destructive/ wild toddler

[crowsashes]

my little one wont eat meat. his diet is pretty good. we dont have cola ( or other soft drinks) not sweets either or sugary cereal, he has museli, porridge or toast. the only 'processed' food we have is baked beans or cheese ( thankfully he loves decent cheese not the triangles etc! he polished off what was left of the Camembert yesterday!)

i know im really lucky to have a kid who'll try anything with out a strop ( food wise!) hes very adventurous in that respect! which is great.

i do keep the e-numbers etc to an absolute minimum and make sure we only have organic milk and eggs ( worries over hormones etc)

im already called hippy nut by my gran who thinks children should be given cheese square sarnies not sushi!

i think ADHD is a 21st century illness ( down to the introduction of plastics and factory farming and drives for profit not quality amongst numerous others ) but autism and aspeger's wernt those who had this condition considered eccentric, loners? before it had a medical name.

funnily, when hes with my brother (age 8) hes so chilled and relaxed and tries to be like him! maybe hes really an 8 year old stuck with a 3 yr olds body :-D after all toys for his age do not interest him. hes a lego fan. spends hours building train sets. he definitely loves conversation which is probably why he avoids kids his own age as they dont stimulate him! and the tiny library we go to is running out of history books for him!

[citizentwiglet]

Interestingly, another poster mentioned her son being very bright (my apologies, I can't look back and see who it was without losing my post) - so is Ellis.
As I said, he was monsterous a lot of the time. It started about 18 months, and went on until past three. I spent so many mornings in with the nursery teacher regarding his behaviour when he first started nursery. He was either in a complete world of his own, or trying to batter someone, or generally having a strop and being destructive. They arranged a few visits from the educational psychologist, and I sorted out some appointments with an audiologist (he's always suffered from quite bad ear infections). Turns out that he has some issues with his hearing - things often sound muffled and confusing to him because he has fluid in his middle ear, so he found it very hard to keep up with what was going on when there was a lot of noise - if he couldn't hear clearly, he'd just lose interest. Simply sitting him either next to his key-worker, or directly across from her at the table, and making sure he sat at the front in circle time was enough to engage him, because he could understand what was going on (he has got very good at lipreading and following hand gestures).

From having a 'problem child', I have just had his report. It states that he is 'exceptionally bright' and works best with the children a year older than him (the pre-schoolers, rather than the ante-pre schoolers) and has flourished since he has been moved to join a group of older children who are counting, adding and subtracting, writing their names and starting to read. That was it, I think. He was bored, and under stimulated. What you've said about your son being more at home with an 8 year old really struck a chord with me. Ellis adores learning - particularly about nature, and castles - especially castles - and we do all sorts of things like making pictures from magazine cutouts, we built a castle from a cardboard box (OK, it was painted yellow but hey, who cares?), we got memberships for the NT and Scottish Heritage, which have served us well as he's in his element mooching around castles.

I agree with what Green Aura said about Autism. To an extent, if you look at how broad that bloody spectrum is, EVERYONE could be on it. As soon as a child shows some individuality, some deviation from the accepted Super Nanny norm, everyone starts screaming 'autism'. No child is perfect, no child is evil. Some like sport, some like castles, some like collecting bus tickets, or washing their hands. Of course there is, undoubtedly, 'severe' autism, nobody can deny that; but I think these labels on 'eccentric' or 'unmanageable' children, particularly children under 10, are convenient for professionals at best (extra funding for schools, tick boxes for health visitors etc); hugely damaging to the individual and a step towards an Orwellian state where some people are 'less' than others, at worse.

