Please bear with me - I know he’s very young and the best thing at this age is to adopt a wait and see approach, but I’m looking for advice about whether I should do something now or leave him and wait.
He’s just turned 2, had his 2 year check on Monday and scored high on the ASQ social emotional scale, I’d asked for the check with HV a bit early as I had concerns - I’ve posted on here about him before in behaviour but not got a lot of answers.
HV’s overall sense from seeing him is that he is at the very challenging end of the spectrum in terms of toddler behaviour, and she could refer him now for further assessment or we could wait and see a few months more - he has just started nursery so things could change a lot in the coming months.
He is a very loving and happy boy when he has his own way, but if not he has the most explosive meltdowns I’ve ever seen. I reckon 10-20 a day. Not always that long, but they basically happen in response to every transition, morning til bedtime. We’re not very good at dealing with them and often give into him, but nothing we try seems to work - too young to reason and even distraction just annoys him. It’s eased off a bit but he sometimes hurts himself with head banging, bites and hits and pinches. These were some of the red flags in the questionnaire.
He very much wants one on one attention with an adult at all times - this is why I’m hoping nursery will help. He has an older sister (4) and I feel like I have to leave her to if half the time - he is all consuming and destructive! I have to plan my days around how he’s going to be and minimise transitions, if we have to go more than one place it’s just physically too much for me, the car seat and stroller battles are epic and being out and about can just be so embarrassing if he goes into a meltdown.
He sleeps ok although has just gone into a bed and is waking at 5 so is a bit more tired at the moment possibly.
Language is pretty good, not super advanced but I wouldn’t say delayed either - new words and simple sentences coming each week, not sure though if he’s where he’s be expected to be at 24 months.
I know he’s young but his behaviour around other children does concern me - he often seems scared of them and runs away or covers his eyes. Again hoping this will improve at nursery.
what should I do? Just monitor things for now and watch and wait over the next few months? I want to get the balance right of giving him a chance to develop the social and emotional regulation skills but equally, if this sounds worrying then I’d want to act sooner. I just worry about him all the time! And whatever the outcome is, for now I just need tools to try and deal with it better but no one seems to have any ideas. Hoping he will sound familiar to someone!