Struggling with DS (5)

[thesuniscomingback]

Hi,

DS is 5 and a half and about to go into Year 1. For quite some time now, probably escalating since his sister was born (she’s 2.5 now), his behaviour has become very difficult and I’m at a loss as to what to do. It’s not helped by the fact DH isn’t on the same page as me re. consequences or FIL, who does a lot of the childcare when he’s not at school, will often just completely ignore something, like DS calling him a horrible name.

He keeps going through changing sleep periods. One ‘phase’ was him refusing to sleep, we’re currently on, coming into our room very early to wake us up and refusing to go back to his own room to play for a few minutes whilst we get up. He will make quite upset demands for us to wake up like being hungry and has often then gone into his sister’s room to wake her up for no reason. When you then get him downstairs, all hunger is forgotten and it’s a huge effort to get him to eat.

Mealtimes are really difficult, he can’t sit still and is up and down 900 times or trying to run off into the garden. He swings off door handles, jumps all over and off the sofa and can’t seem to retain being told not to do something.

We’ve tried sticker charts, losing stickers, losing toys he likes or the removal of a promised activity. We’ve told him about going somewhere to calm down and read books about emotions. I sat with him and came up with ‘family rules’ which we refer to all the time, but it’s like the minute emotions get involved, he loses all sense of control. We heap praise on him when he does things ‘well’. We’ve tried removing him from the room for a few minutes, but he will either scream and cry the most hysterical noises I’ve ever heard incessantly, or repeatedly keep trying to come back in, saying he’s urgently thirsty, then the second he’s in the room, the urgent thirst is forgotten.

The most concerning for me is his aggression and name calling. He will call anyone in the family names such as idiot, stupid and now ugly, over very minor things. I don’t know where he’s getting these things from because we certainly don’t use these words at home, he doesn’t watch much TV at all and we repeatedly say how unkind and hurtful they are. If it’s not name calling, he will screw his face up at you, usually whilst getting his face right up in your own and growl or he’ll snap very angrily at something innocent his sister might say. At times when we’ve really been at the end of things and not where we want to be, we’ve occasionally raised our voice, but he will either shout louder back, respond with a hit or laugh in your face. He will say he doesn’t know why he’s done it or that the person deserved it.

He will push, hit, spit and snatch multiple times a day, despite us constantly modelling appropriate behaviour and chatting to him about how it might make someone feel, once he’s calmed down. He often does it to us, but the worst target is his sister and I’m concerned she’s going to get seriously hurt or think this behaviour is okay. He will say it would make someone feel sad and can hurt them once he’s calm and if you ask him how he can resolve things, he’ll say to say sorry and give a hug but nothing is sticking with him to understand you can’t do these things.

It can be mere minutes after he’s lashed out at someone and he’s doing it again.

He finds it very difficult to sit with being told ‘no’ and struggles to make choices. If you offer a very close alternative, but it’s not exactly what he wants, he can’t accept it and if you answer a question, he’ll often keep asking the question or variations of it, as if he hasn’t heard you. He won’t tidy up or get dressed - you could ask him 900 times in many different ways and he will just get distracted playing with toys or start running around with clothes on his head.

He won’t get involved in any clubs or hobbies - he will refuse outright to take part and either start crying and wanting to cling to us or just mess about on the sidelines. He also flat out refused to take part in swimming lessons, spending every lesson for months clinging to us and screaming, way past what a lot of parents have said took their child to settle.

At school, he doesn’t seem to do any of these things, aside from liking his own little friends and areas of play. He’s so clever but would never volunteer or put his hand up so his first few parents evenings, they thought he couldn’t do a lot. Usually when he gets home though, he does seem very emotional so I wonder if he’s masking a lot.

He is getting better but he often will ignore people he doesn’t know very well or growl at them. He hates walking into school from the car park with his friends and will ignore them until school when we’re not there. He’ll just wander in making raspberry noises or shouting random things. It often leads to confused and sad looking friends. Leaving school, he’ll bolt off towards a main road, because a few of them do.

Does anyone have any advice on whether there may be something else like ADHD with him? He’s the sweetest and most loving little boy and I want to do all I can to help him and bring a bit of happiness back into the family, as we really can’t go on like this.

your best bet is to get a psychiatric assessment.
start with your gp or school and if no luck go private.
the psychiatric assessments cover so much detail it's a great starting point.

I think you’re noticing a difference in how his friends and other DC his age behave and that gap sounds as though it may get wider as he grows. Growling in particular as a form of expressing him not feeling ok is unusual at 5.5. How does he score on this simple progress checker @thesuniscomingback?

