4yo’s extreme behaviour – desperate for advice

[MilesJonesy]

My 4-year-old (well he turns 4 on Wednesday) son has always been a bit fiery, but since starting the new nursery term things have spiralled out of control. Last year he would occasionally hit out, but nothing like what’s happening now.

In the past few weeks he has:

• Flipped tables and turned the whole nursery room upside down (two or three times).
• Spat on toys and thrown food.
• Tried to hit staff, and last week scratched a teacher’s arm so hard it drew blood.
• Refused to let others share resources (like all the Play-Doh pots) and gone into full meltdown if asked to.

At home, it’s not much better. He’s wrecked his room in anger, smashed a glass candle jar, peed himself in protest during time out, poured water over his brother in the car, and regularly hits/spits at his sibling. He sometimes escalates so much I can’t leave him unattended even for a few minutes while cooking.

We’ve tried every sanction I can think of: time outs, no screen time, early bed, confiscating toys, putting him in his room, even withdrawing attention/not playing with him. He doesn’t seem to care about any of it – he just shrugs it off and carries on. Sometimes sanctions even backfire (e.g. peeing himself in protest or trashing things).

What makes it harder is that he can also be completely fine – affectionate, able to sit through long stories, build Lego, go for walks, or cuddle up quietly. And just this week he had two completely fine days at nursery where nothing bad happened at all. So I’m baffled as to how he can switch from that to such extreme behaviour.

We constantly reinforce “soft hands” and “kind words” at home. Nursery have been supportive – they’ve made referrals for speech and language and for a possible neurodevelopmental assessment, but the waiting list is about two years (Scotland). I’ve started looking into private options because I feel I can’t cope waiting that long.

Emotionally, I feel like I’m at breaking point. I’m stressed, anxious, and sometimes feel totally alone dealing with this. I have another child too, and it’s horrible watching him bear the brunt of the hitting/spitting.

Has anyone else had a child whose behaviour escalated like this around age 4? Does this sound like ADHD/autism/PDA, or something else? And what practical strategies actually made a difference in keeping everyone safe day-to-day?

Any advice or reassurance would mean the world right now. My eldest is 6.5 and has no problems whatsover at home or school except the odd bit of being silly or cheeky.

Believe me you can scream at him, shut him in a room, take everything he cares about away. And he will laugh.

@MilesJonesy dc2 is on the spectrum.
The huge difference is that he was masking at school so we were the only one to see the ‘bad’ behaviour.
punishments never worked.
What has worked for him is to take him to his bedroom and tell him he could come out when he was calm again. Let him find his feet and learn to calm himself down.
Otherwise, predictable environment/routine. Low key, reducing stimuli (loud music, etc…)
Lots of exercise outside
Learning through trial agd errors what worked for him rather than assuming xyz method is going to work because it’s supposed to,

Yes. I do that. I'm a teacher with 14 years of experience. My eldest child is completely well behaved and an angel at school. That approach worked on him. On youngest it does nothing.

If I were you I'd be having him seen by an occupational therapist, he sounds like he needs help to regulate and ot will give you a sensory diet to give him the input he needs to regulate. Consequences won't work when he's not regulated

Read ‘the Explosive child’. It has strategies for the sort of child that doesn’t respond to normal consequences.

you need to write a diary- firstly because when you get referred you will have a proper account of behaviour to show them. But also so you can see the triggers. Sometimes - esp if neurodiverse- you need to find out what your child can be expected to do, and manage within those parameters

So laughing can be a fight or flight behaviour with ND kids. It's sometimes called "fool". It doesn't mean they find it funny. My AuDHD DD does it sometimes. It used to confuse me when she was younger.

Spitting/kicking/trashing stuff are signs of deep distress. DD was in a complete state when she did that stuff (she's a moderately sensible 12 year old now). We had to take a lot of passive measures: removing damageable stuff; locking doors; moving away from her; removing her from the situation (I once had to fireman's lift her out of a hotel restaurant!)

Your son may not be able to tell you what's upsetting him. DD never could. I'm not sure she actually knew?

He could be: hungry/thirsty/constipated/otherwise unwell.
Frustrated with lack of speech.
Bothered by sensory things: lighting, smells, sounds, jostling, tags in clothes.

If the nursery is small, they may lack experience and expert support.

Random but does your son ever get tonsillitis and do you think his hearing is ok?

I feel so sorry for the other children at nursery. It must be terrifying for them.

I do ask "Why are you doing this?" Or"Why did you do that?" When he's de-escalated but usually I just get "Me angry" or "because I want to". It's just gotten so much worse in the past two months and I wish I knew why.