[crowsashes]

ive had a hearing test and speech therapy for him all come back excellent and the speech therapist was impressed with his ability to use the letters 'j' and 'v' in words. i have started to think that maybe, although hes nearly 3, hes not actually 3 mentally maybe a bit older, which is why hes acting up a lot and why he calms down watching things like time team rather than iggle piggle etc or when i get my books out. he loves photography magazines, history, design and art books.

we were out foraging earlier ( elder flower and cherries) and he loved it ( except for the heat) and wanted to know what everything was, going over each plant etc. the woods we walk in to have just built a new picnic area with a tree house ( nothing fancy ) and lots of logs bolted together for him to climb over which was great so i had a really chilled out toddler.

and today of all days he decided he want to use the potty, its been sat in the bathroom for over a year ( i wanted to have it around for a while so it wasnt some scary thing) and he just came in while i was in there and sat down and went loo . i havent even started teaching him yet he just decided to

maybe i need to make this place a bit more 'grown up' for him. maybe get books for older children and some more grown up toys and games. already getting a slide for the garden so he can burn off energy, and a mini trampoline for the same reason. maybe its just a case of him being under-stimulated and well... bored?

[Sky]

What a great thread!
My youngest of three was a nightmare from birth till about five, he was like living with a wild animal!
Furniture with drawers in had to be turned to the wall to stop him opening them and emptying out the contents constantly. Kitchen doors had to have their handles tied together to prevent him from opening them and doing the same.
Wallpaper was ripped off or written on, he was and is still extremely strong and used to rip the safety gate on the stairs off it's fittings.
All our garden plants were destroyed/ ripped up and he dug huge holes in the lawn.
We went through about three tvs in three weeks ... one morning I was preparing packed lunches, I heard a huge bang, rushed to see and he'd pulled the new tv onto the floor ... in my haste I'd left the packed lunch boxes on top of the ceramic stove top. While I was in the lounge hauling the tv back onto it's stand to assess the damage, he ran into the kitchen and turned the stove top on setting fire to the lunch boxes! That morning I just about had had enough!!! I would gladly have given him to a passing stranger!
He would throw food everywhere at meal times it was a nightmare.
We couldn't contain him, he was an amazing escape artist and even one time piled his toys up to reach the lock on the top of a 6ft gate and run away .... he was 3yrs!
He never slept, he woke about 10 times a night from birth and me and hubby had to take it in turns to have a whole nights sleep on alternate nights (this went on for at least four years)
He had no fear, he would jump out of a window if he had had the opportunity. He once stood at the top of the stairs with me at the bottom looking on in despair and jumped! .... fortunately he was not hurt, he thought it was funny.
He would attack other children if I dared let him mix with others, it totally isolated him and us as a family for years and years, it was terrible.
At 18mnths my health worker said to me ' you know this isn't normal behaviour don't you' , I did of course as I had two older children but I didn't know where to go for help.
He was eventually assessed and was diagnosed with adhd and given medicine which made him angry and sad all at the same time so I couldn't as a mother give him it any more.


He started school and did have a lot of problems with behaviour at first but then miraculously his behaviour started to improve vastly.

He's 10 now and is in the top of most of his subjects, he also is considered very bright. Strangely he also prefers the company of older children and adults and is very popular, attracting friends like magnets.
He loves reading and has turned into a really caring, loving boy .... I tell you I would never ever have believed it.

I feel for you right now, it's a very dark, lonely time when your in the middle of it but I just wanted to let you know my personal experience and let you know there is hope and things could well turn out very bright in the future.

[Keaniebean]

I'm sorry I don't have much in the way of experience with very destructive children, my sons problems are more physical down to his Dwarfism, but I have certainly had a fair share from my middle daughter whos temper tantrums and refusal to eat anything that we put on her plate have given us, on occasion, a run for our money. My thoughts are with you though. Have an ish hug from one mum to you Crowsashes and to all the other ish mums and dads out there that struggle with their children. I'm pretty sure that despite all our hard times we wouldn't change things for the world. Well most of the time anyway

[Jessiebean]

