To BEG for some strategies to help my son stop hitting, shoving and pushing

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I have a beautiful four year ds, most of the time he is a lovely, lovely lad. One to one he is an angel, and plays well with others, but he just cannot seem to control his rough play. He is kind, empathetic, thinks about others, loving, cuddly, happy and intelligent, but he is so over excitable and full on. I have no problem with rough play but he is too rough and often will end up hurting another child. He also has a response of hitting and lashing out if he is unhappy about any situation. He won't think about the consequences, so for example if he gets upset he'll throw the first thing near him - be it a soft toy or a hard brick - then he'll be really upset and sorry. His ability to focus on me in these times seem low and trying to get him to remember, calm down and control himself is so hard. However once engaged in something he is great at it. I am out of ideas about how to help him find a self calm down button, we don't hit at home, if he does we immediately remove him from a situation, calm him down and then get him to think about how to make it better - a restorative type approach. He knows hitting etc whether in rough play or aggressive outbursts is wrong, he is immediately sorry afterwards but can't seem to control it. He has a stable family home life, lots of positive attention, firm boundaries etc but this behaviour is worrying me. He has a very good diet and we are very careful about sugar and treats - chocolate for example sends him haywire.
It escalates in any time of change, he has recently started school which has sent him rocketing in this, he was settling then a special theme day sent him spiralling - it was just too much for him - so much that they took him to the head-teacher's office to calm down - not because he was being naughty but he was just so hyper. I suppose more than aggression I'd describe it as over hyperactivity and no calm down button. I've no idea how to positively manage this and just end up feeling frustrated and upset with him which I hate - I feel I need some strategies to help him and me to manage this phase. I'm so worried he is going to end up with no friends and this is going to continue to escalate. Any help?

It sounds like you are doing what you can.

Can you teach him a silly word? Banana-sausages-toothbrush or something equally random...

Then when he is about to hit, he can shout his special word instead.

Then you can either get to him fast or he can turn around and just stop.

He sounds like a typical 4year old.

Give him a safe place too. A cushion in a quiet corner. If he wants to sit and chill, he can go there, knowing you will leave him be to shout/talk/relax.

You could try a Calming Down toy I use them with a little boy in my setting (I am a childminder) search online or make your own. Talk to the teacher to see if he could also have one at school. I made one similar to this lemonlimeadventures.com/lego-calm-down-jar as the boy I look after loves Lego.

Are there any consequences when he hurts another child on purpose (e.g. hitting)?

Agree with cotedazur, there needs to be a suitable consequence if he hurts another child, alongside positive reinforcement of good behaviour.

Yes but it varies in form depending on where we are - overall we have a happy and sad face chart, any hitting, hurting, pushing etc gets a sad face - positive behaviours get a smile. If he gets more overall happy days he gets to choose a treat at the weekend like cinema, soft play etc - if he doesn't we still do one to one time (something we I do on Saturday with him) but keep cinema, the swimming pool with all the slides etc reserved for the treat type day. 3 out of 4 weeks he gets mostly happy faces. We will use time out (but we call it quiet time and sit with him till he settles and then thinks about how to make it better - this normally includes an apology/ rebuilding something if he broke it etc) or we will go home etc. He normally gets one warning - i.e. if you hit again we will have to leave and then we stick to it. When he does say 'mummy there is a problem - or mummy can you help me sort this' instead of reacting (which he does sometimes do now) we really praise and positively reinforce this.

He knows it's wrong, so I think you should remove the warning. At home (with my children) we have orange card offence (such as being rude) they get a warning but for anything when they can physically hurt someone it's a red card offence no warning straight to punishment. Think about it - when you will sit with him and give him 100% attention. He should be getting no attention. Remove from situation, sit him down, do not talk to him or interact or negotiate. No picking up, no cuddles, no kind words, a firm no, and sit down in quiet time. After a set time then explain, get him to apologise. If you spend lots of time with him talking and giving him attention, you are doing just that, giving him all your attention following an unwanted behaviour. He will carry on doing if it is his way of getting your attention.

If happy/sad face stickers are not enough of a reward/deterrent, you need to find something else.

"3 out of 4 weeks he gets mostly happy faces"

Does this mean he doesn't hit or hurt other children in those 3 weeks?

He may have on one day but if he'd purposefully hit, he loses treat day, too much rough play after warning gets sad face.

But recently thats reverse, since starting school its more like 1 out of 4 good, which makes me think approach isn't working, hence asking for help.

it's very difficult a 4 year old to understand delayed gratification. It may work, but not always. The reward has to be immediate (praise) and so does consequence. Behaviour charts work well with some children others.

If your DS's behaviour is not improving with star charts, you need to consider the possibility that they are not working for him.

I think you may need to ban all rough play. I don't allow it because my youngest just cannot grasp the concept of how rough is too rough and it always goes to far.

FWIW, there was a 3-year-old who kept picking on DD at nursery, coming straight for her and pushing her down or hitting her out of the blue to make her cry, then walking off with a smile on his face. His mum is a very sweet person who had zero authority on him. They had star charts, too, which didn't work to change his behaviour one bit.

Then one day I had enough and told her that I would take care of punishing her DS the next time he hurts DD. Yes, she was very shocked. Funny enough, she immediately found a way to stop her DS hurting other kids and it never happened again.

I could have written an almost identical post. We find our DS, also 4, gets really stressed by noise or over stimulation. We recognise his signs (fidgeting and making high pitched noises) and intervention.

