4.5 year old - nursery said he doesn't always listen / prefers to follow own agenda

[EssexMummy123]

DS attends two nurseries, a private day nursery and more recently a school nursery, the private nursery have never had a problem and feedback has always been positive, children always come running over to play with him when we get there and the staff all seem to like him - yes he's energetic / full of beans but he can sit and concentrate at circle time and does what's told at meal times etc.

The last couple of pick-ups at the school nursery however have not gone so well, the feedback has been that they've had to speak to him about disrupting the other children (when they don't want to play with him) not listening / doing as he's told when he would rather be doing something else.

At home he does like to not listen / push the boundaries, e.g. not wanting to go to bed at bedtime - we use the 123 magic system and occasionally a 3 would lead to the naughty step. I've also read 'How to talk' and 'Calmer Happier Parenting' and try to use those techniques.

I'm really really upset because I think the nursery teacher plans to feed this back to his reception teacher and I'm worried he's going to have a bad reputation before he even starts and I feel like I've done a very poor job in teaching boundaries..

Any positive suggestions?

[ppeatfruit]

Please don't worry at all, he sounds totally normal to me and I'm an ex CM\nanny and EY teacher.

There seem to be some nursery helpers who haven't learned about child development\psychology, we should all know how different dcs are and how children learn to concentrate at different ages too!!
I remember giving private lessons to a lovely 6 yr old boy who's private school said he was disruptive, he wasn't .

[EssexMummy123]

thank-you very much.

[LittleLionMansMummy]

Just reassurance really. Ds sounds similar, same age. It's not that he deliberately doesn't listen or is naughty as such, but his curiosity about everything around him completely overrides everything else. If he sees something that needs further investigation, you cannot gain his attention until he's physically touched it and investigated. It's an impulse he just can't seem toignore. He will listen if you explain something is dangerous though. His nursery and cm love his energy and enthusiasm and have never sought to curb it unless it has a negative impact on other children. It's how he learns and they embrace it. Maybe mention different learning styles to them and ask how they're channeling it to help prepare him for a more structured school environment.

[startwig1982]

My ds is just 4 and is the same. He finds it hard to sit still and has to be told frequently. He quite often sits on the thinking chair for wandering off!

[ppeatfruit]

'Proper' school is starting much too early for some children. And child development is not being taught in teaching colleges any more, ASFAIK. It's ridiculous.

[AalyaSecura]

IME reception teachers are brilliant at teaching 'pay attention' skills, their classroom management relies upon it, so I would expect him to come on in leaps and bounds. Doesn't always transfer to home mind! If you want to try to prepare him, have a look into some of the strategies they use in reception - even better, find out what strategies his school uses. So examples might be names on the sun/rainbow/cloud depending on behaviour, particular music for tidy up time, stickers for good work or behaviour (our reception children seem to come out covered in stickers for the first term, after that used more discriminately).

But this is in no way unusual, teachers will have seen it all before and expect it. If you can help improve things in the meantime great, but don't fret if not, see how he goes when he's settled in to school.

[ppeatfruit]

One of the worst things I saw in a class where I was doing supply was a whiteboard with 'sad' faces and smiley faces drawn above lists of children. The T.A. was in charge of it and it was always the same names; little boys who danced on the carpet!! were humiliated at age 4 ffs. The ones who most needed playtime missed their playtime because they had too much energy it's crazy.

[Chocolatewaterfalls]

My son was one of those sad faced children ppeatfruit. I think there is a problem with our education system when they cannot realise that some children mature at different rates

[Mammy22b]

Hi.
I have twin boys in Nursery one of which is extremely compliant and able to charm at will. He sits still at carpet time and will not move at snack time. He only has to be asked once if doing something deemed unsuitable.
The other, however, cannot STAND to be still. He tells me that he likes moving. its is good for his bones (And I cant argue with that).
And everything is so very literal with him. Its essential to say what you mean and mean what you say.

once he was asked to finish what he was doing and come to the carpet, then he was told off, put on" the lilly pad" and taken off the golden chart for not sitting but he couldn't understand why because he "Hadn't finished".
I explained to him that sometimes when people say finish what you are doing, they actually mean STOP what you are doing. He told me "That's STUPID and not fair." (Not a word I like them to say but actually, it is stupid).

We talked about letting him have a stress toy to play with on the carpet and they agreed as long as it didn't distract him from listening.
Although he often doesn't look like he's listening, he ALWAYS is but for some reason he needs to have something else to do at the same time. soemthing to fiddle with.
He's a busy boy and will jump from one doing thing to another... except drawing, and cutting. He will sit for hours doing that.
We did role play at home and talked about sitting in school and how its different than at home and its taken almost three months of occasional chats and he now considers himself a "Sitting expert".

I cant stress enough how I don't like the "Conditioning" to conform at nursery and school. I hate formal education and if I could afford to, I would school them at home until high-school or until they asked to go to school.

[ppeatfruit]

So true Chocolate and Mammy It's disgraceful and damaging to their fragile little egos too.

Some European countries manage to send their children to academic style school much later and the dcs there do very well. It's wrong here.

I was lucky in that we could afford for me to be at home when the dcs were little and I home eded them whenever they were suffering, it has done them no harm at all. The opposite in fact.

[EssexMummy123]

ppeatfruit - that is awful, at 4?

[ppeatfruit]

I also think we need to recognise that quite a few teachers and TAs actively DISLIKE children unless they're sitting like statues. This is something that needs to be dealt with carefully, but it's true I've seen it.

[BackforGood]

Really ??
Apart from the fact I thought you had to pay to advertise on MN ???

There isn't any problem with this little boy. The Nursery are just feeding back that he's one of probably about 85-90% of 4 yr olds who isn't yet ready for formal learning. The idea of suggesting CAMHS trained therapists for being a normal child is, quite frankly, bizarre and scaremongering