I think that’s probably got a lot to do with it - he’s our first so for a long time you’re in that uncertainty period of not knowing whether something is ‘typical’ behaviour or not. As he’s got older, I’ve also started to lose some of that, ‘oh it’s just his age’ as I’ve started to think he shouldn’t be doing a lot of the things he does for the age he is now.

I’ll have a look at that progress checker, thank you.

I think part of your problem is that DH and FIL are not being consistent with boundaries. It does sound like ADHD to me. Maybe DH has it too & so does not see the issue with some of the behaviour.

Haven’t got much time to type out the big reply I wanted to - but he sounds very similar to my eldest. He was okay at school, slightly xdifferent to your son as he would happily put his hand up and stuff. He was so difficult at home. Due to being fine at home we really struggled to get any support as it all had to go through referrals from school (tried GP twice who just said that school need to do all the referrals). Eventually we managed to get some support via local authority for some parenting help. It was pretty useless tbh and very basic stuff we’d already been doing. We went private for some counselling/emotional coaching when he was 7 and that led to a private ADHD diagnosis which he got just as he turned 8.

I will say that as he has grown he has begun to finally control his emotions a bit. He’s still very highly strung and can fly off the handle, is prone to throwing a tantrum still, but it’s more manageable. He’s now 9 and this change has been noticeable in the last 8 months maybe.

I agree with pp a psychiatric assessment would be helpful. Five year olds push boundaries but that is a whole different level.

I had this problem with my DH who is now currently going through the assessment process for ADHD himself. For years he could not see an issue either DC2 as he saw a lot of himself in her behaviour.

What you’ve described sounds developmentally out-of-whack.

DS1’s ADHD diagnosis changed everything for him. Meds changed his life - at school and home - in a split second. He’s not been on them during the school holidays and it’s a big difference for him.

Sounds like the spitting image of my 9 year old when he was 5, and my 6 year old currently. You have my utmost sympathies, the struggle is real and it’s exhausting esp with it affecting other siblings in the house too.

Mine are both on the waiting list for ADHD assessment, my youngest is also being evaluated for PDA (a type of autism, but more recently being linked with ADHD), autism, and dyspraxia.

Both are bright and academically achieve well at school…it took their social / emotional behaviour becoming a problem at school for the school to get involved and support the referrals. For my eldest, this took longer as he has a v strong sense of “good” and “bad” behaviour and so masked to a certain extent at school because he wanted to be good. School could see from a young age he was inattentive, couldn’t sit still, and was emotionally volatile, but it wasn’t quite enough. Now he is older and in with a very neurodiverse friendship group of a lot of the “naughty” boys, he has stopped trying to be so good and rule following. Now he is being a pain in the classroom, the school are finally listening to me and what I say his behaviour is like at home. I have been able to see differences between him and his general peer group since age 2 (we were actually offered free therapy for it at that age while living in Canada).

wheels have fallen off for youngest son at school much earlier, possibly due to added complication of potential dyspraxia, hence an earlier referral. He has v low resilience at school and will go and hide under the coats in the hallway when he becomes overwhelmed with the prospect of doing something like handwriting. He also can’t hide his sensory issues at school, and finds doing things that require attention and fine motor skills like getting changed for swimming or PE very hard. He is top of his class though for maths and phonics. And doesn’t seem to exhibit the controlling / demanding / shouting and hitting behaviour that happens at home.

if school aren’t on the same page as you and you are genuinely struggling at home, I would save up for a private diagnosis. They are about £1200-£2000 depending on where you are and what you want assessed. I wish I had done this many yrs ago for my eldest as I could see him struggling to go into school every day

This sounds really difficult to deal with and not at all “average”.

Honestly I’d start by introducing more screen time to his life. Let him have a bribe: “if you sit quietly for five minutes eating dinner without growling, kicking or spitting or using unkind words, then you can watch an episode of Andy’s Wild Adventures before bathtime.”

My ds was like this but not quite as extreme. Developmentally there is nothing amiss aside from a very bad speech delay which caused frustration. He growled, spat, kicked, blew raspberries, hissed, got so angry he would clench all his muscles and turn bright red. He needed to be taught to recognise his behaviour and feelings and let them go. Every day, without being a prick about it, I would calmly talk to him about what was going to happen during the day and we would talk about situations where he would feel bored, angry, have too much energy. We’d talk about the right responses to situations with classmates. I also spoke to his teacher and asked for her to keep an eye out and make sure he got an appropriate consequence at school if he was misbehaving (some schools just ignore bad behaviour).

