Can ADHD symptoms start at age 5??

[Nelly44]

School think my son has ADHD or Autism as his emotions are all over the place with how he reacts to things. It's improving but outbursts still happen or he'll randomly push another child for no reason.

He struggles to sit on the carpet and Can be disruptive when trying to sit, tgis at one stage was crawling over others but is now showing as more restlessness like playing with the carpet or fidgeting.

The difficulty sitting was there at preschool (age 3) but the other stuff wasn't really there. It all seems to be increasing. We also never used to see anything at home but he'll now screech for no real reason, doesn't listen well at times and has a tic.

So I see where school are coming from but it feels like DS has changed at home in the last few months where before he was relaxed and engaging.

Any other experiences like this?

It’s quite common for difficulties to become more prominent as DC get older and demands increase.

DD2 was diagnosed as an adult with ADD. Looking back, we always knew from age 2 onwards that she was more emotionally volatile than the other two DC. She had a tantrum every day, where her twin sister had one every 10 days. DD1 was happy, easy going and compliant - like the sunshine in the room! DD2 was always more stroppy, moody and angry. We put it down to just personality. The tantrums continued into middle childhood.

I only started to realise, there was something wrong at 12 - when she moved off picture books, onto dense text and she couldn’t understand what she read. I also realised she struggled to structure her thoughts and work. It didn’t occur to me, she had ADD because she learned to fake attention. She looked like she was listening, when she was really daydreaming; or she interjected conversations with empty words like “Hmmmm” or “Cool!”, so it looked like she was following it, when she hadn’t got a clue! She struggled with GCSEs and A levels, even with extra time as the lack of reading comprehension was diagnosed; but she really fell apart at university!

No teacher ever complained about her behaviour, except she didn’t ask enough questions and she forgot equipment.