angry. But everything else is near on identical. The Explosive Child didn’t meet our needs either. I used to cry reading advice because, like you said, what happens when they always chose the bad option? When behaviour is constantly low level disruptive? When you physically can’t impose anymore consequences?

DS has recently been diagnosed as autistic with demand avoidance. I don’t think he quite fits the criteria for PDA, but he is only small so it may well get worse in the future. I’m also near on certain he has ADHD. He is also exceptionally bright. It’s an extremely difficult combination. We also get the worst of everything at home, with only subtle signs in school. Although I’m expecting the wheels to start gradually falling off at school as it moves from play to formal learning. At the moment all the work is extremely easy for him and demands are few, so he’s mostly okay, certainly low down the SENCO’s radar compared to other children.

We paid for a private OT assessment at home and at school. It’s a lot cheaper than a diagnostic assessment and has actually helped a lot. This could be something you could consider? I think you should also speak to pre school about what he is like at home. It may well help focus their minds to picking up on subtle signs they would otherwise miss. DS1 was only ‘spotted’ after I went in and basically said I couldn’t cope at home anymore despite reading all the books and doing the parenting course the HV recommended.

Hope that’s in some way helpful.

Well I don't get that angry. I just say "I am not happy with you jumping on the couch. It will get dirty or break and other people want to enjoy it. You can play in the garden if you want to jump around, or you can find something in the house to do that doesn't involve jumping." Or I might say "you can jump, but let's take the cushions off the couch so you can jump on them instead". You can do different things. It can be a bit of give and take and doesn't all have to be combative.

Consistently removing him from jumping if he ever ignored me means that he would never bother trying now. He knows I mean what I say. I don't need to get angry and shout about it.

I think kids respond well to adults who are matter of fact, and quite frankly dull, about these things. My son just wants to have fun so if fun is removed then he'll make the right decision. Any attempts to continue jumping on the couch would be blandly thwarted so there's no point in him trying.

I'll also calmly say "I'm not inclined to do nice things with people who ignore me, and we were going to do X nice thing tomorrow. Maybe not..." and let it hang. He'll run off quick smart to occupy himself elsewhere.

I don't have much advice, just sympathy as my 3.5 year old sounds very similar.

His speech is great, eats well and can be the sweetest little thing but he is exhausting! We have secretly nicknamed him "the destroyer" as he breaks everything, just by being so physical, and sometimes angry. He growls and shouts at people if they even look at him and he doesn't want them to. He hits his older siblings and just shouts at you if you tell him off. He is SO different to his older siblings at this age. Even potty training was so difficult, we still haven't mastered it completely as he will only wee for me. He can't even be bribed, he doesn't care about getting toys/sweets/stickers etc. He is mostly good at preschool but there have been a few issues where he just wants me and is cross with his teachers, especially if they are trying to praise him. They have no concerns about being ND.

I adore him, he is so funny and loving but I'd be lying if I said I never thought about how much easier life would be if we had stopped at 2. I find he responds better to distraction/turning it into a game but sometimes you just need to get shit done or don't have the energy! Sorry for the derail, just showing you're not alone.

Thanks @VivaVivaa . It’s hard to know and I am very mindful I’m not in a great place myself at the moment. If I had more money (!) I would 100% have paid for both children to have had an ad hoc nursery day today because I knew I was drained and at the end of my rope. So I’m conscious that’s almost certainly colouring my views.

We can never say never but as well as the above I also have to acknowledge have a toddler who is lovely. She ADORES me - great, except it’s a national tragedy if I leave the room, she has to be with me all of the time. I nearly burned myself earlier as I bent down to get the dinner out of the oven and she clung onto me and I couldn’t move and had the dinner burning through the tea towel … it’s like that all the time. And DS does get elbowed out. She’s had some particularly horrible teeth come through and when I feel them with my finger I think ‘blimey no wonder you’ve been a nightmare’ as they are jagged, it must have been like knives going through her gums.

DS also has recurrent ear infections (this is why I was so confident answering his hearings fine, it’s tested a lot for this reason ) and I should be a bit more understanding as he always gets a bit sillier and for want of a better word obnoxious when he has an ear infection. He’s getting older; he will need to learn he has to do as he’s told regardless but I do think that’s a contributing factor.

So never say never, could be ND but I think he’s just high energy and lacking attention at the moment. Hope you manage to get support though. It’s so hard, this is where typing it at the end of a long day (I’m sure this day has lasted since the dawn of time) helps.

