Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Things got so much worse until medication controlled the manic phase which was no easy task.

Thank you for this too. There is mental illness on one side of the family, so this is one of my fears. She has so many BIG feelings. At what age did you realize this might be the case?

“Big feelings” sounds like ADHD.

How so? There are cases when I think ADHD is overdiagnosed or under diagnosed or a catch all for something else. I've read a lot about it but still thoroughly confused.

No but hyperactive adhd kids can be impulsive so they might blurt things out that other kids wouldn’t which can seem like “big feelings” I think (and of course adhd is often comorbid with other disorders that could seem like “big feelings.”

My inattentive adhd definitely doesn’t fit that description but does fit the absent minded professor/space cadet stereotype.

Mine was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. He was suicidal at 11. The behaviors some called "extra' as per the book was actually anxiety.

So, suicidal at 11. No actual attempts. We had a couple of instances where I was ready to call fir help though.

Ran away at 16. Homeless for a while at 19. Legal trouble in his early 20's. Job hopped for years, can't maintain friendships. Now at 30 he is finally seeing a doctor he trusts. He is on medication that is helping and is getting his life together.

My now 15 year old was a serious handful from birth through about age 4, with little sleep, lots of tantrums, biting. Then gradually began to have more emotional regulation. His hyperactivity lasted much longer - I’d say until 6th grade, and then that began to mellow, too. He is now a very chill kid. He rolls with punches, feels a lot but doesn’t loose his marbles. Like others, he is a serious athlete and he funnels all his drive and energy into sports. Still wiggly (chews his fingernails, rocks when he concentrates) but it doesn’t interfere with life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Things got so much worse until medication controlled the manic phase which was no easy task.

Thank you for this too. There is mental illness on one side of the family, so this is one of my fears. She has so many BIG feelings. At what age did you realize this might be the case?

“Big feelings” sounds like ADHD.

How so? There are cases when I think ADHD is overdiagnosed or under diagnosed or a catch all for something else. I've read a lot about it but still thoroughly confused.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Things got so much worse until medication controlled the manic phase which was no easy task.

Thank you for this too. There is mental illness on one side of the family, so this is one of my fears. She has so many BIG feelings. At what age did you realize this might be the case?

Start of ninth grade.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Things got so much worse until medication controlled the manic phase which was no easy task.

Thank you for this too. There is mental illness on one side of the family, so this is one of my fears. She has so many BIG feelings. At what age did you realize this might be the case?

“Big feelings” sounds like ADHD.

Anonymous wrote:Thank you both. She's 8.

We have tried therapy - she hates it and I don't want her to form a bad relationship with it. I was able to get enough out of it to help a little more.

There are glimmers of maturity that come through sometimes.

We also cut short activities before they devolve. And that's one place I go wrong sometimes. If I paid for a theatre ticket or something I'm tired of having to leave the room. Especially as we end this phase of (post?) pandemic and are going out more, if I'm out and having fun and I resentful by having to leave on her schedule, or having to keep an extra eye on her knowing I might need to intervene. I do it and I keep my cool but I struggle with feeling resentful.

Because she was 6 at the beginning of the pandemic she didn't have an activity yet that she could pour her energy into. We have since tried a few classes of her choosing that ended up not being a good fit. She doesn't like to be told what to do, and they were too structured. We have a new activity starting in a couple of weeks and I'm hoping it's a better fit.

This is 14:36. It took a while to find the right sports. We tried lots of things. He needed to be active but wasn't terribly coordinated or good at sports. It was always a balance to find something he might enjoy but also could feel successful at. DH also just played with him in the yard a lot. Fortunately his athletic skills developed with the rest of him and he's regularly played on various school teams since middle school. We're looking at colleges now and making sure he can do some walk on D3 or participate in a very active club program is high on his list just because sports are so regulating for him. He hates exercising alone.

As for feeling resentful, our second child has diagnosed special needs, and even though he is not "spirited" having two kids who needed life carefully managed made it easier in some ways I think. I think the kids were 11 and 8 before we went on a vacation that was genuinely relaxed and fun for most of the time (and it was Great Wolf Lodge of all places). I had to leave my job because of my second kid, and that gave me a lot more time and energy to always be that patient planner, too.

It's hard, but there are lots of reasons to be hopeful that it will get better!