You say he’s sweet and loving and clever. Does he understand that it is completely unacceptable to hurt his sister and that name-calling and violence are forbidden? Does he understand why? If he can’t explain that then you have some teaching/parenting to do.

As a minimum get FiL and DH on board with that - agree a way of saying No firmly and applying an immediate consequence. If there is a tantrum, calmly ride it out. Afterwards ask for an apology and ask him to tell you why he got told off - he probably won’t give you an answer yet, out of stubbornness or inability, but give him some moments to try and think it through and then give him the answer. eg “I asked you to sit quietly on your bottom at the table and eat your dinner, but you made fart noises and ran off to jump on the sofa.” Then ask him “next time when you feel get bored of eating dinner and want to run around what will you do differently?” And again give him chance to reply. And give him an answer eg. “‘Next time I’d like you to tell me that you don’t feel hungry any more and would like to get down from the table before you run off. And I will ask you to sit and finish your vegetables and we will play I-spy until you are done.”

Also consider if he just has bags of energy. My ds is much better when he’s moving a lot.
How much activity does your ds get every day? We often cycle to school the long way (20 mins) to get the wriggles out on the way to school and do the quick route (ten mins) home. Ds also does two martial arts classes (judo is his favourite), swimming class one weeknight and most weeks an extra visit to the swimming pool at the weekend, and does a sport club after school once a week. We have a trampoline in the garden and he likes to do his martial arts practice, 10 sit-ups, plank and 10 pushups every day. Dh takes him for long bike rides if the weather is fine on Saturday mornings (up to an hour of cycling) and if not we often go to the indoor climbing wall instead.

This is about the right amount of exercise for him at the moment. He is a different boy when he’s getting plenty of physical activity and I am sure it helps him deal with his “anger issues” and emotional self regulation

Thank you everyone and for those who have shared your own experiences, I appreciate that and knowing maybe it’s not just us. I’m so worried he’s going to struggle in Year 1, with the big change in what’s expected of him. It makes me so miserable as we were always so close and I hate feeling like we’re always in this time of struggling, rather than how things used to be but I’d do anything to help him.

At home he can recount everything he’s learned, his reading and phonics are excellent and will tell me lots of things about maths. His speaking has always been very advanced for his age too. At school though he will sit very quietly and not show them what he knows so all of his work and reports says he can’t do things or needs support. He will say he won’t do the things he does at home, at school, because he knows he’d get told off, even though he gets consequences at home too.

Interesting comment about DH, he’s actually awaiting assessment for ADHD himself - he’s more lack of focus and motivation and extremely messy. DH will often accuse me of being too strict

I had to get up at 5:30 today and DS was in our bed already way before this. The minute I was up, he’s then been jumping all over DH. DH gently moved him off (I watched) and DS then started saying he’d hurt his shoulder and couldn’t move. He proceeded to then throw himself on the floor and lie there saying DH had pushed him and he couldn’t move. After that, he’s been jumping and climbing all over our bedroom whilst I’ve been getting ready and refusing to say sit in our bed with a book or go in his room and play until I was ready.

We did mention the concerns to his school teacher recently who said she’d see if the school SEN team could do some work with him around emotions.

While this response is very helpful, and definitely an ideal standard for all parents with very active, emotional children, it isn’t a physical possibility for a lot of people esp if they have multiple children. And does a neurotypical child generally need this level of emotional support and physical movement every day in order to stay regulated? I know my daughter, and my nieces and nephews, all of whom are neurotypical, don’t

Having read your update, you need to take DS to the GP to get the assessment ball rolling. This behaviour will only become entrenched. He is already displaying a type of school refusal by not doing his work. I teach secondary and the behaviour/attendance die is cast early. Many parents try to ‘wait it out’ while behaviours become more and more entrenched. DS1’s entire course changed when he began ADHD meds.

We have a similar child and I would just briefly say that you should expect to do all the research, legwork and adaptations yourself. Do not rely on school. And if DH and FIL are distracted/chill kind of people, don't expect a lot of help from them either!

A good book is 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child.

It's important to understand that a lot of the behaviours (the early morning wake up calls stood out) may come from anxiety.

We found melatonin very useful in establishing good sleep.

I would try and speak to the SENCO lead at a school yourself and see if they will observe him. Don’t forget too that an ECHP will depend on need rather than diagnosis so you can apply for one now.

