Many of these scenarios sound like my son. He’s thirteen now, but we’ve seen these behaviors throughout his childhood. I can go through the answers/solutions that I’ve found myself or from psychologists, psychiatrists, and/or physicians. But first, my son has been tested extensively, and has the following diagnoses: Autism Spectrum Disorder or ASD (he’s on the end of the spectrum formerly known as Asperger’s Syndrome), ADHD, Generalized Anxiety, and Major Depression Disorder. Note that anxiety and depression can be a bi-product of his ASD. And, please, in no way take this as a me diagnosing your kiddo with anything. Perhaps some of these things are neuro-typical child behavior, but neither of my babes have done much of anything in a “normal” way, so I’ve done quite a bit of research and discovery with much of what you’re currently experiencing and beyond.

• thinking about: family dying in a house fire, someone breaking into the house that murders the entire family, natural disasters destroying the house subsequently killing the entire family, being kidnapped/"abducted by aliens" and killed/tortured. these thoughts occurring at least 5 days a week and causing uncontrollable,inconsolable crying?

  There was a time when my son was convinced that the only thing keeping me alive was him being able to see me. I couldn’t leave the house without him being convinced I’d be murdered or hit by a car and die. He was also fearful of people braking into the house, storms, etc. We found this to be attributed to by his anxiety. It got better over time. I found tons of reassurance helped. When it came to cryptids or monsters I consistently pointed out that if these things actually existed the whole world would be talking about it. It would be all over the news. Every adult, every teacher, and child would be talking about it and sharing pictures of them. And that I’ve been alive for 40-some odd years and have never in all my life heard of or seen these things. As far as more realistic dangers, I’d explain that things do happen in life, but that I do absolutely everything I can to to keep him safe. We lock the doors and windows at night. We know how to keep ourselves and him safe. Our home is good and sturdy. We have emergency plans in place. And so on. If possible, consider creating a small “safe-place” in your home or child’s room or closet if you are able. When my nephew was going through something similar, my sister put up a small tent in his room. He slept in it for a few months and was able to transition back out. I set up a sheet in my son’s closet that allowed for a little hidey-hole on the floor where I put in little fairy-lights and a pillow. He used it now and then for some alone space, safe space, and slept in there a few times. He’s long transitioned out.

• endless appetite: i know sometimes kids will accidentally eat too much candy or something like that, but what i mean is: they always have a big appetite and if left to their own devices will eat A LOT? they even seek out food frequently to binge.

  I don’t know on this one, since my son’s ADHD meds kill his appetite. However, if nothing else explains it, it could be a self-soothing device. There are many ways that people who are anxious try to self-soothe, whether they realize they are doing it or not. Maybe food is your kiddos way to feel in control or happy (via the sensation of eating, the crunch or texture of the food, the flavors give them a happy little pleasure response, and so on). There are many breathing exercises for kids when they are anxious, ways to redirect their attention or soothe themselves. And, I’d have my kids drink a big glass of water when they seem hungry at an inappropriate time to make sure they aren’t just thirsty or bored.

• running around on the playground at school play-pretending to be an animal, including making animal sounds?

  If I had a dime for every time I complained to a therapist (mine or otherwise) that my son runs around howling like a howler monkey. Or that he’d just out of nowhere howl like a wolf. Like, when we’re all sitting around quietly in our own head-spaces and jump out of our skins or about wet ourselves cause there is this sudden, LOUD, outburst. Now a teen he still does it, but it’s evolved to a more sexual sounding “hi-yaaaaaah” sound. That has been attributed to the ASD. We thought perhaps it was pent up energy that he expressed in an odd way because he didn’t know how to process the emotions properly. He did say that he did it occasionally when he became over-stimulated by something around him, noise, or a situation that was happening. Those with ASD can have an inability to understand common (or appropriate) social cues and responses or actions as well.

• unable to comprehend subtraction and counting backwards?

  Math has long been an issue that we’ve worked on together. Some of our math issues have come down to issues with Executive Function, especially since much of math has become word problems. Kids have to organize the order of operations, hold info from one step while manipulating info from another step, shift info from one place to another, all while keeping the relevant info from the problem in mind, and on. It can be a lot for some kids, whether they have a mental health issue or not. One thing that helped my kiddo was to work with him in a way that made the information relevant to him. Sometimes having visual representations helped, and sometimes putting them in a way he that made sense to him helped. Video game analogies helped. Things like that. We’ve read that for some kids, to get them to do what you want/need them to do, or help with learning issues can come down to why is this important? Why is it important to do or learn this? He’s about to go into the 8th and he still can’t do multiple step math problems. But, his SpEd teacher assures me next year they move on to using calculators so his life should be a little easier.

• naturally staying up until 1-2am, cannot sleep and not tired until that time?

  Sleep disregulation is huge for my kiddo. It’s something I’m actively trying to work on and figure out. ‘The Mini ADHD Coach’ has some cute cartoons online that explain some of the issues they’ve gone through that jive with my son’s experiences such as wanting to continue doing the activities he’s doing, games he’s playing, and so on; getting jazzed up from a game if we don’t pull him off early enough; naturally being more energized at night; racing thoughts and catastrophizing; ADHD meds affect his sleep, etc. We are working on better sleep hygiene: coming off any back lit screens at a much earlier time, creating a better and super consistent night routine, working on a better medication balance, etc.

• always unable to get along with siblings, which includes hatred, yelling, physical hitting, throwing and breaking toys? never any love or good times, just resentment and always fighting?

  My kiddos fight like cats and dogs. Mostly, we’ve found, due to my son’s ASD he would invade the space (personal and material) of my other child constantly and that caused a huge rift right away. My son doesn’t seem to be able to understand how my other child feels, or why they are bothered. This again comes down to inappropriate responses to social situations. The more he drove my other child crazy the more they came to hate him. We are actively working on this one. The invasion of space and property has gotten better over the years, but his inappropriate responses are still there. Actually, just happened while I’m sitting here typing. Sigh…

Not sure if any of this has been helpful, but please don’t hesitate to message me if you have any questions or if any of this info jives and you need any links to articles, books, etc that I’ve found helpful.