I have a DCB who is 2.5 and he spends the entire day doing basically nothing. Wanders around aimlessly not playing with anything. He also stares at me all.the.time (which is the most annoying part of this whole thing). I have no idea what is going on with this kid. Any advice? I have mostly been ignoring him. Once or twice I asked him to stop staring and go play. When I bring it up to mom he is “perfect at home” and she doesn’t seem to care!

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Wonder if the child could have autism or attention deficit disorder

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The mom has bad anxiety so it is possible it is related to that. I just don’t know what to do about it. Talking to him makes it worse.

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Definitely sounds like ASD. Does he talk at all?

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I’m not sure. He is meeting almost all of his milestones, except for language. He can talk and does talk but it is never in a conversational type of way. He has a hard time understanding anything I say to him and he gets upset when I am trying to get him to do things for himself because he does not understand. There is another kid who is 3 that comes Wednesday and Thursday and when that kid is here he is more social with that kid but mostly follows him around. The other child engages with him like they are friends but when I observe it, it is just not like that at all. It is mostly the 3 year old telling him what to do and the 2.5 year old not understanding but trying to go along with it. The difference between them is crazy. They are 5 months apart but the 3 year old is so much more advanced.

It is SOOO hard to explain it! During times like these I wish I had coworkers who could observe the same behaviours. Whenever I chat with mom she sees nothing wrong with him, argues with me and dismisses me. I have just stopped discussing it.

Today at pickup I was trying to show him the difference between his backpack and another kids backpack and he burst into tears. He just seems so lost when I am speaking to him and I am so frustrated that no one else sees it! They must nit be talking to him at all or the tv is on all the time. No idea. Wish someone had some ideas on how to deal with it. I guess ignoring is all I can do.

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There are several Autism "survey's" online that may help determine if he has any warning signs. The problem with ASD is that it is SO different kid to kid. I have worked with 3 in particular, and there's really nothing similar about any of them :P One was very vocal, but did not actually communicate, he also had poor motor skills and did not interact with other kids at all. Another was 100% silent all the time, but other than that acted just like all the other kids (though was more likely to play next to another child instead of with them) Very much a "go with the flow" kind of kid. While the 3rd child can have a conversation with you, speaks pretty clearly, but will repeat the same sentence/question 5-6 times whether you answer or not. He is highly sensitive to changes, physical contact, or reprimand. (these were all three boys, and were K4, kindergarten, and 1st graders)
I also had a little girl with Auditory Processing Disorder. Her parents did think at one point that she was autistic, but I did not agree, as she didn't show many of the signs. However, I do believe she had APD, and once I started signing to her, she did AMAZING! She would get so frustrated when you would tell her something because she just wasn't understanding. You signed it to her and you could see her give a sigh of relief!

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He may not know how to "play" play is taught as an infant and young toddler. If he is an only child he may be just taken home and left to his own devices. If you give him multiple steps to complete a task can he do it? Like pick up the big ball and put it into the bin then close the lid. Can he follow all three steps or maybe just picks up the big ball and that is it?

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Yep I got one here to. Almost 2.5, I asked him to sit down so I can help him with his snow pants. He sat on them with his back to me. (The pants were laying with the feet next to me) I asked him to turn around and he got up and walked away. After I got his pants on, he got his boots, came back and started to take off his snow pants. The same pants he refused to help take off when we came in.

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It took me 3 whole months to teach him to put on his pants after diaper changes. He would routinely put two legs in one leg hole. When I would direct him to take his leg out...pointing in the direction I wanted his leg to go and saying “out” he had no idea what I was saying.

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I suggest playing with him instead of talking to him. Try to become his ally. Like the three yr old. And what milestone assessment are you using? Or is it just the peds checklist that mom reports to you?
I LoVE ages and stages. It’s great for finding gaps and has ideas to fill them to enrich a child’s curriculum.
(I rarely pop in to the board anymore because my program is super busy right now but I’ll try to pop back in more often. I miss you all. )

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Yes that is DCB. DCM wanted to potty train him before his sister came. She brought me pull ups one day, I sent home the potty training checklist for her to answer and bring back. She never mentioned potty training again and sister arrived last week. He still has no clue how to even try to put on his pants.
Yes his first day back he wandered around saying "baby came" repeatedly.


I play kids music on Alexa, if it is still on when DCM picks up she points out the cartoon/TV show theme song and he will smile.

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It is so sad!! I wish I could talk to mom about it. Maybe it is an IQ thing? Maybe mom has a low IQ too so can’t process what I am telling her? I don’t know.

Conversation today at lunch. We will call the bright 3 year old Jake and the 2.5 yr old I am concerned about Henry. They are 5 months apart.

I am winking at Jake. Jake tries to wink back. I explain the difference between winking and blinking, two eyes vs one eye. Jake says “maybe when I am older I can wink, right now it is too hard for me I can only blink with two eyes”.
Henry says “nose, nose” and laughs.

I realize that Jake is a bit advanced but my kids were talking like that at this age too so to me it is normal and right on track for development. Henry on the other hand seems sooooo far behind, it is alarming.

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My almost 2.5 does less than the almost 2 year old. The snow pants story. I had all three boys standing there told them each one at a time to sit down on their snow pants. DS 20 months, DCB 23 months did it correctly (as expected for that age) but DCB 28 months had no clue what to do.

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I have one that just turned three that is like this. Spends a large part of his day just sitting. I have tons of toys and he just sits and stares into space or stares at his feet. He's smart and communicates well but he's lazy. He is catered to at home and they do everything for him. He can't dress or undress himself. He has to be reminded at every meal to eat slowly and take small bites. He is in my opinion potty trained but refuses to use the potty (he went for two full weeks staying completely dry here and telling me each time he needed to go). He will tell me "I want the matchbox cars!" then sit and wait for me to get up and get them from the toy box (which I do NOT do). He wants someone to do for him and entertain him constantly and that is not happening here. He also has NO desire to learn anything (colors, ABC's, counting, etc). He is slowly picking some of it up just from every day happenings but if I try to work with him on any of it he will turn his back and walk off. If I try to read to him he tries to turn the pages and talks very loudly over me. If I get down and try to play with him, color with him, do a craft with him he turns his back on me. I worried and worried for months that I was doing something wrong with him but I now realize it's his home environment. It's NOT me. He is being catered to non stop at home and they constantly take him places and do things with him so he has NO idea how to play alone or entertain himself. He also can not follow even simple instructions most of the time. I think it's because they don't give him any at home! They just do for him instead. It's sad but it is what it is. I have just been letting him sit. I have great toys here so if he's bored it's his own fault.

While your situation sounds different in a lot of aspects I thought I would let you know it's not happening at your house!

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I meant to say I wanted you to know that it's not ONLY happening at your house! The baby woke up screaming so I had to hurry and finish up and missed a word!

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I had a 3yo boy who acted similar. He couldn’t see to focus on anything and he would wander aimlessly from center to center sometimes even pushing over other kids creations in the block area or dumping out bins of toys and kicking them around. I found that the best thing to do was help him pick out a toy he liked ( this boy loved legos) and sit down at a table and play with him for a few minutes. Then I would encourage him to play with another child by saying “ Tommy would like to play with legos with you. Why don’t you show Tommy your “rocket ship station.” This usually worked and after a few weeks the wandering and destructive behavior stopped. He still had his focusing issues but the situation was manageable. I’m not sure this solution would work in your case but you can give it a try.

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