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Does anyone deal with this? I am at my wit's end with my six year old son. He's fine if it's a very structured day, and he knows what to expect. It's even better if he is occupied every minute of a day. For example, on Thursday, he got on the bus at 8 am, went to school, went to aftercare until 6, then I took him to a family fun night at the aftercare (YMCA) until 8 pm. He ran around with his friends, all happy and was the model child. Flash forward to today - Sunday. Nothing is on the calendar except maybe going to grandpa's for a few hours. From the moment he got up, he badgered us for pancakes, took out all the art stuff, left that all over the kitchen floor, took out ALL his markers and papers, left that all over the living room, rode his bike up and down the street a few times, came back in, put on his Halloween costume, freaked because it was too long, harrassed DH to fashion him a belt from a rope (to keep the costume from dragging), put it on, took it off, put it on, then freaked because said it looked like a karate outfit and he wanted to look like a ghoul. Then he started with what I call the borderline behavior - hit my rear when he ran by, tossed out a few swear words (all for getting a reaction out of us), got a time out for that, screamed that he'd gladly sit in time out for 100 minutes. On and on this went. And it was only 10:30 in the morning at this point. Then my friend called to see if he wanted to go to Six Flags. So she took him (bless her heart). I texted to see how he was as I'm biting my nails about his behavior. And she says he is being the model child. What the heck is going on? Is this RAD? ADHD? Or some inability to regulate himself? It's like he has this need to have some exhausting, overpowering daily schedule every day. But Dh and I can't keep that up - we have two other kids, jobs, friends (that can tolerate DS), and housework. We've tried helping him find things to do on the weekends, but he still goes off the rails. I've had him tested through the school district, but he's fine at school. His teacher says he sits in his chair and does all his work. The pediatrician just says he's active and needs discipline. Sometimes we do a dozen time-outs a day. He feels sad, apologizes, but reverts to the weird behavior. Does anyone have any idea of what is going on here? Am I missing somehting? It's like he needs Ritalin to deal with the weekends. Rachael
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Thanks for everyone's ideas. It sounds like I need to get some structure going on the down days. I'm going to get a big piece of posterboard and list all the ideas like you guys suggested. And putting down housework is a good idea, and the exercises. And minibus, you are right about the fresh air and the goings-on. I've often thought that if my son lived in the middle of a marketplace, outside 24/7 with people talking at him all day, he'd be in heaven. I was just hoping that now that he's almost seven he could entertain himself, but I guess not yet. No rest for the weary...
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Also, does anyone know if and when a kid can handle downtime? Like maybe when DS is a teen? Hopefully someday. It's like his harness- it seemed like he'd never finish with that. We had visions of him going to the senior prom with his harness, but luckily he stopped running off at age three and we were able to toss it out. So I can only hope for him outgrowing the restlessness too.
My son does that, too. I call it "pinging" when starts bouncing aimlessly from one thing to the next and he also starts what you call "borderline" behavior. That's the most common red flag that my son is cycling up and we're headed for a meltdown.I name it for him so he's aware of what he's doing. We've color coded his behavior - green for calm, yellow for when he's starting to lose it (which is what this is) and red for when he's just out of control (which is where this kind of behavior leads us). The first thing I do is make him sit somewhere for a few minutes - often I'll read to him - until he starts to settle. Then I give him very limited choices for what he can do. I deliberately choose things that I know will keep his focus and are calming. For my son, sensory activities work really well. And weekend days always have to involve some physical activity or we're going to have trouble!
We have JUST started to move to a small amount of downtime on the weekends, instead of a nap, with DD (almost 6). She has an hour in her room after lunch, with either a bag of art supplies or a bag of books. Luckily, she loves to read and to color. This disintegrates on certain days, though, when she does things like start rolling around on her floor and peeling all the paper off the crayons. She most often can handle this type of downtime when there's been a lot of activity earlier in the day.
Also, we don't keep toys in her room. The book bag/art bag goes in for quiet time and out afterwards, and she only gets those bags at quiet time, 2x a week for one hour at a time. So they're new enough to be interesting, and I switch them out about every 3 weeks or so.
