Is My Child’s Behavior Just In My Head? What I Learned As A Mom And Teacher
Last Tuesday, I leaned against my minivan in the elementary school car line, watching kids stream out after dismissal. My 8-year-old Leo was halfway down the sidewalk before he spotted me, and instead of running over like he usually does, he hung back, stepping on the same crack in the asphalt over and over, rubbing the side of his shirt against his hip. When I called his name, he flinched like I’d yelled. On the drive home, he didn’t tell me about the art show he’d been hyping for two weeks. He just stared out the window, picking at the seam of his jeans until his nail broke.
That night, I sat on the couch after he went to bed and thought the same thing I’ve thought a dozen times in the last three months: Is this just in my head?
I’ve taught 4th grade for 12 years, so I know what “typical” kid behavior looks like, more or less. But lately, the small shifts in Leo have felt like static I can’t tune out. He won’t wear his favorite dinosaur socks anymore, says the seam “feels like broken glass” against his toe. He turned down strawberry ice cream at the pool last week because it was “too cold and sticky” on his hands. When I rearranged his bookshelf to make room for new library books last month, he cried for 20 minutes until I put every single one back exactly where it was.
On playground playdates, other moms laugh and say “8 is just the weirdest moody age” or “all kids are picky sometimes.” I nod along, but the question nags at me. Am I overreacting? Am I making a big deal out of normal kid stuff just because I’m a teacher who looks for problems everywhere?
That question popped up again at school the next week, when one of my students, Mia, came in from recess red-eyed, rubbing her hands raw on her jeans. She’d gotten a little dirt on her palms during kickball, and couldn’t stop thinking about it. A year ago, I might have sent her to the bathroom to wash up and told her to get back to work, written it off as attention-seeking. This time, I sat with her for five minutes, and realized I’d seen her do the same thing three times that month: melt down over scratchy worksheets, refuse to sit on the floor during circle time because the rug was “bumpy.”
I left school that day with a nudge that it wasn’t just in my head, for either of them. I scheduled a quick check-in with Leo’s pediatrician, not because I was panicking about a diagnosis, but because I wanted to stop ruminating and get some perspective. She told me something that stuck with me: most of the time, when a parent or teacher thinks something is off, they’re not imagining it. Kids show us small clues long before they can name what’s bothering them, and that little voice telling you something’s up isn’t overreacting—it’s just paying attention. For Leo, the signs lined up with mild sensory processing differences, something common that most kids manage with small shifts, not big interventions.
I started with one tiny change first: instead of replaying every incident in my head at night, I started keeping 10-second notes in my phone. Just things like “melted down about shirt after gym” or “ok at the restaurant when we sat in the back corner.” After two weeks, I could see a pattern I’d missed before: 9 out of 10 bad moments happened when he was overstimulated, not when he was being “bad.” That’s the first thing I tell other parents who ask me the same “is this just in my head” question: stop guessing, just jot down quick notes when something happens. It takes 10 seconds, and it turns vague worry into clear information.
The next thing I changed was what I say when he’s upset. I used to say “it’s just a tag, it doesn’t even show” when he complained about clothes. Now I just say “That feels really scratchy, doesn’t it? Let’s fix it.” It sounds small, but it stops the fight before it starts. I keep a bag of seamless, tag-free basics in his closet, a pack of plain crackers in my purse for when we’re out and he can’t eat whatever’s available, and we leave 5 minutes early for events so he can sit in the car with me if the inside is too loud before we go in. None of these changes take much time or money, and they’ve cut our meltdowns by more than half.
Last weekend, we went to my sister’s birthday dinner at a crowded downtown restaurant. Halfway through the appetizer, Leo started squeezing his napkin so tight his knuckles turned white. I leaned over and whispered “Too bright?” He nodded so fast his glasses slid down his nose. We grabbed his hoodie and sat on the empty bench outside for 12 minutes, he ate a cracker from my bag, and watched the cars go by. Then he said he was ready to go back in, and he sat through the whole cake cutting without a fuss.
I still have days where I wonder if I’m making too big a deal out of this. Last week, he skipped spirit week because the required school shirt was too thick, and I let him. I worried for an hour that I was setting him up to never deal with uncomfortable things, but he came home happy, and that felt more important than following the rules.
I don’t have a neat ending here. We haven’t “fixed” anything, and I still catch myself asking “is this just in my head?” every few weeks when someone comments on how picky he is. But what I’ve learned is that question doesn’t need a big dramatic answer. It just needs you to stop second-guessing your own observation, try one small thing, and see how it goes. Most of the time, that’s enough.
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