Five year old boy behaviour

[Levantine]

My year 1 ds has always had problems with impulse control and with hurting other children. He won't sit still, can't listen, is always in trouble at and was at nursery too.

He moved school, but at the end of reception in his old school was observed for a morning by an educational psychologist who said there was nothing wrong.

His behaviour had at that point improved quite a lot - we put it down to reading suddenly clicking with him and to a new teacher who was better at class control than his former one.

His behavioural problems have come back at the new school and they want to refer him again, and want me to try to refer him through the gp too, as they think it will be quicker. I am happy to do this but am not sure really what to say to the gp, whether I should take ds with me and what to expect.

His behaviour for a long time seemed in line with what you might expect from a badly behaved child of his age, but it is becoming apparent that it might be something else - but what?

And what can we do to help him with his impulse control in the mean time?

[tigersmummy]

I have a similar sounding DS in his reception year - school have highlighted difficulty listening, concentrating and sitting still which we were concerned about anyway. He is a bit behind his peers speech wise but most of the time we can understand him well. Our school were excellent at getting a educational psychologist in within two months and she has given the teachers and inadvertently us too good pointers to work on such as reward charts and tokens that he can exchange at the end of the school day for a specific treat. I'm surprised your ed psych was so dismissive with the nothing wrong conclusion as all children in reception can improve on at least one area. Ours has already arranged a follow up visit in March and the school have also suggested hearing tests and another SALT referral (we had one when he was 2 but IMO they were useless .

Is the behaviour just at school or home too? Why did he move schools? Have you considered hearing or speech issues? Sorry to bombard you but our DS has had so much upheaval this year that we think its taken its toll on his behaviour. I also took him to chiropractor who found his neck and pelvis unaligned - since then he has been calmer and more pleasant to be around but the last few days he's not been great company - that's the most positive spin I can put on it!

[tigersmummy]

Re GP it may be worth calling first to explain situation - no child should be talked about on front of so I would have an initial chat without him.

[arista]

Sounds that my daughter she does not hurt others but she can't sit still for long etc for cinema or a film and does not listen. She is in yr 1 as well just she just turned 5 end of August and one is of the youngest in her class. I was told to get her referred as well and still waiting. I have to mention that though she was not following instructions at school she was in no way behind in terms of learning she knew all the phonics, addition, substraction etc since last year. But amazingly a month ago I have been called and was told they have noticed such a change in my daughter. So she is following her class and is doing what she is asked to do. I am going to see whether she carries on this way and decide whenever I have an appointment if I want her to see a pedaetrician or not. What I am trying to say is maybe your son is finding it hard to adjust and needs more time. He is only 5 and each child is different. Is he doing ok with his learning? Also have a look at a book called FED UP by sue dengate about how food affects your child's behaviour.

[arista]

Sorry wrote wrongly so wanted to say my daughter does sit still for a film or at the cinema but other time can't stay still.

[Levantine]

Yes, I was unsure too. We have just moved to the area so there isn't anyone at that practice who knows us at all - our old health visitor would have been my first port of call otherwise.

He had another bad day today - hit a teacher when she asked him to sit elsewhere at lunchtime and then also lied to me, saying he had had a good day when he hadn't. He had no computer time at home and no pudding plus a good talking to from both of us but to be honest I am really at a loss as to what to do.

He has a book at school with smiles/straight faces/frowns for each period of the day and is allowed computer time if he gets enough smiles.

He is bright, so the problem isn't that he is frustrated at not keeping up, but not so bright that he is bored.

[Levantine]

Just thinking about this a bit more, and while you're here mrsdevere, would the referral go to the same place iyswim? Or would the schools one go to eg an ed psych and the gp to eg camhs?

[Levantine]

I had assumed so, but sounded from your post as if probably not

[Levantine]

Thank you that is helpful. Tbh I feel out of my depth with following up what has happened at school at home - I used to just want to keep them separate so that he felt 'safe' at home. I see what you mean about the living in the moment thing. Ds said he had a good day and then made up what frowns/smiles he had, because he wanted to play computer games. But he was so happy to see me and kept running to give me cuddles when I picked him up from karate.

He is fine at home, a real sweetie, he just struggles in big groups and with concentrating.

