Has anyone got any experience of ADHD in young children?
My DS is 3 years old, and we have started to suspect he may have ADHD
His behaviour at home and at nursery is becoming concerning to me, my other half and his father (he stays there with him on the weekend) his nursery have also expressed some concern.
My main concerns:
- I feel like hes bouncing off the walls all day, from the moment he wakes up which is around 5am until the time he goes to bed, its impossible for me to get anything done as he demands constant attention and won't sit still at all. Even when eating or say lying in bed whilst I read him a story, he is twitching and fidgeting the whole time.
- He has sudden outbursts of rage, cannot seem to control his emotions well. I understand at 3 years tantrums are still the norm, but he becomes incredibly angry, lashes out, screams, screeches and becomes violent. Most the time this is triggered by me simply saying no. He can also be very impulsive.
- He cannot seem to stay focused on things for a decent amount of time. He constantly has to hop from one thing to another both at home and nursery. His attention span seems quite short and hes prone to getting bored of things very quickly.
- He is very physical, likes to run jump and climb all over things, and doesn't seem to have any sense of danger when doing so.
- He doesn't listen to instructions, I have to tell him over and over and over again not to do something, but he will simply do it anyway even though he knows he shouldn't. Nursery also have a lot of trouble getting him to listen.
- He doesn't join in much with others at nursery. On many occasions i've picked him up, all the other children will be sitting down doing sing along time or story reading and my son will be the only child not joining in with the others, he tends to just run around and hop from toy to toy. And most of the time when he does interact he doesn't seem to play well with others, i've been told on a few occasions recently he has done a lot of snatching, pushing and hitting. And only a few days a go went up to a little girl and shoved sand all in her hair!
- He doesn't seem to have much understand of emotions, or any remorse when he has intentionally done something nasty.
Those are my major concerns, but im at loss what to think or do in terms of managing his behaviour at the moment. Day to day life is becoming incredibly stressful for me. Does this sound like a normal 3 year old behaviour? or is something else going on here?