Oakshannon- Cycling up is a good way to describe the behavior. Making your son aware of it is smart. I hadn't even thought of that. Anyone have a guess as to what the cause is? Is it some kind of underlying anxiety that floats to the forefront when they're not exhaustingly occupied? I'm not sure what age everyone's children are - does anyone know what this morphs into when they are teens? I lay awake at night worrying about it. Will my son swap the 6 year old borderline stuff for hubcap stealing runs? Minibus- it's interesting - my son loves art too. Someone on this forum suggested it and he took right to it. Mr. Macho was suddenly making glitter pictures, playdough animals and fancy party hats. He looks as intense as Picasso when he works. Rachael
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I have a 16 year old that thrives on structure and needs to be stimulated. The pinging turned to pacing, he was like a caged cat.
We finally broke down and had him put on anti-anxiety meds about a year ago (at his request). Since then, he is a little more able to play video games but will tire of them.
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Children who act out at home are usually doing so because they are picking up on anxiety. If you are constantly on edge waiting for him to become out of control; he will pick up on it.
I am adopted. We learn to become hyper-vigilant out of necessity. There is a disconnect with someone in your home. That's why he's out of control.
murphymalone
Children who act out at home are usually doing so because they are picking up on anxiety. If you are constantly on edge waiting for him to become out of control; he will pick up on it.
I am adopted. We learn to become hyper-vigilant out of necessity. There is a disconnect with someone in your home. That's why he's out of control.
I am sorry to upset you. I just remember being incredibly ill at ease at times and not knowing why I couldn't connect.
You are absolutely right in that his experience previously impacted his ability to connect. If you relax and talk to him about what he's feeling despite his behaviour it might help.
He may not even have the ability to put a term on how he is feeling. Draw a bunch of emotional pictures ie. anxious sad happy angry and help him identify how he is feeling.
That might give him an avenue to express what's going on.
murphymalone
I am sorry to upset you. I just remember being incredibly ill at ease at times and not knowing why I couldn't connect.
You are absolutely right in that his experience previously impacted his ability to connect. If you relax and talk to him about what he's feeling despite his behaviour it might help.
He may not even have the ability to put a term on how he is feeling. Draw a bunch of emotional pictures ie. anxious sad happy angry and help him identify how he is feeling.
That might give him an avenue to express what's going on.
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I have an anxious child, too. Weekends are difficult for him because of the change in routine. When Daddy goes back to work it creates a lot of anxiety for him. Don't know WHY, precisely, but it does. Within a half an hour after Dad goes to work on the first day after his weekend I know that my kiddo will meltdown. So we've made some plans to help him feel safer, to not be anxious about who is where and to know that everyone is ok (in talking we found out he likes everyone at home, where he can see that they are all ok). Daddy calls him from work, we keep the same general routine every day of the week, we work on naming behaviors ("When you do ___________that is starting in on the angry behavior. Remember how hard you've worked to not be angry and hurtful? Let's sit for a minute and see if we can calm down together." or whatever 'code' words you have and whatever ways you've figured to help de-escalate the situation.)
My daughter would have two melt down times on the weekend. In the morning on Sat. and at 5:00 on Sun. I could almost tell the time by it. She was fine if we were out somewhere but not if we were at home and there aren't a lot of places to take kids after 5:00 on Sun. So I went through, is she crazy? Needs a nap? and in the back of my mind, is she doing it on purpose to drive me crazy? Hummmm, probably a combination of all of the above. The answer in my case, which is not to say this is everybody, but I just said I wasn't going to put up with it anymore. As soon as she starts cycling up on Sat. morning I stick her in the time out. There were times when it was one after the other, five or more in a row. Screaming, kicking the walls etc.
Somewhere along the way she had learned if she acted up I would take her out somewhere. Staying home with her was horrible. Now it is a lot better but I just plain quit being so nice. I was so worried about upsetting her, putting too much pressure on her etc. Sometimes kids are just plain spoiled rotten with monsters. I'm not denying all the neglect, trama etc. but sometimes you have to realize sometimes they are just normally badly behaving kids. I started really looking at some of the other kids in her class when we went out with them or to their houses and a lot of their behavior was just as bad if not worst.
Her behavior improved when I got over the fear of making her mad or causing her to be neurotic from too much pressure if I didn't take her out, made her do some house work or disciplined her. lol though I still have these worries and things sure do go a lot better when we have a fun weekend out or with other kids.
Also it wasn't easy getting creative with the discipline since you can't spank them. In my daughters case I had to think up a more than time out. However, I quit waiting to do the time out until it was a real issue, I just nipped it in the bud the first sign of it and that got it over with a lot faster.