Potty training was awful for us. He just didn’t seem to get it for ages. I think it’s sorted now but it’s been a long road.

I hate saying this but I don’t think DS is especially bright - I mean, I don’t think he’s behind or anything! I just mean I think he’s if anything slightly below average.

OP myself and DH firmly agree that 4 was our eldests most difficult age. His defiance and tantrums were astronomical. I’m not sure how but we survived and he is now a normal stroppy 11 year old.

Just to say sorry that I don’t have any advice but it’s normal and you’ll survive 🍷

Thanks. I am feeling better now. When I look back over the day I realise he really, really wasn’t THAT bad, it’s just the NO I get when I do tell him off and try to be firm that really get to me.

You say 'he's high energy and lacking attention'

You do realise ADHD is 'ATTENTION DEFICIT' 'HYPERACTIVITY' disorder? Exactly what you feel he is? - you've just said it?

Please consider this an option as dismissing this could delay the support he needs to thrive.

You survived it OP. Toddler and 4 year old is HARD keep an open mind but it may well just be a difficult phase (as they all bloody are!)

Yes, I do know that. You really don’t need to use caps lock.

I don’t know if he’s ND. I don’t think he is, preschool don’t think he is, no one he’s ever had anything to do with in a personal or professional context think he is, but time will tell. What I do know is if he is - if - it’s very borderline, he’s never be referred for a diagnosis at this stage.

Four year olds aren’t famed for great attention spans. I do think he’s on the extreme end of high energy but there’s a difference between ND and extreme end of NT. I certainly don’t want to jump to potentially life changing conclusions with no real evidence.

Sorry to labour the point but you know that ND kids often struggle more with potty training due to interception problems?

Despite having a child who is ND, I think this is a sensible approach OP. You wouldn’t be close to being referred for an ADHD diagnosis, primarily because he is still so young. An autism diagnosis hasn’t made the blindest bit of difference to us so far. School can manage him within their capabilities, so not even close to EHCP territory (currently, long may it stay that way ). Life at home is hard but that’s the luck of the draw of parenting I suppose. The only thing I’d stress again to consider if things carry on escalating is an occupational therapy review. That has made a tangible difference and doesn’t require a diagnosis.

@flippetty you are labouring the point a bit to be honest.

I know this is going to sound so arsey and I swear I don’t mean it to, I don’t. But … what do you want? Me to march him to the GP (and even getting an appointment isn’t straightforward) and insist he is put on a waiting list to be diagnosed because …?

Because nursery have concerns, no. Because HV has concerns, no. Because he has been flagged in his two, three, four year checks? No. Because he is sometimes silly and doesn’t listen, yes.

No one will take that seriously at all and rightly so. If in the future someone raises it as a possibility or we have concerns about his behaviour going above and beyond ‘normal’ then we can go down that road. At the moment it would be completely pointless.

Incidentally DS has two friends flagged as potentially ND; both potty trained without a hitch and before DS!

Thanks @VivaVivaa I think if he is anything ADHD would be my guess but I don’t think that he is; I think he’s just energetic and for DS activities breed energy, he doesn’t get tired after one thing after another after another, it often gives him more energy … until he crashes!

I think he’s just energetic and for DS activities breed energy, he doesn’t get tired after one thing after another after another, it often gives him more energy … until he crashes!

Oh I recognise that!

This totally and much more elequently put than i could👆

I didn't realise this was what I was doing when my three boys were young as I had had rather an abnormal and harsh authoritarian upbringing and vowed to do it differently. I talked to them all the time, told them what we were doing before it happened, gave them tasks to do at the supermarket like the list and finding things. I can honestly say I never had a tantrum in a shop or any of them shout no at me............good communication is the key, not issuing orders and expecting them to comply. The only time that shouting needs to happen is if they are just about to do something dangerous like step out in front of a car, it then works because they aren't used to hearing you shout all the time so know its important to stop.

I tell mine that if they stand on someone's toy and it breaks then we won't be able to buy ice cream/toys because we'll have to use the money to replace the other person's toy. He's 3.5 and gets that.

I’m not sure that would be immediate enough for DS, or to be honest many four year olds, the vague no ice cream in the future is just too vague.

@Mossstitch i very rarely shout, it isn’t effective when I do but sometimes you see they’re about to do something stupid or dangerous … you shout and they get angry back. Your children didn’t because well, they aren’t mine I guess. Or you’re a better parent; who knows.

