My little boy just turned two at the beginning of June. He is such a joy - sweet, loving, bright. He had tubes put in his ears about a month ago, which made a huge difference in his speech - he's saying new words every day and understands everything we say. The strange thing is his "freak outs". For example, today at our church's Bible School program for my daughter, we walked in and the close we got to the group of people sitting in chairs, watching the kids on the stage, he turns away from them, starts to climb me, and pulls my hair (I have really short hair), starts whining. He acts like he's panicked or scared. He also does this if someone is in our house that he didn't know was here - like if he's surprised by them, he'll cling to me, and pull my hair, etc. He is normal in every other way. Thoughts????
He's 2, it's normal, and he will grow out of it if you don't make it a big deal about it. Just tell him it's OK, hold on to him until he feels comfortable again. Little ones get overwhelmed at times by things going on around them, just as we adults sometimes do. My 3 year old does this maybe once or twice a month but is growing out of it.
This sounds like stranger anxiety. My son did this for years. Totally normal at this age.
Mother of a 10 year old girl and a 12 year old boy
It's totally normal for 2 year olds to freak out over what seems like nothing.
I'm totally speculating here, but if your son's hearing has suddenly improved it makes sense that he might be overwhelmed by all the new sensory input he's getting.
It's because he can finally hear and it's a drastic change in loudness that he's freaking out. With ear infections/fluid, your hearing is very muffled, like being underwater. I would slowly get him used to it as it's overwhelming at first.
My son went through this after getting tubes, and at age 6, he is just starting to phase out of it a little bit. I even took him to an audiologist because his reactions were just so crazy. Because he could hear almost nothing before tubes, after he got them, loud noises were overwhelming to him and drove him nuts. For years we couldn't get him into a public bathroom. Lots of people in a room would have him begging to leave. Unfortunately for him, it became a learned response. He had heard the loud noise that that situation produced before and he was unwilling to put himself through it again. Fortunately a caring kindergarten teacher was able to help him through most of it, but he still hates loud noises. The audiologist said exposure helps and eventually he will learn to deal with it.
Some kids are just overwhelmed by too much activity and noise... now that he is hearing better, it may take a while for him to get used to how intense some sounds are. Remember, he has been hearing things more muffled....
He may have some sensory issues.... look up "Sensory Processing Disorder" ... it covers a WIDE range of sensory issues.
That behavior is normal and if you don't make a big deal out of it-or give him a label on him (shy, naughty, a pain, etc) he will out grow this behavior very quickly.