He's started school and things were fine but I think they misread his 's5ress signals' as misbehaving'. Last week he started acting up and lashing out without thought. He's not malicious just impulsive and lacks the vocabulary and emotional maturity to deal with some of the new stuff at school.

We've started using a few different things that seem to be helping
Descriptive praise - rather than saying good boy were describing what he's done well especially calm responding to a situation
Think throughs - talking through an episode where he reacted rashly and discussing how he could have acted
Role play - mainly school scenarios and teaching him to go to the teacher

Our DS gets bored of stickers quickly. Agree with a previous post about instant gratification.

The school got more and heavy handed about his 'behaviour' and we've been into the head too. We've never condoned his behaviour but we've found giving him some tools to manage his new environment much more productive than the tack someone at school at has as es come back with phrases like 'I'm a bad boy' and 'boys like me will never have friends'. He's also been having nightmares about school, bed wetting and not wanting to go to school. Rough behaviour isn't on but if you DS is anything like mine, there will be something provoking it.

Good luck and hope that helps!

I'd also love to hear any other advice.

The other thing they mentioned at school was he was racing other kids and they were getting knocked over accidentally. We have always raced to the car, bathroom, garden etc. We've temporarily stopped this until he can work out how to do it without barrelling people over

Thanks mrsbb thats a really helpful post. X

I think the sticker charts are over complicated for his age. I would go with simple and immediate consequences. Plenty of specific praise when he is good, combined with a complete withdrawal of attention after a sharp "no" and removal from the situation when he is not.

Loads of good advice above. A couple of thoughts: is DS eating regularly?, hunger can result in poor behaviour (so is he having good breakfast and eating proper lunch at school); does he get enough physical exercise? does he walk to school? get loads of running about after school? etc, and then get enough sleep?
And as others have said some children just don't respond to behaviour charts etc, so no point persevering if not working. Has teacher given any advice about what might work?
In the long run it is almost certain that with good parenting (as you describe) he will settle down, and behave well. It is just such a shame that children who do not deal with stress well find themselves 'blamed' so much.

I agree with other posters, you need to stop the rough play. I dont allow rough play of any type at my school. I also don't tolerate biting, scratching or hitting. Children often end up in my office due to incidents such as these and are given a time to restore sheet. It a sheet that's sent home where the child has to think about their actions and how they affected others around them or the victim of their actions. They need to draw a picture of how they could have done things differently or if older then write it. We use a traffic light system, green, Amber and red. I wonder what the other parents of the children on the receiving end of your sons behaviour think?

Can I ask re: rough play. How does he know when to stop, when he's over set the mark?

I have a five year old who loves rough play, he doesn't know when enough is enough. He doesn't like to lose so will always keep going even if it all ends in tears be it him or another child. So now he is not allowed to rough play because he's too immature to know when enough is enough. Because what he understood was, rough plays ok until I'm shouted at by mum to stop. So In the same vain you are saying its ok sometimes to push, roll around but not others but how does he when it's acceptable and when it's not.

I agree with iwantakitchen. He shouldn't be getting any attention during quiet times/time outs so sitting with him during this time isn't advisable. My son started going to tiger cub classes (pre school taekwondo classes) when he was four and I think it's a great class for young kids. It teaches them to follow instructions, show respect for others, how to defend themselves, they burn off lots of energy and make friends. They're really strict about interaction without being aggressive or hitting each other. Your son might benefit from this or a similar martial arts based class. Even just once class a week for a few months should help.

In a nutshell he is not imo getting clear enough messages about unacceptable behaviour. You are calling time out 'quiet time' and it's meant to be a sort of punishment. He's 4. If he gets quiet time when he is naughty....what is the opposite of quiet time, which is when you are good? Oh, it's noisy time. That has to be confusing. Don't equate quietness with punishment! Don't puss foot around it, call it time out. Don't give him sustained individual attention during a punishment. He should be thinking about what went wrong for 4 or 5 min alone and then talking it over with you. I think he doesn't really dislike being 'told off' because it usn't clear enough that he is being 'told off'. I'm not suggesting you yell at him or smack him or anything buy you, by the sounds of it, need to beuch firmer and clearer about unacceptable behaviour.

Sorry about typos, bloody phone

we have the same four year old. Your description matches my ds2(4) perfectly, I could have wrote your post. Mine struggled immensely through preschool (language delay didn't help the situation). Now the first few weeks of school it's gone completely pear shaped, to the point the teacher has an iep in place as he can't pull back at all and often ends up in the principles office on her bean bag to calm down.

Teacher is having some success with reward counters for his minion jar then at end of the week he gets a treasure box dip. Honestly though it's good day and bad days. Eldest child has ADHD so it could be little bro could end up along those lines though eldest is more like a big bouncy puppy where ds2 is a foaming Rottweiler when set off.

At home is use penny jars. Good behaviour gets a penny in jar. Half and hour or even 15 minutes of kind hands and feet gets a penny ect. Then hitting, throwing get time out - removed no completely blank environment and left to think and given no attention at all - gives the message that it not ok at all, then we have a little chat and a hug. I also use 1,2,3 for his non aggressive behavior to give him opportunity to pull it back.

basically we are going firm boundaries, no rough play at all, lots of positive reinforcement. In all honestly I think my son is too young for school and could have done with an e tea year before starting.