I am guessing that some of you have children with ADD/ADHD as well.  Has anyone else noticed your little ones having an obsession with lining things up in a row?  Like toys on the floor? 

My daughter does this with almost all of her toys, and I wondered if all children with ADHD had this tendency.

Thanks

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Yes, My daughter does this with everything! This is when it hit me she has it too! LOL! The first time she got construction paper her sister was useing for a project (all one color) and made a line from one end of the house to the other. No one was alowed to touch it or mess it up!! This was at age 3!
My son used to do that and some other things that were slightly OCD but he doesn't do them much anymore. It seems the organization interest isn't as strong. He is 10 now.
My son had a slightly different take on putting things in order. As a toddler and preschooler he enjoyed spending long periods transferring small toys from one container to another, then transferring them back again. I still remember his little toddler face mesmorized while pulling small figure blocks from a bucket, one at a time, then replacing them with great concentration. He would repeat this many times. One afternoon he spent an hour running (not walking) from the living room to the bedroom, each time bringing a single toy to add to a growing pile.

In his case the action of moving things here to there seemed most important, and he didn't spend much time aligning them once they arrived.
Wow that was probably me as a child...and I still have that problem. I am one of the few with ths disorder that has an obsession to neat and orderly as well.

In all seriousness I think I read somewhere that ADD/ADHD walks a fine line away from mild forms of Autism, and Autistic individuals have a obsessive personality like that. My daughter has ADHD as well but she is nothing but orderly. I am more of the ADD type and I have to have complete order and neatness or I feel like I am suffocating. To say we clash on this is an understatement....
I agree completely! I think this cannot be an indicator to anything. All kids do that...or a lot of them do. My oldest never did it, and he is ADHD. ∂on't worry about it until they get older, perhaps kindergarten. It is when they need to learn you might see differences. Until then, chalk it up to age, personality and just kids!

Manda Joy said:
Lining things up in a row or in rows is common among children with certain disorders as mentioned.... but it's also very common among children in general. I studied child development in college and I observed several children, mostly 3 and younger, that did this. My daughter did it too when she was a toddler.
My son who is 2 1/2 is going through speach therapy and one of the milestones that the therapist told me to watch out for as far as development is his playing with his toys. She said to watch out for him making noises for cars...like vrooom...vroom...also lining them up and then throwing them all down. We have been working on him for about 8 months now and his is not doing these things.
I do that! I never considered it might be connected with ADHD, though. I alway thought it was just one of my personality quirks. But it's true, I love to line things up. If I display things, it is nearly always in rows. But the funnest thing is when I can arrange and rearrange things into different patterns and lengths of rows....which is why M&Ms are so much fun!
I am borderline OCD, and my daughter Katie seems to have the same trait, but we aren't sure if it's just because I like to organize everything! It reduces my stress when I can organize my world, so she may have borderline OCD or OCD tendencies. This can actually work in her favor if she also has ADHD, they can cancel each other out. However, she should be evaluated by a professional therapist who can diagnose these disorders. You should ask her how it makes her feel when all of her toys are lined up and what prompts her to do this, notice what she is doing before and after it happens. Sometimes it is ADHD kids trying to just cope with the fact that they can't control their brain, being overstimulated and if they have ADHD family members that can be overwhelming for kids. Well that is my two cents, let me know what you think! Good luck and thanks for posting the thought!
~Jessica Hobson
My daughter used to do that all the time. She is 6 now and I haven't noticed it for a while. My daughter is not diagnosed with ADHD yet. The medical professionals have always said she is just very smart and her behavior is from being bored however, after a recient visit with a phycologist I was told that she felt I had ADD/ADHD. My daughter is a mini me so if I have it then it explains her too.

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