15:02 again. I forgot to add the sleep issues. When he was young, we would all be up because he would be having a high behavior issue half the night when he couldn’t sleep. He still has time periods where is sleep is off but like the other poster, he can manage himself. We aren’t all up and he can quietly get something to eat and do something in the house without waking up the rest of the family. This is a huge difference from when he was young.

Things were really tough in elementary school. There were a lot of calls, emails and meetings with school. We had behavior issues at home and had to leave things in public more than once because of poor behavior. He got diagnosed with ADHD around 10 and tried a couple of medications in late elementary and middle school. They helped with academics but ultimately by high school he refused to take anything. By then he had matured a lot and never got in trouble at school or in public. All of those behaviors stopped by 12 or so.

As a teen, he’s always going to be a little different and be motivated by different things. He doesn’t get motivated by most subjects in school at all and doesn’t care if he gets Ds or Cs or occasional Fs. His hyper focused has helped with computer programming and he has a huge interest in that. He can spend hours working on his programs and hopefully he will make a career out of this.

Similar to the other poster, that same intensive energy is channelled into a sport and he trains year round and loves it.

It really can get so much easier.

Anonymous wrote:Mine was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Things got so much worse until medication controlled the manic phase which was no easy task.

Thank you for this too. There is mental illness on one side of the family, so this is one of my fears. She has so many BIG feelings. At what age did you realize this might be the case?

Thank you both. She's 8.

We have tried therapy - she hates it and I don't want her to form a bad relationship with it. I was able to get enough out of it to help a little more.

There are glimmers of maturity that come through sometimes.

We also cut short activities before they devolve. And that's one place I go wrong sometimes. If I paid for a theatre ticket or something I'm tired of having to leave the room. Especially as we end this phase of (post?) pandemic and are going out more, if I'm out and having fun and I resentful by having to leave on her schedule, or having to keep an extra eye on her knowing I might need to intervene. I do it and I keep my cool but I struggle with feeling resentful.

Because she was 6 at the beginning of the pandemic she didn't have an activity yet that she could pour her energy into. We have since tried a few classes of her choosing that ended up not being a good fit. She doesn't like to be told what to do, and they were too structured. We have a new activity starting in a couple of weeks and I'm hoping it's a better fit.

Mine was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Things got so much worse until medication controlled the manic phase which was no easy task.

How old is your child now? Mine was bat-$hit crazy until around age 7, and then I swear some new part of his brain developed. He was still extra, but more manageably so. By around 10 I would say he was one of the more mature and chill kids in his class, and that continues to hold true today. Of course, he is also older because his birthday just missed the school cut-off where we live.

The thing that helped the most when he was younger was setting him up for success. We organized our lives around it. Outings were cut short so we could "end on a high note". Nap time, bedtime, and mealtime routines were always respected. He got lots of opportunities to be loud and active, but we were always watchful to reel him back in before he got overly stimulated. We got lots of negative feedback from our families about how much we catered to him, but honestly I think feeling supported and successful prevented him from developing a lot of additional negative stuff. He is also a very socially motivated kid, so once he was capable of controlling himself he worked quite hard to do that in front of other kids.

I'm sure it might be harder with a girl, though, since society gives boys permission to be more active and loud. Regular exercise helped/helps so much, so if there are any sports or activities you can guide her toward, I would do that.

Mine channeled her incessant energy and intense attention into a sport at which she is a national level competitor. She trains 20 hours a week. And, is old enough now where if she gets grumpy/irritable/restless, I can offer help/suggestions without being attacked. Often she just needs a sandwich and someone to listen as she processes something that went on in school or in training.

And, she is old enough now not to bother us if she is up for hours in the middle of the night or gets up for the day at 3am. Which used to be regular occurrences for us. Now she puts on headphones and quiet music and does homework, stretches, or reads until she falls back asleep.

It gets so much better, OP.

I finally started reading the Spirited Child book and breathed a sigh of relief because this is exactly my child and I never understood what I was doing wrong or if there was something wrong with her. I'm a damn good parent even though I feel like a crappy one a lot of the time but this kid takes a LOT out of me. Completely different temperament than my other one since day 1.

If you had a kid like this, how did that translate into the tween/teen years? Does it get way worse? Even out a bit? I fully accept that this is who she is, and I put in ALL the work, but wondering how this plays out as time goes on.