Recognizing ADHD in your 2-5 year old daughter.
As early as 2-4 children can be observed to have symptoms of ADHD. It’s difficult to notice as many kids are little dervishes whirling around, climbing, exploring their environments, dumping out toy bins and moving on to their next destruction. They are learning about their autonomy and senes of self through their feelings, sometimes big and ever changeable. To an untrained eye almost every 2 year old appears to be hyperactive, impulsive and easily distractible. Isn’t that just being a toddler?
Many times parents, I’m going to say mother’s, see themselves as the problem, blaming their children’s emotional outbursts on their poor parenting. Or when your child acts aggressively again and you feel the judgement of others at the park , making a point to utter loudly, “You must be hungry!” Or “Lucy stop hitting that little boy, that’s why you need to take a nap!” (I’m not saying parenting cannot be a huge factor in management of ADHD) But let’s not see ourselves as the root of the problem for a moment. Perhaps your child doesn’t have bad behaviour, maybe she has ADHD?
My partner and I are early childhood educators and from an early stage in life, like basically birth, we were aware that our daughter might have ADHD. Why? Firstly, we observed that our daughter was a high needs baby. Sure parenting is a full time gig, and especially as first time parents a lot of things feel overwhelming caring for these little energy vampires that literally suck the life right out of us.
Maybe she’s born with it?
What we observed in Esme from the get go was she was always hyper aware of her environment, we could never put her down without wailing screams, the littlest sound she would whip her head around trying to figure out where it came from, she tracked everything, she was constantly moving- we called her the red wiggler for the first few weeks of life. She also had a very strong need to be rocked- almost violently to get to sleep. She NEVER slept easily or stayed asleep and she was extremely active and engaged. We say she was born awake!
One day when trying to nap her at 1 month old (for over 1 hr) we finally put a hat over her eyes and called it her “stimy cap”. It blocked out the stimulation around her so she’d just let herself shut down and sleep. We did the black out blinds and white noise of course but it wasn’t enough. She was always on high alert, never wanted to be cuddled but always wanted to be close or on our bodies. We carried her everywhere but always facing out.
She craved movement all the time. She needed to be rocked, swung or walked to sleep. From 4 months on all she wanted to do was walk. Yes, 4 months! We would hold her little hands and she would happily wander around. She had full body strength to walk but was not able to keep herself fully upright, because she was a fucking baby who was supposed to be lying on the ground cooing and crawling! She took her first steps at 7.5 months, and walked pretty much from 8 months on. She was a like the dancing baby from Ally McBeal, completely bald, smiley and determined. It was alarming and exhausting, because although we didn’t have to hunch over all the time we now had to chase her everywhere. These small indicators persisted and evolved as she got older. I am not saying all high needs babies have ADHD but it is something to just tuck into your cap for later.
So what are some things you can look for in your girl (2-5years old) ? Presenting more as hyperactive/impulsive:
Engaging risky behaviour without awareness for consequences
Running and jumping that seems to come out of nowhere.
Moving as if by a motor
Emotional reactivity
Difficult temperament
Aggressive behaviours
Highly impulsive
Strong willed
Seemingly relentless in energy and need
Controlling behaviour
Constantly talking or interrupting
Need to dominate situations be the centre of attention
Rush through tasks that they aren’t interested in
The other observable ADHD type is the more inattentive presentation, which usually can be seen in older girls but is also observable at a young age and is almost the exact opposite of the hyperactive/ impulsive presentation in a lot of outward behaviour. This can be why girls are so under diagnosed because their presentations are not as in your face and distracting or agitating to teachers.
The inattentive ADHD girl appears more withdrawn, especially in social situations. She stops to examine a puddle or flower as you are attempting to whisk her off to daycare, late again because it took so long to get her dressed and out of the house.
They are the children that hyper focus on one specific toy or activity for an extended period of time, sometimes as a way to cope with over stimulating environments. She will get easily distracted if you ask her to do a task on her own, like tidy up, and don’t even try to give multiple instructions like get your coat, hat and boots on.
So what are some things you can look for in your girl (2-5years old) ? Presenting more as inattentive:
Forgetful
Dreamy
Not getting all the information
Sensitive to criticism
Low self esteem
Shy and withdrawn in social settings
So what are some things you can look for in your girl (2-5years old) ?
Hyperactive and Inattentive Combined:
Difficulty transitioning
Strong aversion to certain food textures and clothing
Unpredictable mood swings
Extra sensitive to sound and light
Difficultly falling asleep; staying asleep
Hard time following directions
Messy or disorganized
Children with ADHD can have trouble following directions, specifically verbal instructions, and maybe even have delayed speech. These auditory processing issues coupled with poor working memory issues might also be recognized in your child’s ability to listen to a story and retell the sequence of events; or relay anything that happened at school or daycare that day. There is some evidence that is being investigated that children with ADHD are more prone to ear infections.
ADHD is a complex issue that can be difficult to diagnose as there are such varying experiences to observe. To receive a diagnosis your child has to display a combination of the characteristics for over 6 months in a number of different environments. So if some of these are only observed at your home setting then there is something else going on.
You may also be getting feedback from your child’s daycare or school:
Observations made at school or daycare:
Extremely disruptive
Trouble sitting still at circle and keeping hands to herself
Fidgets
Refuses or has trouble doing tasks that require focus or sitting down
Dislikes things she can’t do with ease immediately
Has trouble taking turns or waiting
Constantly blurts out answers
Talks over teacher or other children
Appears bossy or always wanting to dominate play ideas
Has a hard time following simple instructions
Easily distracted
Moves constantly from one activity to next without care
When asked to do a task she doesn’t like protests or does carelessly
Withdrawn
Extremely sensitive
Trouble transitioning
According to CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) children as young as 4 can receive a diagnosis. Research is indicating that children displaying ADHD traits at 3, likely receive a full diagnosis at 13.
If you resonate with any of this it might be something to look into with your family doctor or child psychologist. If these are characteristics of your child that happen infrequently or are not causing any concern for your family or childcare providers then possibly your child will grow out of it. But if there is persistent issues that are constantly disruptive to your family then better to start investigating early so you can be more aware and receive support for your child and your family dynamic. The earlier you are able to get support for your daughter the better long terms outcomes there will be for her academically and socially.
Further Resources
https://chadd.org/for-parents/evaluating-for-childhood-adhd_qf/
https://chadd.org/for-parents/preschoolers-and-adhd/
Canadian Psycho-educational Resources and Counselling