To ask for help with my 4 year old

[Sunbo]

I have a 4 year old DS who is in trouble at pre school for being disruptive, not listening to the teachers and generally being difficult. He has been there for around 6 months.

Today he was in a lot of trouble because he hit another child and caused them to bleed. I feel absolutely awful about it :( When I spoke to him about it he said he was playing and being a ‘baddie’ so didn’t mean to hurt the other child.

The teachers are getting frustrated with him as he needs constant reminders to behave nicely and sometimes just refuses to listen to them or laughs in their face when they tell him off. They have tried a sticker chart for good behaviour but it’s like he couldn’t care less about it.

At home he can be stubborn and difficult but he does listen when I or my DH tell him off. We follow a ‘positive parenting’ way (Aha parenting if anyone knows it) so we don’t do a naughty step or punishment but set limits and are quite clear about what behaviour is unacceptable. It’s with the idea that children should behave because they want to and know they should rather than because of the threat of punishment.

I have an older DD who is 8 and she has always been as good as gold with no issues so I honestly have no idea where I am going wrong with my DS! I have also tried sticker charts at home but he just doesn’t seem bothered by them. He is quite rigid and when we suggest going out or trying new things he often says no, even though he enjoys things when he does them...not sure if this is relevant. He can be such a sweet and loving boy at times but then other times it’s like he gets taken over with anger and / or silliness and can’t reign himself in.

I have read various parenting books but honestly don’t know what I can do...can anyone help please? Or suggest books or anything that might assist?

Thanks

Is he bored or frustrated in some way. This can cause children to act up sometimes.

I think your approach isn't working or he isn't understanding the goal here. Seems he needs something firmer and more boundaries. He should behave because its not acceptable to not. There should be consequences.

I have a 4.5yo and we have very firm boundaries. There's a timeout and naughty step because the behaviour was naughty. If there's bad behaviour then he is removed from the situation and we go home. My ds is such a golden boy though, sounds like your dd. I rarely have any hassle and its often the first thing that people tell me, that he is such a pleasure to be around .
I think what worked for us initially was being firm and thereafter he just knows there will be a consequence.
If your nursery is seeing this as a problem, and now he is progressed to hitting other kids then you need to perhaps look at if your current approach is the right one for him.

The part about him being rigid and disliking trying new things reminds me of my four year old, who has been referred for assessment for autism. But only that part. There may be free online parenting courses you can access through your local council, might be a way of getting some more ideas.

What do you do at home when he misbehaves? Setting limits and being clear about what behaviour is unacceptable is certainly the right approach but if there's no consequence when he oversteps those, how is he supposed to know that he has done so?

Personally I hate parenting books because they treat all children like they're the same. I almost never have to tell DS off but DD needs a careful balance of rewards and consequences that are meaningful to her.

Thanks for feedback. I appreciate the way I am parenting is maybe not working due to his behaviour at pre school but I am not going to use a naughty step or punishment, it goes against everything I have read about positive parenting and what believe in as the right way forward.

I honestly believe he behaves better at home when he feels connected, loved and respected. I think time outs and naughty steps would only create tensions and ruin our relationship with him.

@bringallthebiscuits Please could you tell me more about the assessment? Have you had the outcome? What led you to get an assessment? Thanks

@GhostPenguin He has natural consequences, for example if he is shouting then it results in his sister not wanting to play with him. If he throws a toy and it gets broken then it gets removed so he can no longer play with it etc

@Sunbo we had an initial assessment with a speech therapist who thinks there is a good chance he could be autistic. She has referred him for further assessment with other experts but we have to wait months/years for this in our area.

There were all sorts of reasons we asked for an assessment - a very literal way of thinking; difficulty with fine motor skills; sensory issues with clothes and mud/rain; stimming; hyperactive; some unusual ways of talking; difficulty concentrating; lack of interest in other children.

@Sunbo

Thanks for feedback. I appreciate the way I am parenting is maybe not working due to his behaviour at pre school but I am not going to use a naughty step or punishment, it goes against everything I have read about positive parenting and what believe in as the right way forward.

I honestly believe he behaves better at home when he feels connected, loved and respected. I think time outs and naughty steps would only create tensions and ruin our relationship with him.

@bringallthebiscuits Please could you tell me more about the assessment? Have you had the outcome? What led you to get an assessment? Thanks

I think this can work really well at home, however preschool will not be able to replicate it. The preschool (and later school) will need to apply a consistent approach for the majority of children, unless there are any identified needs or circumstances the staff are aware of.

@Useruseruserusee the pre school have a ‘thinking chair’ which he is on most days but not sure it has much effect

Obviously you have to do what feels right for your family, I have a couple of friends who use this approach. The difficulty is he has to adapt to rules in the nursery and then school. If my child had been the one who had been hit, I'd want to know the child who hit them had received an appropriate consequence otherwise what's to say he wouldn't do it again? There can't be different rules for different children.