Me too, and it is indeed very challenging. I miss the connection I've always had with my now 4yo: sometimes, if we're having a particularly good day I get a glimpse of how it looks like, that connection, and I think this is what fuels my hope that this be just circumstantial. Am I making sense?
Anyway, solidarity 🙏

It absolutely does

I would suspect his behaviour is to do with trying to get your attention off the toddler and on to him. This is a survival strategy - he needs your attention to feel safe so he will do anything to get it. Its a very hard situation as obviously your toddler heeds attention too. But you may find you can manage the behaviour by looking at him, making the toddler wait, and making clear that you are listening to him and watching him.

I hear that you dont think he is ND but he sounds like my DS, who has ADHD and ASD. There is no harm in using some ND parenting strategies as they will work for many children. The shouting “no” is him trying to take control of the situation and he is copying the same strategies adults use. ND children don’t always understand the hierarchy, so they don’t get why you should be in charge not them.

My DS is 9 and still stands on everything. The best solution is not to leave things on the floor. I have tried encouraging , praising, shouting - nothing stops him standing on stuff. When you have a more challenging child the best approach is to change the environment to reduce the amount of time you are telling them off. Otherwise you can feel like you just go from one incident to another all day.

Honestly, this sounds incredibly familiar. My oldest was just like this right down to the potty training nightmare, the energy, the angry at you for telling him off response, me thinking he might be a little below average since to me he seemed behind his peers, me utterly convinced he wasn't ND. But he was!

He was actually very smart but has ADHD (and some ASD traits). As a poster upthread has said - it's a really tricky combination! I remember thinking often before diagnosis - "There's nothing "wrong" with him, why don't all the parenting techniques I am trying work? What is going on? This is so challenging, it shouldn't be this hard, I feel like such a shit, ineffectual parent even though I am trying so hard." It got more noticeable as he got older (due to more demands on him - school, social etc).

His behaviour was difficult at home, never really at school - I mean he had his moments but nothing was ever flagged. He was "fine" at school - academically OK (coasting), socially OK. At home his behaviour escalated with puberty and it was honestly terrible for a year or two. Finally, when he was in his GCSE year, the penny dropped for me and I took him to be assessed for PDA, although I wasn't convinced it was that, it was just that I thought nothing else really fit the profile. How wrong I was. The clinic found that he didn't have full on PDA but he just about scraped an ASD diagnosis with a demand avoidant profile, but they were very firmly recommending an ADHD assessment. I was surprised! But yep, turns out it was actually mostly the ADHD that was the big issue for him (and nowadays it is accepted that there is large symptom/trait overlap between ADHD and ASD).

We tried CBT and organisational techniques for 6 months but it didn't help. He decided he wanted to try medication in year 12 and the difference is amazing. He is very much calmer, happier and more comfortable in his skin compared to before. It makes me so sad to think how stressed he must have been feeling for many years, masking at school and getting out of control at home. He still has loads of stuff to learn about good habits and emotional regulation but with the meds he is at least able to begin to tackle that. Absolutely no chance before the meds. Once his ADHD symptoms were under some control, he began to thrive academically and has been predicted two A stars and an A for A level - an unbelievable change from his very lacklustre GCSE grades.

My major regret is not realising sooner. If he'd been diagnosed earlier we could have avoided years of stress for him (and the rest of the family). I remember raising concerns at school from Year 2 on but they didn't pick up on it because of course he was masking and wasn't problematic or disruptive for them - and was able to coast under the radar academically (until GCSE when the sheer volume/organisational aspect hit hard).

I've gone on a bit - but really I just wanted to say, if you have that niggling feeling that something isn't right, act on it and get an assessment if you can - though I think you are right that it doesn't need to be now, he is probably too young and you have time to see how it plays out. Don't leave it as long as I did though!

Good luck - while it might not get easier (sorry!), you will get some respite once he starts school. And you do need respite - it's bloody tough and exhausting!

It's not jumping to a life changing conclusion to look at parenting strategies suggested for ADHD, read up about it if you want to and/or to keep it in the back of your mind for later. It's also not jumping to a life changing conclusion to ask the GP or health visitor what they think about his behaviour currently and whether it merits an assessment - it is highly likely, that as you say, they will say "No problems at nursery? Don't worry then, wait and see how he does at school and come back if you have any concerns." But the note that you presented with concerns at age 4 will be there later if you need it, and won't change anything at all if you don't. They might also offer you access to a parenting class, which probably won't teach you anything groundbreaking, but may be useful in that children who have more challenging behaviour can often need a more structured approach and the way that you implement all the usual stuff like rewards, praise, consequences, reminders, encouragement etc matters more. So while 90% of parents can get away with doing it this way or that way and it really doesn't matter because the overall intention is communicated, there are more targeted and effective ways to use these tools for all children, and some children really need that extra step (and, interestingly it is rarely distinctions like whether a consequence is "natural" which matter). It's also a helpful marker because if it doesn't work, then you have something specific to say e.g. "The methods from the Incredible Years course aren't working for him".

