DS recently turned 8 (y3) and has a habit of copying/mirroring three of his friend’s behaviour and at Beavers group - by this I mean if the other child is being very silly or hyper he will copy, and can sometimes end up behaving worse. It’s like he doesn’t know when to stop, when enough is enough. He becomes a show-off and just won’t reign in his behaviour.
Constant reminders before we meet up with these children and at Beavers about expected behaviour, reprimanded when his behaviour starts to go downhill etc, loss of privileges like the Switch are to no avail. It doesn’t help that one child laughs constantly at him showing off so it spurs him on (her DM tells her not to laugh).
This is 3 of his friend’s plus some children in his Beavers group. I volunteer at his Beavers group and there is 5 children who are very disruptive and/or hyper and he joins in and copies them. The Leader is quite poor at managing behaviour so each week is a shit show.
I will add that he is usually a well-behaved child, calm and sensible, and when with children who are like this he is his usual self. School don’t see this behaviour, and we only see it with these particular children (3 of them, same age, meet up
separately) and at Beavers.
It’s at a point where I dread meeting up with these children and at Beavers who he becomes so silly/hyper with as it’s so stressful, I end up constantly telling him off and it’s embarrassing. It’s like he loses all control of his behaviour and he will get very stroppy with me when I intervene.
It’s very easy to say just give him a warning and go home but when you’ve met up with other people it affects them too. I’m at my wit’s end and would think at 8 he should have learnt not to copy other children so much. I asked his y2 teacher about it and she said it’s normal to copy but they are all learning not to but this is now nearly a year later.