Suspect ADHD in DS6. Hyper at home but brilliant in school.

[whereareyousleep]

I have wondered for a while if my DS6 may have ADHD this has also been mentioned by a couple of family members. My issue is that he is brilliant at school really well behaved, where he should be academically etc. From what I have seen they need to be displaying symptoms in 2 or more settings so is it worth getting a referral or won't it go anywhere if school don't support?

Some of the symptoms at home:-

• completely hyper can't sit still constantly running around making machine gun noises etc
• struggles to fall asleep then is up within 3 hours wanting to get in my bed but will then sleep but is fidgety.
• bed wetting has never been dry at night also sometimes sleep walks, scared of the dark.
• can't play board games as hates to lose or will takes his turn then run around while someone else takes a turn.
• always misplacing things/ forgetting things
• short temper but doesn't hit out

To add in case it's important. He is under speech therapy as cant pronounce some words is also under a dietician as he has no interest in food/ can't sit still to eat so is under weight. My older child DS10 has ASD couldn't there be a link.

He a lovely confident boy and everybody thinks he's funny and great but they're not the ones who have to parent him and I'm exhausted 😩

It does sound like further assessment would be worthwhile. It isn’t unusual for DC to cope at school, but not at home. It doesn’t preclude DC being diagnosed, and it doesn’t mean signs can’t be seen at school even if they aren’t the same signs as at home. Having a sibling with ASD means there is a higher chance DS is ND. Have you spoken to the school? What support are they providing? If school better met DS’s needs, home life is likely to improve too.

Bed wetting can be normal at 6.

Thanks for the reply. No support at school as they have no issues with him so nothing at all from them. I'll try and speak to the SENCO and see what she thinks but in honest the school aren't great at all with dealing with any of this type of thing. He just presents so differently at school an home!

The school should be providing support. They are things they could do that could help. Managing ‘fine’ (aka not actually coping) at school but not at home signifies unmet needs. For example, they could look at how they can better meet DS’s sensory needs during the day which is likely to improve home life. They could look at helping DS with emotional regulation strategies.