I don't think camhs is what they are thinking, it was the example that came to mind. He has been consistently hitting the same child so I have already asked for a meeting with the Senco and his teacher, so it is very very useful to have some pointers. I suspect they are thinking ADHD, but I will ask them.

[Levantine]

That is so helpful mrsdevere, thank you. I talked to him about things in bed this morning and he invented a thumbs up, both thumbs up, thumbs down system for how he felt/feels about things. He can do stupid things at home - like jump into the pool at the end of the swimming lesson, but my instinct is that he will grow out of this. More clarity on behavioural strategy from school would be god though.

Thank you

[confusedperson]

I feel my DS1 who is 4.7yo is similar to what you describe. He can impulsively hurt his friends or me or poke his brother, and is grumpy most of the time. He is also very challenging verbally - would not engage in a conversation, say silly (not nice) words instead of replying etc. His nursery had referred him to ABC behavioural team (a council service), but after they did a couple of sessions, they didn't notice anything "wrong", in fact they said he is quite bright. He is OKish in school at the moment, not overly engaging in tasks and "has his moments" according to the teachers, but understands consequences and is friendly and chatty so the teacher is not worried. It sounds brilliant, however...

I observed him with other children - runs around on his own, ignores other children when they try to speak to him or instead of engaging in the conversations with other 4-5 year olds, always responds negatively so the conversations dies straight away. He does this to me as well - I try to talk to him, as I try to put, about "wonderful things" and his response is "no", "poo-poo", "bum-bum", "naughty" (complete out of sense) so I always end up silent. I can't work out the reasons. His speech is great, but maybe he is still very immature? Anyway, I think he has signs of ADHD, perhaps too little to be diagnosed, but I am aware and this may cause problems in the future.

The only "positive" thing out of this is that I consider myself an undiagnosed adult with ADHD and I have similar awkwardness but I learnt to hide them and live with it. So I am able recognise similarities in my DS1 and it is easier to understand how he might feel inside and how to deal with it.

[matana]

My friend's eldest boy was like this. They signed him up for early morning circuit training before he went to school and it worked a treat. He had so much pent up energy he couldn't concentrate in school and fidgeted constantly, so the early morning workout really helped. He's 11 now, very bright and much calmer. I heard that boys also double their testosterone around 5, which might also have an impact.

[Levantine]

Thank you all for your input, it really helps. Just coming back to update. MrsdeVeres suggestion seems to have made a big difference, just doing faces to show emotions seems to get through to him and he has had very few days with frowns in his book since I started doing that.

I did meet with his teacher and with the senco. When I asked what exactly I would be asking a doctor to refer to his teacher mentioned autism, which was really not what I was expecting.

They said that they would get the educational psychologist to work with him in January. So I would be asking for a referral to a paediatrician and they would be doing stuff with the ed psych (as I understand it).

I would be happy for him to have a diagnosis if it helps us all to support him, but it is a confusing place to be.

[DeWe]

If he's mostly hitting one child, it can be worth checking what the dynamic is between them. It could be they're playing mostly together, hence when something goes wrong the other child tends to be there. Or it could be that the other child is doing something either accidently or deliberately to wind your ds up.

Ds last year had a child who would repeatedly do something irritating to him. Like remove a piece in a jigsaw ds was doing. Ds would tell him not to do it 2, 3, 4 times. Then would eventually snap and hit him.
Then he other child's parents would go in crying "bully".
Luckily the school was on the ball, and although ds was punished for hitting (which is right, so he doesn't see it as something he can get away with) the other child was not held blameless. As the school put it to me "ds would hit anyone who did that to him. That isn't bullying. However the other child is deliberately targetting ds, which can be counted as bullying."

[neverquitesure]

Poor thing, he sounds very overwhelmed. Have you heard of/googled auditory processing difficulty?

I hope you get to the bottom of it and he gets the support he needs.

[Levantine]

It was very nice to get home to find these messages. Ds had karate tonight and the teacher said he is not putting him forward for grading because he needs to concentrate more - his best friend IS doing it. It is just dawning on me that this is what it is likely to be like . Ds doesn't seem bothered so I am trying not to project.

Anyway, we don't actually have a diagnosis yet, so who knows.

I will look into auditory processing difficulty, thanks for that neverquitesure and the ABC approach sounds really helpful. Honestly I am amazed how much difference helping him identify his emotions has made already