It is interesting to read about Ellis and his ear infections. My eldest son has had very bad ear infections and his ear drum ruptures nearly everytime he has a cold which must be very distressing for him (it is for me). When he has an ear infection he is a combination of furiously angry (the night before the eardrum goes) and endearingly mishearing things. We have a referral to specialist but since receiving it he hasn't had another ear drum bursting incident so I am quietly hoping he is just growing out of it. He seems to be settling down and loves to watch cooking and gardening shows and also a show called "Dirty Jobs". He seems to find most children's shows "silly" except Bob the builder and In the Night Garden which tends to calm them both down. I think/hope he is growing out of the over the top behaviour but unfortunately his little brother is stepping in to fill his shoes all the same behaviours- he would have been too small when the behaviours started to have learned it from big brother so perhaps it is genetic?
It is encouraging to read that we will all get through it but my goodness it can be hard sometimes.
I am sorry that my experience so far isn't very helpful for anyone else- I am just muddling through myself and sometimes I am very angry with the way I handle a situation but hopefully I will be enriched with valuable experience and be able to offer some helpful advice!

[growingthings]

I echo others in regards to this post making interesting reading.

As the mother to two smallies I do recognise a lot of the behaviour mentioned in, particularly, my 4 year old.

Unlike Keaniebeans 'wee man' my Daughter has the polar opposite problem having a connective tissues disorder which means at 4 she is already the height of the average 6 or 7 year old! So when she is behaving like a 4 year old, its sometimes hard for others, and even ourselves to be honest, to remember just how young she is.

She has had to do a lot of growing up, due to time spent seeing cardiologists etc, (she has very complex heart probs) and behaves sooo well when she's there, that for a day or two afterwards she seems to go bonkers! Most of this destructive behaviour has been down to her either being not stimulated enough (whilst plugged into the monitors etc) and not being able to have a good run round, and it impacts on her behaviour afterwards.

The point I'm trying to get at is what made things better for us was having a rhythm to our days as much as possible. So when we have these moments we can kind of ride out the storm.

She cycles to nursery, has swing and trampoline in the garden etc, but also there are points in the day when she comes in to do some drawing, looking through books, reading work, even dare I say it play some games on the Cbeebies website ( ) especially post dinner, when all the toys are packed away and we only have books out, no telly as this over stimulates her. The fact that she is aware that her days work around the same pattern means that when she is at home things adopt this pattern makes her feel calmer and happier. We do spend a fair bit of time away from home, but she understands the difference and as long as we take time to ensure she's 'included' in our adventures rather than being dragged along to them, she does really well.

She still has outbursts once or twice a week, but that's easy to manage and is normally to do with hunger or tiredness. So as others have said, I'm not sure that my experiences will have been any use to you, but at least it will help you remember that we have an idea of where you're coming from, and that things will improve eventually.

Lorna xx

[hippymum1]

sorry i just wanted to say that this sounds perfectly normal (that dosent make it any less frustraiting) behaver for this age my son is very clever for his age and i think they just get frustrated easily (with being small and not allowed to do exactly wat they want lol) dont worry

[milkymumma]

Wow mumma I could of written that post myself

My DD is 4 in december, very bright and on the ball and most of the time an absolute darling! but she has such a temper on her!

She seems to have selective deafness too (it really is, i tested with a word I know she likes the sound of! ) and I worry evertime I go out with her because she just will not listen to me at all, does what she wants and the whole of the supermarket will know about it too, I feel then even more upset because im embarresed and would rather be in some deep dark whole than be judged!

She screams like a good'un and when her tantrum starts its absolutly horrific, seriously I think the neighbours must think im murdering her , shes done this at 3 in the morning too.

I am such a big believer in attachment parenting and gentel discipline, its very difficult though to do this when they are like this, but what I try to do is to difuse the situation.

I am by far from perfect and have got angry and shouted at her through sheer frustration, but most of the time I try and get down on her level and just try to hug her and tell her that I understand she has all of these emotions and shes trying to show me how unhappy or upset she is with something but shouting at me and screaming at me will get her knowhere.

Its tough stuff this toddler business

[milkymumma]

Oooo and im in Plymouth too