He sounds very much like my DS3 who is now 12. Diagnosed ASD and ADHD and has a demand avoidant profile. Also dyslexic. Although the SEN system is different, I do think an OT assessment by sensory qualified OT can be really helpful, particularly if they can observe at nursery and home.

It's been very up and down with DS3. I will say ADHD medication did really help at school, though generally not prescribed until about 7 here. There's never been any kind of consequence or punishment that has any affect on DS3. Our greatest successes are always around his interests and high levels of supervision.

Have a look at the PDA Society for strategies that may help. It's all a bit trial and error ime.

My son was diagnosed with Combined ADHD at about 7 (and much later, Autism) and some of his behaviours were very similar. Simply put, normal parenting techniques don’t work because he is ND. He has very poor emotional regulation and impulse control. He’s 17 now and it’s still hard to deal with him, but I’ve seen enough now to know he is often absolutely overwhelmed and cannot help it. After an outburst, he can now come and apologise for his behaviour, but in the moment, he struggles. I do worry about this for him, but I can see that fundamentally he is struggling.
You have my full sympathy.

Consequences don't work when someone is in the middle of a meltdown, hence the laughing/not caring/peeing himself.

For consequences to be a deterrent the child has to be thinking rationally.

It sounds like it could be ASD with elements of PDA. I'd pull up a list of strategies for avoiding/stopping ASD meltdowns/triggers, pick 1 or 2, use them consistently with nursery's help for a couple of weeks. See which ones work.

ND tends to become more apparent from the age of 4 onwards (the developmental delay becomes more evident).

If you and nursery suspect ASD then please don't listen to the "you just need to be tougher" crap. It doesn't work and it will make your and your child's life harder in the short to medium term when you inevitably figure that out

Thank you. As I already mentioned I'm a teacher, and I've worked in some really tough schools. I've dealt with behaviour that is off the wall. I know all the standard strategies. But I find that the tougher I get with my youngest the worse he gets, the more destructive, damaging and frightening. Consistent, immediate consequences mean nothing to him.

Maybe ask for the post to be moved to the SEN section. (Click report on your OP and type a message in the box).

OP has already tried consequences, and this child is three. Escalating the consequences is unlikely to help and will probably just make everything worse.

It does sound like there is probably something going on for him, possibly sensory processing differences, clearly a lot of frustration, certainly difficulties with emotional regulation, probably difficulty with communication. These things could stem from various different difficulties so a neurodevelopmental assessment would definitely be helpful.

If you can afford to pay privately, it might be worth looking into Occupational Therapy for an assessment of his sensory profile as well as other aspects (e.g. impulse control, emotional regulation) and then ongoing therapy to address these things. Personally I found this much more helpful than the ND assessment (although a concrete diagnosis is helpful for communicating with other adults in the child's life - they also understand how long NHS waiting lists are, and should get some of the benefit from saying "He's on a waiting list for assessment".) Speech and Language may also be worth paying for privately if the wait is long, because if communication is impaired, that's likely to be incredibly frustrating and confusing for him. A lot of behavioural expectations at age 3 and 4 are based on children being able to communicate with peers using language, and understand/follow directions from adults using language. If language development is delayed it causes huge issues with this which can be part of why there is a spike in behaviour at 3-4.

Gentle hands etc in the moment is unlikely to be sufficient BUT the idea of being positive, and asking for what you want is GOOD. This is exactly right. It's just that it sounds like he has no concept of what "gentle hands" is (it needs to be more specific) and/or most likely no ability to access it in that moment anyway. It's likely that you'll need to zoom in much more closely on specific skills - which is why it helps to have an idea of where he is developmentally with each skill, vs where other children his age are.

IME there are three parts to what helps.