It’s probably worth filling in the 60 month Social & Emotional Ages & Stages and seeing how he scores on that. I would fill it in, score it and also speak to the School Nurse service to see if they can offer any help with referrals.

Thanks @ProfessorRizz - I do agree about wanting the help now. I already fear for him socially for the small things at the moment like ignoring his school friends walking into school, but will play happily with them during school.

He’s definitely worse when around children who misbehave. He’d never instigate anything but if he’s with others doing something, he’ll get carried away and join in.

Thanks for other advice everyone. He also hates things like us singing and will shout at us to stop. He used to be the best sleeper since he was a tiny baby, it’s only the past few months that he started the early wake ups, which moved to refusing sleep, saying he wasn’t tired and fidgeting around. If we didn’t lie under his bed he’d be in and out of his room constantly. That finally seemed to stop and we’re now back to coming in our room in the early hours every morning, which is exhausting.

DS1 used to ignore his friends outside of school, I later realised he had face blindness (apparently more common in ND people). He ‘gets’ people based on hair/bags/general size.

I’d never even heard of face blindness before, definitely something to consider.

Another day of lashing out - I’d opened some parcels and DD had some wrapping out of the box. He was grabbing and twisting her fingers trying to get it off her, so because she wouldn’t give him it and whilst I’m trying to get over to her to stop him, he then slaps her in the head hard, followed up with a double foot kick to the chest.

He’s thrown hard plastic toy balls at my chest from close range this afternoon too and because I was asking him to tidy up, pelted me with more balls from behind. He also used one of those toy ‘grabber’ type things (like a litter picker) to grab DD’s leg multiple times hard and pull it. He wouldn’t listen to being told to stop, so again had to be moved away from her. I then removed the toy and told him he wasn’t having a bedtime story. This resulted in the most horrendous bawling, demanding the toy back and, the only way I can describe it is ‘manic’, shouting that the dogs were going to eat the toy and he needed it back. Because I wouldn’t give in, he started hitting me. All of this was in the space of 10-15 minutes.

The window cleaner has been today too and DS proceeded to get really angry by his presence, going into every room he was in, scowling and getting really close to the window shouting at him to go away.

I honestly don’t know what to do, he doesn’t respond to anything and it’s pointless telling him not to do something. Consequences don’t work because he will just do it again within a few minutes as if it didn’t happen. I’m exhausted, what with worrying I’ve done something wrong and I’m the worst parent, that his sister is going to end up traumatised seeing his behaviour or badly hurt, feeling our relationship is suffering so badly and he comes into our room every morning in the early hours so I’m barely sleeping 😭

You are not the worst parent, the fact you are on here concerned about his behaviour rather than shouting at him and hitting him back speaks volumes. It’s much easier and cheaper for partners and family to mum-blame rather than admit there is something else going on ❤️

Some of these sound like anxiety behaviours.

Hopefully the window cleaner doesn't come that often, but with things like that you could try googling to see if there's a social story you can show him beforehand?

I'm sure it won't be the first time they've had a kid do similar though.

What you describe sounds just like my 5 year old who is autistic and possibly adhd we are to get assessed for that when he is a bit older depending on if some behaviours remain. Do push for an assessment of some form. Be it right to choose or via nhs

OP my son is the same age and your post really resonated with me, he doesn’t spit and he won’t ignore his friends but the aggression and vile name calling, flying off the handle, unlimited energy, effect on our younger child, inability to respond to discipline, or praise and masking at school etc is very much like my son. He has been horrendous this summer hols. I have been told to try magnesium for my son so I have ordered gummies and will try them (will let you know if there’s any benefit!).
I often wonder if it’s ADHD or just a difficult, uptight and immaturity that will resolve itself in time. I know people are very quick to say you need a diagnosis, but what about now? What can help now? Is all I think about.
I told my DS tonight that the nice boy we know is inside of him and we know he’s in there. We label his behaviour “rude” and he knows he’s being rude, but I think he is just so frustrated inside that it comes out as agressive name calling and acting like a dick head. It’s like he’s being as disrespectful as he can because he’s so annoyed inside and wants to spread it. Someone told me that boys this age have more testosterone and I think maybe that could be to blame. Someone else also said that boys can calm down a lot by 7 which I’m really holding onto (DS is 6 in dec) also we are still in pull ups at night if that means anything.
So yeah, I really want to send you some solidarity because I’m living this life too and it’s very depressing isn’t it? You just want your child to be a good person and to be happy and they are the opposite right now! Sending you lots of love and well wishes!