my oldest is 8 and I think once they get through kindergarten they hit a sweet spot of awesomeness that doesn't go away until they become angsty teens. i would rather hang out with my 8 year old than any of my actual friends.
My 33 month old boy has entered his hitting/pushing/kicking phase with his 14 month old brother. Can’t leave them alone together or it gets ugly. Meanwhile the younger one is climbing whatever he can to try to hurt himself even faster. Fun!
0-5 is easily the most difficult stretch of parenting. Most of my friends are in the shit now. But you're almost there!
Heard similar from friends with older boys than mine. I had two younger sisters growing up, so this is all new to me.
Earliest story I was told of my older brother and I really feuding was him chucking a putter barely missing my head when I was 4 or 5 because I beat him in a hole of putt putt. We fought forever. Including post college almost threw hands over nothing. Our relationship pretty much always sucked despite similar interests growing up. Honestly made it tougher for me to get on board with having two kids but now at 3 and 7 I don't see my boys ending up anything like we did thankfully.
22 month old is a fucking angel, 44 month old has been in a god awful terrorist mode for months now. Those good moments are few and far between right now. Biggest problem with the 22 month old is she still isn't sleeping through the night and is fighting bedtime every single night. Oldest at bedtime turns into the terrorist/spawn of satan and fights going to sleep too even if he's fell asleep on the couch with us.
Finally went through with a psychological evaluation for our 5 year old. Early summary is “quite possibly gifted but ADHD”. It was nice to confirm things we were suspecting which is that he seemed really intelligent but just hard to keep focused which would also turn into behavioral moments/outbursts. Hank Scorpio the psychologist strongly suggested PCIT so finally getting around to it. anyway if anyone has adhd experience I’ll be getting much more educated on adhd now.
Good question. I think it was a referral list and then we googled them all to see what their specialities were and any reviews we could find. We narrowed it down to 3 then based it on they responded.
You'll find it in your research, but in school, even if you feel like he should be doing better bc of how smart he is, give him some grace for anything related to writing... PCIT isn't a "cure" but it will help a lot with navigating day to day.
Good advice. Honestly I am not a huge grades person anyway (especially for early on) so giving him grace will be a priority for sure. It’s also comforting knowing he scored high on the intelligence tests because it was hard for us to tell just based on how he responds to things. He also ventures off to other parts of the room during VPK so I was hoping he wasn’t being left behind. The psychologist used the term “skill vs will” and for him it’s definitely more on the “will” (choices) side vs skill (actual ability).
All 3 of my kids have been diagnosed with ADHD. The oldest is 10 and he consistently scores 95th percentile in math so it sounds maybe similar to your son. Feel free to ask me anything.
11 year old been in GT program at school for years and going on ADHD meds in the next few weeks after finally being able to get in to see dr again NBD
I think the biggest pain point for us is how do we help him with eating, knowing he’s ADHD. Eating has been a long time struggle and we always suspected it wasn’t a food aversion as much as being able to think about wanting/needing food. He’s also super picky and really judges food looks and textures. Also one thing that’s helped (before we knew of his diagnosis) is I made these for our nighttime routine. We turn on the lights and they know the tasks they need to do and they turn them off. They actually think it’s fun and we don’t have to tell them 100 times. My older son likes it too and some lucky nights they race to see who can finish first which rules. we allow them to finish them in any order really which I think helps too. edit: except pjs before bath because we’re not toooooo crazy
We started using a "chore board" to "get points". Has helped connect doing specific things. My wife thinks our son has ADHD. She thinks' she is slightly an undiagnosed adult. IDK, I think he's mostly just young and immature b/c he has the latest birthday
You only have one kid too right? I wonder how much of our daughter's behavior would change if she had to share the attention. It might benefit in a lot of ways because we don't want to play with her constantly and she wants a playmate, but holy hell does she also think our lives revolve around hers.
Yes, just him. He was all I could handle. I'm not built for years 0-4. I am starting to have fun now. When I'm with people describing how much they loved their kids as infants and babies....I'm silently over her on the left "That wasn't my experience"
in my sample size of one it only increases competition for parents’ attention currently sitting outside my younger one’s room to make sure she doesn’t hurt herself instead of interacting with houseguests and I cannot wait for them both to grow up a little
New year sickness finally set in. Can’t believe we made it to the 12th. Hoping he wakes up feeling better.
My friend just told me she gives her daughter (6) a bath anytime she wets herself/the bed in the middle of the night. I think it's one thing if she wakes up upset and wants to be cleaned, but no. My friend sets an alarm for 1:00 am just so she can get up and check her, and if she's wet she'll run the water and then wake her up to give her a full bath. It's wild to me.
As someone with a lot of rugs, kids, and a dog who seems to puke/diarrhea every other month this was a worthy investment: They have a bunch of different models.
My kid is in a similar boat. 8 year old second grade boy diagnosed with ADHD in kindergarten but seems to be gifted. He does very well in school despite a few behavior hiccups in K and 1st. We tried Focalin for a few months last year and had not so great results. He has been raw dogging and thriving ever since. I would recommend therapy before going to medicine. Just our personal experience.
Oldest is on day 3 of the flu. Praying to the old gods and new my wife and I somehow avoid it. Been keeping my distance from him as much as possible, wearing a mask, washing hands non stop, lysol, etc. My wife 2 weeks tried to get them flu shots but our pediatrician sold her practice so we've been in limbo and never got around to it.
Yeah it’s the same way with ours. I believe our kids are right around the same age and we’d love to have another but it’s just not practical with our work schedules and us just being here on our own with no family support. Our son would be great with a younger sibling because he is awesome with his younger cousins.
Yeah, I feel bad. I feel like my kid want's a brother or sister, but yeah I don't think I can handle it.
We’re both the same way. We both have a sibling and they’re our best friends so we feel like he may be missing out on that but we cannot swing another kid with our work schedules and having no babysitters, etc.
This is going to mess that poor kid's sleep patterns big time if she's waking her kid up every night even if she's not wet. I wonder if she's contributed to her not being able to get through the night if this has been her routine for multiple years now.
I've been able to get my daughter vaccinations at grocery store pharmacies since she was at least three. It's not the most welcoming environment for a kid but it's a lot better than making a trip out to her pediatrician's office.
My son doesn’t take medicine. Maybe it’s related to his eating issues but if it’s a challenge to eat food imagine getting to take medicine. He had a skin infection a few months ago and we had to take him to get a shot 5 days in a row to resolve it. he was actually totally ok with that. But asking to drink medicine is pretty much a non starter. Bribes don’t help either. But even if he did we would absolutely try with therapy first with medication being a last resort
We take our son to target to get his and let him go pick out a toy before he gets the shot so he doesn’t even care. Dr office he flips out over them.
Yep, we do the same but she gets so upset now. I thought I was going to have a great daughter with vaccinations because she took them like a champ until she was five years old. Each subsequent year is much worse now with her being afraid although I'm guessing that's normal as their brain develops more.
Our son got so scared because he had to get those Rocephin shots in his thighs due to his ear infections. Apparently those things feel like hot Liquid Metal being injected into you so he is incredibly scared about getting shots at the Dr office.
If my kid pisses themself, I toss them in the shower and hose down the lower half. Waking the kid up nightly is crazy.
We had my 8 year old son's 8th birthday party yesterday. Between my 3 siblings and I, we have 12 kids. My daughter is 11, my son, nephew, and 1 niece are all 8. The rest are 5 and under. The party was a nightmare and just constant chaos. I've never been so glad to have people leave my house and this makes me happy i got snipped back in october, because there is no way I could handle another kid. 2 was a perfect number.