4 year old is the clown/wild child amongst others.Help!

[avalon60]

Hi there
My 4 year old boy is THAT child. The one who tries to get the attention of others at school by making weird sounds,shouting..overall being weird. It looks like he is performing to get attention/make friends but the other kids do not react to it and look at him, thinking "what's wrong with him?"..and the look on their parents face is the same!

When we take him to football class, his only interest is to play with his first ever friend(who is 6 months older than him)and not play football or listen to the coach's instructions.However his "best friend" wants to play and my son is becoming the annoying distraction for him. I can also see it on the dad's face and the comment last time:"maybe he's just not interested in football"...in other words "please stop bringing your kid to football he's a wild child who distracts mine".Which i can understand but it's hard to hear.

He's the tallest of his class but youngest in age(born in August)so i wonder if it is a maturity issue but other kids of the same age(NCT group) do not behave like this.They are calm,listen to the parents and don't try to perform. It is making my wife and I very distressed and somewhat powerless.Not only because of the look of parents and other kids but because we feel like he is going to be put aside and won't make friends.

Help please help!!

[FindaPenny]

Is he the same at home? What do you do when he starts acting up?

[pikapikachu]

Does your son like football? The other Dad is not unreasonable to wonder if your son would concentrate more it was something that he was interested in.

Does your school have social skills nurture group for those that need help?

How do you react when he "performs"? If you give him lots of attention, he might use it as a way to get attention. Have you ever sat down and explained/role played what to do?

[Witchend]

I would take him out of football and try again when he's older if he still wants to.
It's not fair on the coach or the other kids. But also because football then becomes the thing he messes about at, so he'll continue to do it. I took ds out for the same reason (not football) and gave it 6 months and when he went back he was much better.

[avalon60]

Hi all

Thanks a lot of good ideas there.
@FindaPenny yes sometimes he is the same, sometimes he is good as gold. It seems like evrytime he sees that friend he goes wild,but where i live there aren't many activities where the other kid is not part of so it's hard to find something for him to do where his friend won't be involved too.

@pikapikachu he's got his ups and downs with football. He will love to play one day and another day won't even look at it. He's quite changing in his interests. I don't think that the school as social skills nurture group. One thing i realised on saturday at football:his teacher brought her kid to it! So she saw that naughty behavior..it won't help.Especially since she is friends with my son's best friends parents...

@Witchend yes my wife and I said we'd do that.Off the football and try to find something else.He loves swimming which is great but it's not a "group activity" really so not great for his social skills.
He is quite a 'shy'/reserved kid with people he doesn't know. Trying to get him to answer to someone who is asking him for his name or anything else is mission impossible. Once he knows someone he will be more open. We know some kids are born more shy than others but it is quite strange to see your child behave 'normally' at home or with people he knows and completly shut off with others.Especially when you see ALL the other kids around him being chatty and responding to others.

[avalon60]

and we do see other people lots, so that he can 'mimic' his parents and be more social,but it doesn't seem to work.
He also annoys his 8 months old sister regularly.Not by being mean to her but he wants to play with her.She'll be asleep and he will try to wake her up for instance. No matter how we try to explain to him that she's a baby and needs her sleep. But other days he will be lovely and speak in a low toned voice not to wake her up. It's just non-stop peaks and troughs.

[FindaPenny]

@Avalon60 it does sound difficult. My daughter is a bit of a clown and sometimes it can be quite difficult to balance calmness with not putting a dampener on her enthusiasm. Probably her excitement and enthusiasm was at its most during reception years and your son seems around that age.



I think the best you can do is before every football lesson warn him that he needs to be calm, his friend enjoys football and if he doesn't let his friend concentrate, he is spoiling it for his friend.



I would just give general warnings constantly as well, and perhaps you can ask him as though it's a favour to you
'can you do me a favour and don't wake your sister up because it took ages to make her sleep'
Maybe give him a high-five or handshake so he feels like it's a deal/promise between the two of you. If he is doing well give him plenty of thumbs up, praise and high fives.



Maybe you could think about a drama class for him.... Get some of his energy directed positively, while also hopefully teaching him how to interact with adults or strangers when he needs to.