FWIW, nursery and school never ever flagged anything up for my eldest who is now diagnosed. For my middle one who is in assessment now, I had lots of complaints of disruptive behaviour and lots of puzzled meetings but any time I mentioned ND they were all full of "Oh no, no, definitely not!" until I eventually said there is a family history of ADHD and then suddenly they totally did a 180 turn and it became highly likely He was also slightly behind on developmental assessments at age 4 and 5, though we wouldn't have had those in the UK. Mainly behind because he wouldn't cooperate with the assessment although he also didn't understand some of the questions/instructions which he apparently should have been able to.

My eldest - I really wish I had understood him better younger, because I think our relationship sustained a whole lot of damage because of how difficult, frustrating and impossible I found his behaviour. It got better again but I felt terrible about it for years and I felt it was my fault.

FWIW, all or most of the resources which have been helpful for us have not been diagnosis specific. And while everyone recommends The Explosive Child, I have also seen lots of people have the same reaction that you have had to it. There are good things about the approach, but I don't think you're in the right place for it to be helpful at the moment. It gets suggested first because it's been around for a long time but it's very radical and not a useful first step into alternative parenting approaches, IMO.

You say he is high energy, and lots of people are suggesting ways to help expend his energy which should be good. Usually when children are being boisterous with toys, people etc giving them an outlet for that energy helps. And this contains a lot of jargon but is a good one to save if he is very physical (it's about different physical sensory inputs): https://www.occuplaytional.com/2023/12/04/a-proprioception-primer/

This (free) course is the kind of thing which is helpful in terms of honing those ordinary/everyday kinds of parenting approaches into a more effective version of all the good stuff you're already doing. I like it because each section is short and likely builds on stuff you're doing already, so it's really easy to integrate into everyday life and it is surprisingly effective, although more so for my 3yo than my 6yo. (It works for him too but not quite as easily). https://www.coursera.org/learn/everyday-parenting/home/welcome

Most underrated parenting book ever - When Your Kids Push Your Buttons.

The Whole Brain Child might also be good, by Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson. That is about brain development/neuroscience and how it can affect behaviour and parenting approaches. Very accessible.

Lastly this presentation is absolutely packed full of suggestions/info and is really well done for anyone who is parenting a child who has a real need for attention/intensity in the way they seek attention. I love it and share it a lot and do use the ideas from it. I wish I had had this when DS1 was younger.

Also, it is incredibly draining and stressful dealing with this kind of attitude and response, firefighting, trying to stop them from breaking things or hurting each other all day every day, and with a toddler as well that's a challenging stage of its own. It's a LOT. Please be kind to yourself - and make sure your DH gives you breaks even if it's just to go to the supermarket in peace when he gets home. It helps me a lot to do that.

A multivitamin containing iron and vitamin D for yourself (and DS actually) might not be a bad idea too if you're feeling run down.

He really does remind me of my ds who is very loud, pretty defiant, was having huge tantrums at 4. Stern tellings off or natural consequences don't work at all.

He's nearly 6 now and is more manageable. What has worked is getting adenoids removed. Turns out he had a host of issues with them including sleep apnea I had no idea about. His siblings does have ADHD and I am going to get him assessed, like you I want to remove the 'is he just 4/5?' out of the equation first so won't assess him until he's 7.

The only parenting that works on him is gamifying and introducing dopamine hits for him. Making things a (usually physical) game to distract attention from the bad behaviour, telling lavish ridiculous stories of little boys who get their comeuppance for toy stomping that grab his attention etc. "oh you're stomping on X's toy ds? did I ever tell you about the story of the toy stomper, the blue dragon and the mummy monster?....and the mummy monster swept down and took the boy's dinosaur. "Noooo" he wept but alas, his punishment was necessary, for you do not stomp on toys" and then he may have calmed down..we might have a conversation about whether the mummy monster was right, how it made him feel but most of the time he will have run off by then.

It wouldn’t have been immediate enough for either of my DC either.

At that age I used to send them to their rooms for 5 minutes to calm down and say they could come out when they were ready. So much of behaviour depends on emotional regulation.

Also gave me a break and chance to regroup.