Quite a while ago, I had to go out of town and my mother came to visit to help out my husband and brought her dog, who stayed with her in the house. My daughter’s behavior was markedly worse and she seemed ill until we steam cleaned the carpets and furniture, at which point my allergic reaction calmed too. While I understood her seeming ill, I did not understand why her behavior would be so much worse than normal.
This year she had fall allergies and her behavior plummeted, and she did not respond to the usual carrots and metaphorical sticks that worked in the past. We suspected she had fall allergies and the doctor confirmed it and prescribed Claritin. Her health improved, her “allergic shiners faded” and surprisingly, to me at least, her behavior dramatically improved. I have heard theories involving the sympathetic nervous system why this might be the case, but frankly, it struck me as BS, but after observing my daughter, I am giving it a second thought.
Have any other Doper parents saw this allergy/behavior interaction?
I’ve certainly heard of it from other parents I would consider to be reasonable and intelligent people. Our kid allergies are all serious food ones, though, sorry.
As an allergy sufferer, I wouldn’t be that surprised. I know that when my allergies are acting up, I feel much more irritable and snappish at people which for a small child may be expressed as bad behavior. I also don’t sleep as well which can make things worse.
What kind of behavior? Is she snappish? Misbehaving? Yelling? Not able to settle down? Disobedient?
As someone who suffered from allergies as a child, I didn’t behave well because I felt like crap and was perpetually overtired and that made me cranky. My mother still talks about this being the bane of her existence.
As an adult with allergies, I think the poor sleep, plus the general allergic tiredness, could explain this. Whether there is something more complicated going on, I’m not sure. As an adult you have a lot more freedom to say “I’m tired and not in the mood for this” if your allergies act up.
Poor thing. It makes sense to me–kids tend to get frustrated when they feel bad. I’m still a total bitch when my pollen allergies act up in the spring, and when I’ve got a cold. I feel like crap and I want you all to go away. But rub my feet and bring me a cup of tea first. Luckily I’ve either been avoiding my triggers or my allergies aren’t as severe as they were.
My brother has allergies and has a prescription for Claritin and something else, and I’ve noticed he’s usually really tired and picky when he forgets to take his medicine. (He’s 12, though, so he’s got a little more control over his behavior than a younger kid.)
My husband is allergic to cats, and he just gets miserable and quiet when he has a reaction.
If she’s kind of active–fidgety and impatient–naturally, bad behavior under stress would make a lot of sense to me. I think it has a lot to do with personality.
How old is your daughter? If she’s a toddler, I’d be surprised if she weren’t getting cranky over the discomfort.
Keep in mind that, especially if she is a younger child, her nasal passages are smaller than yours and clog more easily. Add to that the fact that young kids are not known for bearing discomfort in silence and it’s very understandable for her behavior to go down the toilet if she’s got allergies. That’s not to say that you should allow bad behavior to slide by, but you should do what you can to make her more comfortable, and it sounds as though you are.
My son - almost three - also has allergies. He seems to be allergic mostly to pollens and molds and he gets very irritable during the spring and fall. There are more tantrums, he gets a bit clingier and doesn’t sleep nearly as well. Saline spray has been a lifesaver, and so has a steamy bathroom after a shower. Also, while I do expect him to learn to control himself, I also try to give him some extra attention in the form of kisses and hugs. It seems to help him feel better and manage his behavior.
Discomfort alone doesn’t really explain it. She had food poisoning due to a microwaved chicken dinner once, and was good even though she was clearly miserable. She was restless in the ER, but when asked to lower her voice and fidget less she did, and she cooperated with the nurse for taking vital signs and receiving medicine and even giving a urine sample. She was not so miserable it was not possible for her to misbehave, she just did not.
This bad behavior is manifesting in increased activity, greater likelihood to try to get attention in negative ways, like blocking someone’s view of a monitor or even hitting them hard enough to annoy, or just hitting the mouse or keyboard enough to cause a mistype, being noisy when not appropriate, often in ways calculated to annoy, running around the room when it is quiet time, etc. When she is in this kind of mood, trying to engage her in an activity, even one she usually likes, is pretty futile. Attempts at conversation are met with rudeness. And no warning or threat seems to register, neither does much actual punishment.
While she is not always perfectly behaved, usually a reminder of consequences is enough to get her to make some attempt at changing her behavior, and usually it gets her to behave in a more acceptable fashion. I can definitely see that overall she has much better self control now than she did a year ago, but for a while there, she lost it all. We tried to focus more on her, making sure it was not a lack of attention, and increasing emphasis on consistent consequences, but only saw a change after a few days of allergy medicine. And it is not that the medicine makes her sleepy or anything like that. She has energy enough to run around and play, but she does it in ways that are not so anti-social.
When my ashmatic son was young we let him regulate his meds. Sometimes he would be had to get along with. His mom or I would ask about his meds and sometimes tell him to increase the dose.
I have allergies that manifest them as atopic eczema on my face and neck. On bad days, my legs are restless, my stomach is permanently clenched, and shudders go through me as I try to control the urge to scratch. My twelve year old son has the same problem and his misery is released in rocking, banging, foot tapping, flapping his arms, sudden yelling and general irritability. And scratching!
We recently took up a load of tatami matting and put in flooring instead and his allergies instantly abated to about half their previous level. His behaviour and tics dropped dramatically.
When he was a toddler it was awful, he was so restless and awkward. He was so wrapped up in the itching and the ways he developed to deal with it that he seemed unable to hear us sometimes.
He’s a lot better now and can say that he’s got the itchies and needs to be irritable and jerky for a while, or we can send him for a bath or give him some extra meds for times like that, but this is a fairly recent thing, in the past three years or so.
I have chronic health problems that leave me not feeling well most of the time, and especially when my sleep is disrupted by those problems, it’s an act of adult will to not turn into a nasty, cranky, bitch. There’s a huge difference between not feeling well for a bout of illness like food poisoning, vs. not feeling well every damn minute of every day and having no idea when or if you will feel better.
If that illness disrupts your sleep or makes you hurt, it’s extremelly provoking–it becomes difficult to think straight and respond rationally to things that normally would roll off your back. I could see that leading to a child acting out and being disruptive. Heck, there are days at work that I feel like screaming and ripping people a new one. I don’t, because I recognize that the urge to do that is from sheer exhaustion, and I have more constructive ways to deal with it. A child may not understand that, though, and might need some help learning how to cope with not feeling well for a long period of time. The acting out could well be a way of saying “I don’t feel well, and I don’t know what to do about it.” That’s what’s going through my mind some days, but I have the means to answer that question that don’t involve lashing out at people.
My 4-year-old son has celiac disease. He’s normally a very good kid, but when he’s exposed to gluten, he becomes hyperactive, defiant, gets frustrated easily, and has emotional outbursts (screams, cries, hits, etc.). He also doesn’t sleep well at all, and has terrible bags under his eyes (the “allergy shiner” referenced above). Additionally, he seems to take longer to respond to questions, and generally doesn’t seem as bright.
Great fun! Especially because we just discovered that some cookies my wife had been giving him this past week were the right brand, but sadly the wrong variety, and contained quite a bit of wheat. It’s taken him about 3 days to get back to his normal helpful, cheerful self.
QuercusMax, you describe what I am seeing with my daughter. My sympathies in dealing with avoiding gluten, that is very difficult, and I know far too many don’t take it seriously even though it is a real and serious threat to your son.
Well, fortunately (for my son, at least), my wife, mother, and brother all are gluten-intolerant or have full-blown celiac, so we’re pretty familiar. The hard part isn’t at home (generally), but rather eating out, or any time of social event that involves food.