This is going to be a long one:
My four year old talks, verbalizes, or makes excessive noise absolutely non-stop. Literally the only time they are quiet is when they’re asleep, and I can’t handle it anymore. I’m genuinely scared that I’m going to have a breakdown if this doesn’t ease up.
I don’t need our home to be silent, I just need it to not be a non-stop barrage of often extremely loud and/or unpleasant sounds.
I love hearing my kid play, and I love talking to them, it’s just that how unrelenting the noise is every day is out of control.
Every morning they crawl into our bed to snuggle (which is something I love) before it’s time to get up, and they’ll either start talking loudly right off the bat, even if we are asleep, or they’ll lay there and whisper and mutter to themselves non-stop (it will go on for an hour or more if I let it, imagine disembodied voices from a mystery or horror film), or make squishing or spitting noises with their mouth.
The noise starts there and does not stop until they’re asleep, which is a massive battle almost every night.
Every day they talk without end. They verbalize their entire stream of consciousness, and they address me to a degree where it becomes hard to form an independent thought, which is hard to cope with because I also work from home.
If I have to have a conversation with another adult they increase the volume and relentlessly interrupt until the conversation literally cannot continue. To the point where I’ve actually had one friend end our visit to her home hours early, telling me that she felt it was time for me and my child to go home because they had clearly “hit their limit” with boring adult stuff. Except they’re like that immediately, all the time.
They will also not allow me to speak to anyone on the phone. As soon as I have a call they will ask me who it is. If it’s someone they know they’ll demand to speak to them, and if I tell them they can, but only once we’re done our conversation they’ll start making loud noises around me, verbally or by striking things around me, until the conversation is forced to end either because I need to end the call to address the behaviour, or if the caller and I need to forge on, because the other person and I can’t hear each other.
If I’m unable to answer them, they’ll just begin screaming at me for an answer as to who it is. Sometimes for 10-20 minutes, until I hang up.
In either case I have frequently had to lock myself in my bedroom to take a call, and when I do they will throw themselves against the door, smash it with their fist or with toys, and scream until I open it or end the call.
One of my best friends lives overseas and so we rarely have a chance to speak in real time, and many of our conversations have ended with me in tears because I cannot hear her speaking.
I can imagine people reading that and thinking “they’re doing it because it works” and if there’s anything else I can do that I’m not already trying I am desperate to hear it.
My child’s play is sometimes at a volume you’d expect from a four year old, but very often is extremely, inappropriately loud. Smashing, hitting, throwing, pushing toys that aren’t meant to be pushed around through the hallways over and over, scraping the floor, and just non-stop verbalizing; talking, humming loudly, mouth noises etc. If they’re asked to play more gently or quietly they will increase the volume.
Bedtime is usually a nightmare. We have a routine that we follow, but even if they’ve expressed being tired before, the moment they need to climb into bed they get a second wind unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Once we do manage to get them into their bed they lay there and literally babble, writhe, and fidget until they’re knocking things off the shelf next to their bed and the covers are tied in knots. In a moment of exhaustion their father once privately told me “they just wiggle around like they’re possessed” and he’s not wrong. That’s how intense it is.
To make matters worse they listen to almost nothing I say, and that’s not hyperbole. If I ask them to do something they don’t happen to independently want to do, they just don’t do it. They don’t respect my leadership or authority at all.
I’m an assertive and active parent, and definitely no push over (at least as far as I can see, but maybe I’m wrong?) I’ve read so many books, I talk to and listen to my child, and have tried so many recommended courses of action consistently, over long periods, and yet this where we are.
We’ve consistently tried positive reinforcement, immediate consequences, cool down times, sticker charts etc. Nothing works. It takes yelling at them to get them to follow through with what we’re asking, and even then it doesn’t work for long, if at all.
I feel like I’m broken. I have so little say in, or ability to advocate for how the days should go that I’m starting to experience depersonalization.
It’s worn me down to the point where I just want to scream at them to be quiet, or barricade myself in a room with headphones on. Sometimes I crack and do one or both.
I cannot overstate, even if just to soothe myself: I love my child so, so, so much, we have the best time together, there’s no one I would rather be with in the whole world. Feeling this way about their behaviour is incredibly painful for me. I blame myself. I feel like a failure as a parent and a terrible person.
I really had it driven home to me how out of the ordinary these behaviours are once my child started playschool. I’m a volunteer parent so I’ve gotten to know the class, and even though I know the children are likely different at home than they are in school, it was jarring to see the difference between my child and the majority of the others.
Most of the other kids (the special needs kids being the exception from time to time) are attentive, deferential to their teachers, and while they get as boisterous as you’d expect kids that age to get while having fun playing, they are able to be reasonably, consistently quiet when it’s appropriate, and are kind and respectful to their classmates.
My child struggles with most of that. They don’t listen to their teachers, the classes special needs aids have to relentlessly, physically chase them around and try to wrangle them, they insult and mock their classmates, even the ones they like, they refuse to let anyone else have a turn* at being the class helper, or at being first in line.
The last time I volunteered I spent most of the class forcing myself not to tear up as I watched all this unfold.
*There is a consistent pattern here with bad behaviour being related to my child not being the focus in the moment: when I talk to others in person or on the phone, when it’s another child’s turn to be the helper or line leader etc. I can see this but I don’t know what it means exactly or where it’s stemming from.
Medically speaking, I have ADHD, as does a large portion of my family. It’ll be a few more years until my child can reasonably be assessed for it, but I do see a lot of behaviours and symptoms in them that very strongly correlate to ADHD. A lot of people without it have an extremely vague and inaccurate idea of what ADHD is, and what ADHD behaviour actually looks like, so I’d respectfully ask those that are unfamiliar with it to please refrain from speculation. I did want to include this in case those who are familiar with it have any insight or advice regarding this in relation to the struggles I’m having.
I have a smart, loving, and interesting little person on my hands. I want to do whatever I can to help them and the people around them, myself included, lead happy lives. This behaviour has worn me down to the point where I’m struggling to get through each day without losing my cool. It feels like we’ve done just about everything we can to improve this situation and nothing has worked, I’m truly at the end of my tether here, and I really need some help, advice, and empathy.
Maybe this is just me venting to no one, but if anyone has the patience to read this and has any advice, please help.
