If you have a son with ADHD do you mind sharing his symptoms?

[flipflopson5thavenue]

Just that really. I think my 10yo DS is displaying some common symptoms and the SENCO teacher has called us in to talk about some of his ‘sensory’ behaviours - fidgeting, fingers in his ear with certain sounds, so I’m starting to wonder more about it. I’m just curious about any of the less common symptoms out there?

Fidgeting, chewing bottle/pen tops, always on the go, won’t sit still to do homework, emotional outbursts, does silly/impulsive things. He’s very funny and observant - eg he will describe someone as looking like “an olive” and you know exactly what he means. School described as “chatty” at that age. Can be exhausting, finds it hard to switch off and go to sleep, boundless energy, always slightly worried about what he will do next, as he’s got older found it hard to maintain friendships.

My son is 10 also, in yr 6. Once I read the symptoms of ADHD I could see quite clearly he had it, though he also has a diagnosis of ASD and some of the symptoms overlap so not always sure which are which! My son will blurt out in class, he gets so that he has to say what’s in his head or he’ll explode. Emotional outbursts, can’t sit still (unless he’s on a screen!)
He says when he’s trying to sit still he just has to move his legs and he struggles with not fidgeting, especially if there is something in front of him like a pen or a ruler. He struggles to concentrate on what the teacher is telling him, and he struggles with instructions. His executive functioning is poor so he often loses things, forgets to do things etc He struggles with waiting his turn, we can’t take him to amusement parks because he couldn’t wait in a queue for more than 5-10 minutes. We rarely take him out for meals as the minute he has ordered he wants his food and as soon as he has finished he wants to jump up and be off.
My son has lots of sensory issues but I had assumed they were his ASD rather than ADHD - he wouldn’t walk on the sand when he was a toddler, he gets very upset at strong (or what so consider not so strong) smells, he wears ear defenders in assembly or of the classroom gets too noisy. He doesn’t like the texture of certain foods or clothes, he can’t stand Bois and crowded places, he loves to flick the pages of books by his nose for the sense of the airflow on his face and the smell of the paper.
He acts impulsively and if he gets hyper excited or angry he will act without any regard to the potential consequence.
Also everything @Chiwawa said.

Fingers in ears due to noise was one of the things that led my ds to be diagnosed with ASD at ten. He was a total fidget to, to the point he would fall off his chair!

I have also worked with kids with ADHD and they were quite different, one was very explosive and angry, the other you could describe as having the attention span of a goldfish, just unable to concentrate on anything we did for more than a few seconds and the other was medicated but I remember being told that they would have struggled to join in with any of the activities we were doing before the medication.

@Choconut my son rocks on his chair, he’s always being told to stop but he just can’t stop doing it. They gave him a wobble cushion which he loves, but he still rocks!

My son got diagnosed recently. He could be quite hyperactive, but what caught my attention was his total lack of an attention span and the fact he can't stay still.

When drying him after a bath, he'll be constantly moving and literally could not stand still for a second.

Poor attention span on things he's not interested in. You tell him to put on his shoes and by the time he's taken 3 steps, he's found something to distract himself with.

He'll also talk himself to sleep. Just gibberish, repeating shows he's watched etc. Sometimes does this for 30 minutes to an hour before he finally goes to sleep.

His hyperactivity. He'll run around in circles, scream out loud and so on. Probably not his biggest issue as he gets older but still a problem