Posted elsewhere but now here for traffic.
My 3 year old DC has been hitting and pushing over younger children at the childminders. We think that stems from DC being jealous of younger children as there is never an issue with older ones. Sharing is also problematic. DC is very bright and switched on, knows that it’s “naughty” and seems to like telling people about them being naughty.
DH and I speak to DC regularly about behaviour but we are now wondering if we are focussing too much on negative behaviour and DC realises they get far more attention from this. Reward charts haven’t worked at all, DC screams and demands a sticker even if they have misbehaved. On advice from our HV we are trying to minimise attention to hitting / pushing, just saying a firm “no we don’t do that” and then trying to bring DCs attention to something else. We’ve also started reading “Hands are not for hitting” each night and trying to use many of the positive phrases throughout the day.
We are trying to praise as much as possible for being kind, playing nicely etc so that DC sees they get more attention from positive behaviour. Time outs, naughty step etc can sometimes work quickly after a warning but more often than not lead to a full tantrum.
Does anyone have any other suggestions to what we are doing? We hope that DC will grow out of it in time but it’s just so disheartening to collect them and get a bad report or be that parent with the child having a meltdown at soft play.
DC has no siblings and there are none on the cards. I’m feeling like a bit of a rubbish mum at the moment.