Ideas on developing emotional maturity at 5yo

[Sops]

Has anyone got any ideas on how to help ds (almost 5) develop his emotional maturity?

He is very emotionally volatile, every little frustration is accompanied by over the top expressions of anger. He frequently lashes out at dd (7) whenever they have even the slightest disagreement and I know that the teacher is going to talk about it when we go for parent's evening later this week.

He also is terrible at following instructions and struggles to sit still for carpet time etc.

I was hoping for some ideas on how to help him develop in this area- he is lagging well behind the other children in his class from my observations and I know it would make his life so much happier if he could control his emotional outbursts better. I just don't know how to help him though...

Me too! I have a book recommended often called Volcano in My tummy but it is really aimed at teachers and older children. I try to model losing my temper more constructively in front of him, with acceptable ways to express frustration - hasn't had much effect though I don't think.

Is this all the time or just when tired?

DD is 5 in reception and most of the time ok but if tired just cannot cope - tears, overreaction.

DD does some activities which are good for concentration and listening - eg at gymnastics has to sit and wait her turn. But it is a fine line, too many activities and they are too tired.

We have quite a few books; Talk and work it out, How to be a friend, Angry Arthur, I feel angry, all of which I bought a while ago, but he has only sat through reading any of them once and if I ever suggest any of them he whines and says they're boring.

I also try to model controlling my own anger (often put in such situation when he attacks sister) counting to 10, taking deep breaths, taking a time out by myself.

It's getting to the stage that I can't leave dcs by themselves for 5 mins without some damage being done to dd.

Do any of these symptoms also ring true?

DS has lots of these and is being assessed and you mentioning the carpet time and concentration struck a chord with me.

Thanks ben10. I've had a look through and a lot of the dyspraxia symptoms do apply to him; difficulty with pencil control and scissors, drawings immature, messy eating, sensory sensitivity, limited response to verbal instruction, excitability, tantrums, prefer adult company, high levels of motor activity.

However, he really loves lego and spends ages building quite complicated constructions, he also has good language skills and has an active imagination- making up own elaborate scenarios for lego and playmobil and making up own stories which I write down for him. He was also a confident talker from an early age.

Maybe all those first characteristics are just part and parcel of being a 4yo boy if they aren't partnered with the other symptoms?

None of what you've said rules out Dyspraxia.

If it was just part and parcel of being a 4yo boy then you wouldn't also be saying he is lagging well behind the other children in his class from my observations

My parents evening is Wednesday...... looking forward, not!

Our school referred Jacob for assessment at the Child Development Centre solely due to pencil control and concentration/ carpet time. Following that we discovered lots and lots of the "DS-isms" ie the things that irritated me about his behaviour were actually on the list.

I quite like The Explosive Child for coping with immature kids.

Thanks Indigobell, you are quite right, he is well behind his classmates and has many issues that are in the ADHD area.

I vacillate between thinking there has got to be 'something' to explain his behaviour and thinking maybe I am over-reacting and he is just a normal high-spirited little boy.

We had a meeting in the autumn term with the teacher to discuss his "anger management issues' as she put it, and at parent's evening last year, she thought he was making some progress. She's not mentioned any further problems to us, but I feel he hasn't got much better and life with him at home can be very challenging at times.

When I research it he does display a lot of possible symptoms of disorders like the dyspraxia ones above and PDA sounds very like him too.

Reward charts have always been a catastrophic failure with him, he definitely responds better to negotiation as opposed to us trying to make him conform- that often results in wails of 'don't force me, mummy- you can't force me!' which I really enjoy in public!

Leningrad, have you got a diagnosis on your ds at all and how do you try and manage it?

Parents eve weds too!

"Don't force me!" is something that is screamed at top volume re face washing and teeth brushing in this house! The neighbours must wonder what I am doing somethimes, especially in the warm weather when the windows are open.

Reward charts will work for us for doing things we want but not for what we don't want e.g. I have a reward chart that includes teeth brushing and face washing as well as not hitting (cats or parents), no being rude.

