Advice needed please - What is 'normal'?

[mummytopebs]

DD 4 saw the educational psychologist on Tuesday who now thinks she should be referred to cahms. Ed Psyc thinks she has some aspergers tendancies but more anxiety issues.

DD is my only child so i dont know what is 'normal', so could someone enlighten me to wether this sounds excessive or just average 4 year old behaviour.

She has recently started being very fearful she is scared of various things, one of them being cracks in ceilings, she gets very scared if there are cracks and wont even go in a room at my mams house because there is a crack in the ceiling. There was one at nursery and she was very worried, shaking and wringing her hands together over it.

Last night she was hysterical for over an hour as her nursery were going to the library today where there was going to be a magician, she is scared of them. She couldnt listen to anything i was saying, she was thrashing herself around screaming and ended up spitting in my face in frustration. I have never seen her like this, then all of a sudden it just stopped! She also has around 3 night terrors a week.

I do want her to get help if it is needed but then part of me thinks is this just how an average 4 year old acts?

Sorry its long but really confused

Anyone?

She also lines her toys up and lakes her figures all sit facing a certain way because she says this will keep her safe.

I can't really comment one way or the other - IIRC from what you have said in previous posts, there's other things on top of this - lining up toys or odd fears on their own don't necessarily mean anything - it's more relevant when these fears/behaviours are part of a pattern of other issues with communication/social skill/behaviour etc.

Yes there are other issues on top of this to do with emotions and rituals, its just the ed psyc only mentioned cahms today when i rang up to ask advice on the episode last night. I do want these people involved but feel guilty in case i am wasting their time. Its all so confusing

Well, it's very hard to say because the line between "normal" and "not so much, actually" is largely about the degree and the context. If your kid chews his jumper, then your friends will tell you not to worry because their little Jack licks chews his jumper too. What they mean, however, is that their little Jack chewed his jumper once or twice, just to see what it was like. Little Jack does not chew every jumper he sees. Little Jack will not chew a jumper in preference to playing with toys or watching the telly or getting attention from his parents. Same action, but little Jack does not have the same problem.

The other thing is that you get layers. You can have normal behaviours and unusual ones at the same time. Your child can have SN or a mental health problem, but at the same time they will also have a bunch of plain-vanilla childhood behaviours. So you will see "normal" stuff and "not normal" stuff at the same time.

Tbh, if Ed Psych thinks there's a problem, I'd at least give them the benefit of the doubt and follow it up with CAMHS. Despite what the media like to tell you, it's actually incredibly hard to get a diagnosis out of any branch of the NHS if there's nothing wrong. Some disorders have a lot of overlap with other problems and they do dither about the precise condition from time to time, but you really don't hear of people whose kids have nothing wrong at all but have a diagnosis incorrectly forced upon them. This could go one of two ways: either you go to CAMHS and they find a problem. And in that case the problem was always there and the diagnosis doesn't change anything about your child. It just gives you about your only chance to access help for them. Or CAMHS doesn't find a problem. In which case you have lost nothing but a little time and gained peace of mind. And I don't think you'd be wasting their time. There seems to be quite a bit of anxiety there (whatever the cause) and if there is nothing wrong but they can help her to manage that anxiety, then I don't see how that is wasting anyone's time.

great post r3, completely agree.

Thanks for your replies r3 and totalchaos it would be nice to have peace of mind either way x It is confusing i think when you only have the one child and so it is sometimes unclear what is 'normal'.