Three and a half years old's behaviour

[Mule2mule]

I have a 3 and half year old boy who has communication difficulties and masses of testosterone flying about which makes him difficult to handle and unliked by many children(tragically). I teach Asberger children and my first concern was that he has the syndrome, but while he has some of the indicators I am not convinced. He does have very rosey checks at times and when he does his behaviour is very difficult. Has anyone else experienced this? Can anyone give me some much needed advice?

[Jj]

Marina, my son has glue ear which is causing hearing loss. It affects his behaviour when it's most severe (it waxes and wanes). Have you had his hearing checked?
Good luck. That might not be it, but if it is, it's not too hard to handle and there are pretty easy medical and surgical methods of dealing with it.

[Tigermoth]

Mule2ule, my son at 3 years was an absolute handful. Turbo charged, testosterone-fueled - the messages on this board bring it all back.

Like Jjs son, he too had a hearing problem. Pretty mild, but regualrly monitored by the local hospital audiologist until he was 6 years old. He had glue ear, but as children get older they can grow out of it, as he did. We turned up for his pre- grommet-fitting appointment, he had a final hearing test and everything was OK.Do get his hearing checked out.With hindsight, I'm sure his hearing loss made my son very irritable at times, especially with all the background noise you get in a nursery.

However, I don't think my son's lively, loud behaviour was just down to this. My son quickly cottoned onto the fact that he could say he hadn't heard me telling him to eg ' stop throwing sand around....' because he was a little deaf. However if in mid telling-off you said '....and now would you like some chocolate darling?'in exactly the same tone of voice, it was amazing how easily he could hear that!

As far as additives are concerned I can't offer much advice, but we did keep our son off all the obvious, like fizzy drinks. Because he slept very well and was not really running up the walls when he was awake, no doctor, or other professionals who knew him, thought he was hyperactive. Just lively and at times naughty.

But we were worried, so we were very proactive in talking about him to his nursery, baby sitters, grandparents and other experienced adults who saw him regularly. We asked the nursery to keep us regularly updated, tell us if there was anthing we could do to reinforce their teaching and discipline with him at home, regulary asked how he was getting on, and made sure our son knew we were taking a very active interest in him at nursery, hoping this might deter him from being naughty there.

However, after one such talk with his teacher,I wished I had bitten my tongue. Thinking it back in my mind, I'm ashamed to say, all I had done was list my complaints and critcisms of my son( it had been a bad week!). The last thing I wanted was my son to be labelled as a totally uncontrollable little psychopath, and the week and my son hadn't been all bad. I vowed there and then to throw in some positives whenever I felt the need to let off steam about my son to anyone else. It was pretty obvious to everyone that my son behaved worse with people who where hostile to him - hostility breeds hostility etc, so I didn't want to fan the flames.

He did grow out of the difficult 3's. By the time he was approaching 5 he was much better, even though his hearing was not 100%. He's still not brilliantly behaved now, but is much more controllable and has long, calm periods. And even when he was being too lively in class, he was still taking in lots and mastered the three 'R's with no more difficulty than the best behaved children in his class.His teacher always said he was happy, popular, motivated and confident despite his non-listening, too active-on-the-mat behaviour.

Again with hindsight,I can say it took time to learn how best to deal with him, so don't be too hard on yourself. Even his teachers, with all their experience found it hard to get him to do as they wished. When they saw I was pregnant agian, boy did they laugh!

[Tigermoth]

If it's any consolation, Batters, my 7 year old son often tries to play one of us off against the other. It seems to a very common ploy amongst his friends and I have to say that when I tell my son he is hurting me, it doesn't do much good.

This behaviour didn't start as early as 3 and a half, but it did start before he went to school. Perhaps your little girl is just rather advanced.

We try to rise above it and present a united front, but it can still feel awful when they say they want daddy etc, can't it?

I think some of it can be down to who does what. In our family I am the one who does the bedtime routine and when we go out, I am usually the one who dresses him and tries to hurry him up. It is also the dreaded mummy who insists he has a bath and bug busts his hair. These are all popular ignition points for rows and general unpleasantness.

To be fair, my husband gets my son out of the house for school in the morning and that causes some angst too. Incidently, my son is always asking me to take him to school - he thinks I will be kinder to him in the morning - so it works both ways!

However, my husband also gets to spend far more time cuddling him on the sofa while they watch TV in the evening, while mummy is rushing around trying to hurry him upstairs.

So to improve my 'bad'image, I make a conscioius effort to do as many 'nice', non-confrontational things with my son as I possibly can eg: after a bug bust, I try and have an extra long chat or story with him when he's settled in bed. And lots of praise, tickling and jokes as and when. Just so he doesn't have to feel under pressure to do things he doesn't want to do all the time he is with me.

Since I've done this it has helped a lot. My son is much more willing to do what I want, and the pleas for daddy have become less insistent.

[Mooma]

Tigermoth, I wanted to thank you for the advice in your last two postings, where you stress the need to be positive in the face of difficult behaviour. I admired the way you analysed the situation to see where things could be improved.
Because I am intensely honest, I often find myself giving other people chapter and verse about my children's faults, but I hardly ever hear others doing it about their offspring. I think I'm trying to say it before they think it about mine!!

[Debsb]

Batters, both my girls intermittently do this, usually if I'm getting them to do somethong they don't like. I do think that 3 maybe a little young to understand how hurtful it is. I also think it may be a way of them asserting their independance. They know how reliant on you they are, but they don't like it (or my youngest doesn't, eldest dd thinks its great). I would check with the nursery though, at this age, they are sometimes mixing with older kids who seem to start the 'I'm not your friend anymore' routine very early, and she may just be taking this out on you. Seems to be girls rather than boys as well.
I find the best trick is just to ignore it, with a comment like 'well I'm the only mum you've got so tough', they soon get fed up.

[Janh]

i have to say i never let it get to me. if they ever said "i don't want you, i want xxx" i would just say "fine!" and disappear.

never never never let them think they've got you on the run!!!!