(It's a long one- sorry!)
My 4yo boy is generally loving and fun etc, etc. He occasionally gets a bit high-sprited at home but nothing time-out doesn't solve to calm him down.
My problem is that whenver we visit relatives, (which includes both sets of grandparents plus aunties and uncles, any combination) or they visit us, he becomes very silly in behaviour, almost obnoxious he won't say hello, or if he's asked any kind of question ie how was pre-school, would you like a drink, let's have a look at that car, is it your favourite? etc he will ignore it and then when prompted by me, might shout the answer out (not looking at the person asking the question). Then he might follow it up with some silly noises, pulling silly faces, sticking his tongue out etc. (This happens 9 times out of 10. He has been ok on occasion, but that's quite rare.)
He calms down a bit after a while, but by the time it comes for us to leave/relatives to leave, he always finds a reason to not say goodbye nicely either. Or if he does say goodbye he just yells BYE without looking at them. It all just upsets and infuriates me.
I am on a knife-edge during visits that he will be rude or ignorant at any moment. He's better with my parents than PIL but only marginally. There has hardly ever been an occasion where he's just said hello and goodbye normally without a performance.
I remind him before relatives come/we go there that it's nice to say "hello" and "goodbye" properly, and if they ask him a question, it's nice to reply properly, that they love him and want to see him and it's upsetting when he is rude etc, and shouts, and won't answer questions, and ignores them. and he agrees all of that, but it all goes out of the window once they have arrived.
I take him off privately several times (plus stern word in public if immediate response is required to something, if appropriate) and have a word with him about behaviour, reminding him/telling him strongly (depending on how rude he's been) which has effect for 5 minutes (on a good day) but then he's off again being silly. I have also noticed he plays more aggressively at relatives/when they visit, slamming cars into each other, throwing his building blocks around etc and making lots of noisy sound effects (more so than any other time).
He has no behavioural issues at pre-school, or parties etc. (apart from occasional usual 4yo high spirits). He concentrates well on tasks, he's popular in pre-school and has lots of friends, boys and girls. He is very intelligent, he talks a lot and asks a lot of questions and makes some amazing observations, he is intuitive in knowing how someone is feeling, he empathises, his eye contact and body language are all great. He's lovely with his little sister. When his friends come over to play he falls over himself to share all his toys and play games with them, he is ready to offer them his favourite/newest toys to play with, and there's much giggling and "Shall we do this?" and "would you like to have this car" etc. He is really really polite!!!! So it's not that he has a communication problem. We speak often about behaving right and wrong, being kind and so on. He knows all this.
I asked him after the last time, why he had behaved like that with the family who love him and he said he was shy he really is not shy! But even so, is there anything else I can do to try to deal with this? Or will he just grow out of it? Is it his age??
I am sick of having to trail him at relatives gatherings in case he is behaving badly. I loathe worrying before every event how rude he might be or not be. I am also sick of prompting him to answer questions or just be generally normally communicative. It would be great if at the beginning of a visit, Grandad said "so did you enjoy your holiday?" or whatever, and he would just say something normal like "Yes, there was an amazing pool and I went down a big slide!" or similar (this is how he would talk to his Dad and me... but not family?!) instead of ignore/prompt/ignore/shout answer (often not even the right answer but something random ).
BTW when he visits them on his own he is generally fine with the odd small tantrum (getting rarer) but only in line with his age. It's en masse that seems to cause a problem?
Where am I going wrong?
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Behaviour/development
4 yo fine at home, goes silly/loud/rude at relatives!
9 replies
Wavylines · 07/05/2013 12:51
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