• Spotting when they're heading into that "feral" type state where they seem out of control and nothing registers with them. Finding a way to keep everyone safe when they are in that state. Working on strategies to help direct them away from that state before they get there in the first place. (Good resources: Mona Delahooke, Big Baffling Behaviours, Zones of Regulation, Conscious Discipline - the latter two have programs for schools/nurseries or your LA might already have some kind of "Emotional regulation" SEL program they can access.)
• Being proactive, rather than reactive - you can probably predict his top 5 most likely explosions over the course of a day/week - it helps to sit down and work out a plan of action in advance. What will help set him up for success? What is your positive expectation of him in that situation (e.g. what, specifically, should he DO - not what he should not do) and can you set up some "smaller steps" for practice/coaching. This is likely to be much more effective with a professional who has good knowledge of how the relevant skill develops, but you can do some of the setting up for success based on your own observations of patterns - e.g. if you have a child who bolts near roads, you might use reins or a pushchair to contain them near roads, and then spend lots of time really over egging safe road crossing protocol on a very quiet cul-de-sac.
• A really clear, structured approach to behaviour management. Random consequences given out in the moment with the aim of getting him to stop are likely to inflame the situation. Primary aim in the moment is de-escalation and redirection to keep everyone safe. Then you would pick a small number of the most disruptive behaviours to target, and target these using a combination of a very calm, boring and usually minor consequence which an adult can give without becoming agitated/frustrated themselves, and (a higher ratio of) positive behaviour points/tokens/rewards/praise for small steps towards the behaviours you want, which are clearly defined and not vague. If behaviour continues, reduce the size of the step rather than increase the reward/consequence. Negative behaviours outside this scope are ignored. Adults stay calm and don't get drawn in emotionally. Targeted periods of positive attention are also used to strengthen relationship between adult and child. (Good resources: Coursera ABCs of Everyday Parenting, 123 Magic, NVR)

Sorry, this took me ages to write so you probably have been overwhelmed by contradictory posts already.

No he wouldn’t. Because he’d be masking.

You don't need to scream at him. That is losing control, not parenting. And shutting him in a room is abusive.
But you have mentioned words like 'gently' 'soft hands', 'sensitive' several times., which makes us think that a lot of this child's upbringing has been soft and fluffy. Going to the other extreme won't help him neither.

My daughter is highly intelligent and even now at 12 she doesn't always know why she did things. I think those conversations are kind of pointless with a ND 4 year old. Observe him very closely, take notes, keep a diary, try PDA strategies, reduce any known triggers.

What does he find calming? Do more of that. Lots and lots of that.

Op this sounds ND. And normal parenting techniques won’t work. Try more low demand if you can on some minorish things to avoid such frequent melt downs. But then of course anything unsafe has to be heavily enforced.
Have you spoke to GP? He is presenting with difficulties that to me (mum of adhd child so no expert) are ADHD or ADHDau in 2 settings that would likely score him as meeting criteria for nhs assessment depending on your area age limits. Waiting lists are terrible. Could you go private? Definitely feels like it needs assessing and intervention here.

I am also an experienced teacher. It's different when it's your own child.

We got some helpful advice from a NVR specialist when DD was younger. He was ND and so was his brother. He mentioned in passing that their parents, a senior teacher and a social worker were totally at a loss bringing them up. He was such a lovely man. So insightful.

Yvonne Newbold has good resources on NVR.

It sounds by your posts that your child may be ND/PDA.

However, I only know what you’ve written.

I would:

Speak to GP/Health Visitor
Arrange Hearing Test
Arrange Eye Test

If hearing/eyes are fine then you know he can hear you and see so that’s ruled out.

I have been in this position myself and eyes/ears checked was a good starting point.

Also, when are you removing toys? Because of poor sharing, poor behaviour or being destructive with the toy? @MilesJonesy

Yes it’s seen as kind to share but children don’t always have too.

When my DS would show signs of an incoming meltdown, I would sit him on my knee, we would have quiet time and I would just hug him, when he had self regulated (which he needed to learn how to do) I would in short phrases, explain what behaviours were not ok. I.e We do not hit. Do you understand. Then we would move on.

Using too many words can escalate someone already in sensory overload.

He has been referred for this by the school (his nursery is linked up with school). But the waiting lists are terrible so I'm looking into private resources now. We can't really afford it but I'm at breaking point. The wait is 2 years, far too long.

Thank you, this is very helpful. I'll take a toy if he's snatched it off his brother or thrown it. Or if I warned him that I would if he didn't behave. **

I’m not a SEN professional but parent of ND child.

Having been round the houses trying to get a diagnosis, your son’s behaviour screams autism with possibly ADHD and PDA.

Id spend money on private diagnoses- just so you and school know what you’re dealing with.

Ignore pp’s suggesting it’s lax parenting- even poorly parented kids don’t behave like this unless there’s severe trauma or special needs

Ignore some of the frankly unhinged responses OP - they clearly have no experience of SEND. I would suggest you post on the SEN board

If he is ND warnings can be pointless as their mind is so scrambled they aren’t processing the warning as potentially still processing the action that led to the warning.

Another thing I did, which helped, is give an instruction and in my head count to 10. I.e. Put your shoes on please, count to 10 in my head to give time to process the instruction and start the instruction.

Rather than say put your shoes on and expect an immediate reaction and end up saying 10 times put your shoes on, why aren’t you listening, do as your told blah blah blah then we have a child in a meltdown situation a stressed parent and everyone is pissed off!!