My DS (6) with marked motor dyspraxia was phenomenally good at lego construction and jigsaws-he also had great imaginative skills and was always making up stories. BUT had very similar issues to your DS. What has worked for us? Retained reflex therapy and fish oils have shown marked improvement in concentration/balance/proprioception. He has required extensive OT to help him with handwriting (hypermobile joints) and is remains emotionally labile (he does have a borderline ASD too).Reward charts didnt do much for us either but thats because I honestly think that his issues have a neurological not behavioural root. So telling him to try harder to sit still was a bit like telling a blind person to try a bit harder and they would see. We needed to address the underlying neurological issues-the lack of concentration etc were just symptoms of more profound issues tbh.
HTH

I very much agree with OddGirl

There is an awful lot of overlap between the symptoms of ASD / ADHD / Dyspraxia and Dyslexia.

Teacher wouldn't be discussing 'anger management issues' if it was all normal for a 4 year old :(

Thanks for all those links, lots of relevant stuff around.
I guess the problem is, that he's not that bad- but I still don't think it's quite 'normal'...
Reward charts/schemes always seem to backfire. The latest one seemed to be succeeding until the goal was reached. The reward was ice cream sundaes for them to make themselves. But as soon as the right number of stickers earned behaviour went totally awful and in the 3 min space between earning and getting reward- literally just the time it took me to get icecream out of freezer and into bowls, behaviour was already terrible. He immediately started throwing things about and messing around, getting down from the table, poking/pulling hair of dd etc etc.
I also try to do the alternatives thing, but often he completely ignores anything I say if he doesn't want t hear it.

great advice from the others my DS is ASD and ADHD as they say a lot of traits overlap and i was constantly being told hes not THAT bad by teachers or there are DC's a lot worse as now hes had to go to SS as hes not able to get on at all in MS not saying yours will of course or even if he has any of the above for sure as the others were saying and i agree if its neurological not behavioural charts ect( never worked for my DS either) often just dont work and even if they would certainly not in the time frame MS expect good behaviour all week, at SS they do it day by day and nothings carried over to another day we are told as well once out those school gates if anything untowards happened that day not to dredge it up again they will sort it at school and as soon as hes calmed down they advise them to make better choices and tell them if its wrong like hitting for eg but they dont keep raking it up as MS used to , today ds came out he had a bit of a meltdown they delt with it he had some time out and walked out upset i spoke to his teacher out of his earshot and then called him took his hand and said its ok ... would you like a drink ive one in the car got in the car didnt mention what shed said just started chatting (usually he would have shouted at me slammed the car door got very angry and lashe out at his siblings today first time ever he just smiled and said ty for the drink and all was forgotten

Been looking some more about PDA. I wonder what they really mean by 'passive' during first year.

Ds was a really dreamy child until he hit three. Very alert, sociable, contented, a good sleeper and feeder, not massively early to talk but went pretty much straight into sentences when he did, and has continued to have very good language skills, he crawled and walked at average ages, all gross motor skills seem pretty normal. So doesn't match the criteria there but so much else does.

He has lots of good matches on symptoms for ADHD, Dyspraxia and PDA as far as I can see yet in all three cases he also has a few characteristics that don't fit- I guess it's a rare child that fits the diagnostics perfectly and this isn't an exact science.

Behavioural approaches to managing him just never seem to work. Time outs, reward charts, all the usual stuff. If we try a zero tolerance approach it just ends in absolute trauma for all of us as he gets completely beside himself- he will shout and scream tell us he hates us, is going to kill us etc etc. and will NEVER give in.

I'm worrying that without intervention things are only going to get worse and once he is in yr1 they will be a lot less tolerant of his behaviour than they are in reception.

Sops - At 4 I also thought my DS wasn't 'that bad'. And was very defensive when his nursery teacher suggested otherwise.

Unfortunately I was wrong. And he very easily got a dx of Aspergers.

The best way to tell if his behaviour is 'that bad' or 'normal' - is to get a referral to a child development paed. They're (almost) the only person qualified to answer that.

I wish I'd known to do that at 4 and hadn't waited till DS was 9......

Thanks, leningrad looked at that study and looks very interesting.

The trouble with our ds is that sometimes he has a couple of weeks of pretty good behaviour and that's nearly always followed by a sudden deterioration which lasts for a few weeks. Then back to OK for a while.

Usually we are seriously at the point of doing something like going to GP because his behaviour is challenging us so much and then he turns himself around and we have a better time. Then we think, maybe it is behavioural? But as time goes by he seems to be lagging behind his peers more and more.

Is it a child development paed we would need to see then? Or could we see an educational psych? Do you know is it a very long wait on the NHS and could we see one privately?