Behavior - Lynnwood,WA

Ah kids with extra energy are a challenge. At 4 its hard for them to get use to social cues. Just reinforcement reinforcement reinforcement. You need to help him learn to funnel that excitement to a less physical dangerouns to others. Like maybe doing jumping jacks or push ups or if he is outside he can run in circles. Just not to pick things up cause it might hurt the person you are excited to see. Also if he gets this excited now I'd really keep corn syrup away from him. And limit his sugar intake now. That way when he is in school you wont have this issue as much. Good luck

my 2.5 year old is a lot the same. We heard about this Fiengold diet that is supposed to help with behavior things. I have heard nothing but great things about it so we are trying it. I can't tell you what we think yet since we just ordered the information about it all but you can look it up on their website at www.feingold.org or you can type in feingold on here on the mamapedia site and there are quite a few things about it on here too. Hope you find something that helps.

Mine do the same thing. When people come over you would think they never saw outsiders. It doesn't matter if they saw the same folks yesterday. It's like they go on sensory overload and all this attention seeking manic behavior comes out. It's like 10 minutes of Stewart from MADTV, "Hey! Look what I can do!"

It helps to get on my son's level about 12 in. from his face, get eye contact, talk calmly and quietly to him, call him down and tell him what I need him to do. Same goes at the park. Before I even get him out of his seat, I make eye contact and tell him calmly and quietly what I need him to do and then ask him where he is going to play next. Then I take him by the hand and we go directly to that play area. If he get's all ramped we do the eye contact thing again and he gets one chance before he has to sit down to cool it.

I think this is somewhat normal behavior for a 4 y/o. My 4 y/o daughter has known to react similarly when she gets really riled up after she has been playing or something.

I might suggest that before some one comes, like if you know they are coming or are going to meet them, discuss what it should look like when you/they arrive. Go over what is okay and what's not okay. It might not work the first time, but keep reinforcing it and talking about it day after day.

My son would get this way when playing with large groups of kids(especially if they were also loud and rowdy). I would take him out for a break to get a drink of water or go somewhere quiet like a bathroom until he calmed down and then we would go back and try again.