Child's irritating silliness

[Meddley]

Posting here to see if anyone can relate to it as it is driving me mad.

Dd (5) is at Reception. She is very lively and social but has started developing this silliness from around the age of 3. And I'm not talking about your normal silliness typical of a child of her age, it's non stop, affecting her activities and her attitude towards school.

Most of the time you can't have a serious conversation with her, anything you say she'll find a rhyme: I.e. shall we go to the shop? She'll reply : shall we go to the poop? Did you eat your dinner? She'll say: you mean your vener, your vener? followerd by laughter. This is non-stop!!!

She used to do tennis and the coaches can be a bit jokey and silly to keep the kids engaged, she goes crazy, jumps on the coaches, laughs, again finds rhymes to whatever they are saying...and so on. Not really interested in the activity itself. Needles to say, she is not doing tennis anymore.

She loved her nurseries. Her behaviour was always very good. She is compliant, she loves her routines, she makes friends easily and she can also be very quiet and concentrate for ages on things that she loves (writing or art).

She couldn't wait to start school. At the stay and play session, there was another boy, Logan (not his real name) and she started asking the teachers: is he a Log? Is he log? Followed by laughter. She joked throughout the session and at the end of it I told the teachers I would like to tone down this a bit as I want her to concentrate more on learning.

She started off at school on a high note, but it became evident that the teachers are very strict and they don't engage with this silly behaviour and she slowly started hating school. BTW, she is well behaved and compliant, she retains all the information she learns, she know all her sight words, she learns a lot, but she is not engaging with the teachers from what the teachers are saying, and as a result they don't really know where she is with reading for example. She came home with a higher level book before (sentences plus sight words), now they put her on a lower band (just simples CVC words) because they think she is not ready. Well, we read much higher level books at home, she knows all the sight words and I expect the school should be stretching her. But if she is not engaging, they won't know that.

I suspect her lack of engagement is a protest due to the fact they don't put up with her silliness. She finds them harsh and tells me she doesn't like school.

I don't want to break her spirit as she has so many good qualities, she is very kind, empathetic and has lots of friends, but this is driving me mad and seems to impact her.

Any words of advice will be much appreciated.

Aged 5 at school was when I discovered what "fat" was, and that I was it, and it was bad. Not to say it's the same for your kid, but that's an example of something I felt insecure about at that age. Kids can be cruel.

It crossed my mind she could have ADHD. It can cause emotional immaturity as well as hyperactivity and distractibility. Also the fact that she reads better at home - classrooms and other children can be constant distractions. Also with ADHD you can focus on some things, if you're brain finds it interesting enough, and it sounds like she can focus on things she's really into. I was an avid reader even I first learned to read about 4, until it got boring around 12!

Your DD sounds a bit like my DS, who is 4. He also started school in September and talks about how he doesn't enjoy it (although the feedback is he is doing fine and has friends). He likes talking in rhyme with a silly voice and talks a lot about poos and bums. He has an older brother and a) I think he has picked up the poo and bum talk from him and his older friends and b) I have realised lately that his personality is a bit mixed up in his older brothers, in that they play together a lot and do a lot of the same activities, (usually dictated by the older brother) but we've not really focused on him and his wants too much. I've been thinking lately that his silliness is a way to get attention, but also that I think even though he seems confident, I think deep down he's a bit shy and insecure. We have started doing this thing at dinner time where I ask him what he thinks he is good at. He will invariably give a silly answer at first, if he does we just say, lets focus on real words and answers. Then we see if he can list a few things he thinks he is good at. We then go around the table and each say what we think he is brilliant at (like cycling, noticing tiny details, art, trying new things, making friends with new people) and he glows inside. We then focus on his brother, etc. I am trying to tease out for him what he likes and what he and we see are his strengths, and it is really helping to bring out his personality, confidence and help him to see that he doesn't have to rely on silliness. Maybe try something similar with your daughter as it might be a confidence thing.

I disagree to a certain degree with some of the advice here. I think you need to give her room and space to embrace her personality and be herself. Take the time to play silly games with her. It's not unusual for children that age to be into language and making up silly rhymes and things like that. My DC also does this but I just join in unless we're somewhere where it is not appropriate. Some of her attention-seeking behaviour might calm down if you "love-bomb" her a bit and focus on making her feel more secure in herself and less like she has to seek out attention.

Just insecure in themselves and their relationships in my experience, children know if they aren't liked for example. Or insecure about whether they are "good" or not. Children can have surprisingly low self esteem about a lot of things, it's really sad 😔. I taught a few children like the OPs who, once you got to know them, were just DESPERATE to be liked.

How are things going now, op?

Things are a little better. She is very well behaved at school but the silliness does come out occasionally, usually outside school with people she is comfortable with. We are still working on it.

I just re read my OP and I realised we are actually a lot better 😅. All those silly rhymes are not happening at all now. She has matured a bit and her confidence is quite high. She is doing very well at school (one of the top readers in the class - all of the sudden) and is generally a happy child. But like I said above we are still working on appropriate behaviour and have to keep reinforcing it.

With school, gymnastics etc you refer to them as ‘strict’. Is it that their strict or is it what most children her age are capable of but you interpret it as strict?

How is she with friendships? How do other children respond to her?

Sorry just read update, didn’t realise it was an old thread!

Good to hear