As an aside, I taught in an ASD specialist primary school for 5 years and clear boundaries along with rewards and consistent and proportionate consequences are absolutely vital. A child is perfectly capable of feeling loved, connected and respected whilst also understanding where the boundaries are.

I’m just assuming here but I think it’s likely that you will tolerate behaviour that the preschool can’t or won’t. So at home you might ask him to help you tidy some toys but then end up doing it yourself while he goes off to another activity, and you wouldn’t think anything of that. A teacher wouldn’t allow that - he’d be brought back over and it would be insisted that he joins in with the tidying. So if he is used to getting away with little things at home, but suddenly finds he can’t at school, this will come as a massive shock to him and could be causing his behaviour to deteriorate as he pushes to find out what exactly he can get away with. I think you need to take some time to be really aware of how he is interacting with you and the rest of the family. Is he really responding to the natural consequences or is it that he is ruling the roost and everything is done his way/for him? Like I say, I’m just assuming and he could be much better behaved with you than he is at school but I do think you need to be really honest with yourself about his behaviour at home.

Secondly, it could be that the environment is not right for him. Is it quite a formal preschool with lots of teacher led activities? He might benefit much more from somewhere that will allow him to use up more energy - like a forest preschool.

In short you'll need to find a care provider that offers the same ethos as yourself. We also use a very similar parenting approach after being referred to the Incredible Years parenting course following a diagnosis of ADHD in one of our 4 boys.

Total eye opener. We now have children. That respect boundaries rather than fear and resent consequence .. So to apply that to adult life.. Respecting a partners physical boundaries rather than fearing the consequence of breaking them.

We found a preschool setting attached to a Cof E school much more likely to apply the methods we use and as a result we had much happier and confident toddlers.

[quote Sunbo]@GhostPenguin He has natural consequences, for example if he is shouting then it results in his sister not wanting to play with him. If he throws a toy and it gets broken then it gets removed so he can no longer play with it etc[/quote]
So if he threw the toy and it didn't break, but it hit his sister or chipped the wall, there wouldn't be a consequence for that?

I think you need to set visible consequences, so if he's throwing toys then play time is over, tidy them away and he can sit for 4 minutes instead.
That way he can see the result of his behaviour.
Do you think he might just be really bored at nursery? Before you mentioned your parenting method that's what I initially thought of

Hi Op, I'm familiar with peaceful parenting, beware you may get some poor advice on here relating to it as people often think it means no boundaries and permissive rather than clear boundaries and ,(natural) consequences over punishment. I'd definitely recommend checking out one of the pp facebook groups. Incidentally we turned to peaceful parenting because time outs etc didn't work for our youngest, they seemed to with our oldest so it was a complete shock with no 2 when he was completely non-compliant and uncaring about time outs and the naughty step.
In terms of advice, your son knows it's wrong to hit (he's responding at home etc) so I'd try conversations with him about it at home 'how does he feel when he gets hurt etc' and also reiterating it's not ok to hit. Come up with alternative strategies - what else can he do as a pretend baddie instead of hitting (replace behaviour). In terms of consequences, the natural consequence of hitting is to be removed from the situation and lose the game/ toy ie 'we don't hit, it's ok to be a baddie but hitting hurts - you can try playing again later/tomorrow' rinse and repeat.
Clear boundaries at home and at school. If the nursery thinking chair isn't working, it's unlikely that doing more if the same will work, but he is old enough to understand it's not ok to not listen and hit and that there are consequences for doing that.

I think children do need more than “natural consequences”. At 4, that’s not really explicit enough for them I don’t think, unless you are very clearly explaining them to him - and even then it’s not consistent.

Also, he might not really care that much that his sister doesn’t want to play with him as a consequence - he won’t really understand yet that people have their own thoughts and feelings which are totally independent to his.
I’m not advocating for extreme punishments, but I do think that it seems as though he’s “getting away with” more at home than at school, and he thinks he’s able to do what he wants without anyone actually giving him sanctions. It doesn’t sound as though he is clear on where the boundaries are, probably through no fault of yours.

I recommend choice based language. E.g “DS, if you choose to continue doing (negative behaviour), you will be choosing to have (sanction)”. In a very neutral voice. And then if he does continue you say “because you chose to do X, you are now having Y”. Literally every time. And then follow through with it!

I’m trained in EYFS and worked there for years, although I’m not a parent. This is what I would be doing.

Have you spoken to nursery? What have they suggested?

Whilst you’re approach to parenting would not be for me (we do use the naughty step all of 4 times in my daughters 5 years on earth, with no adverse impact), I think you need to reassess. You need to flex your approach to support your child. Something isn’t working.

The natural consequences are also only so effective until he has hit most of the kids in his class and none of them want to play with him. Would his exclusion from the social group be acceptable in that instance? I imagine we would be hearing about bullying of your child. But taking your approach to an extreme position this would be a natural consequence and I tell you that will not be positive for your child (and at that point there will be no forcing of others to play with him). Personally this is something you can avoid if you have a consistent approach to boundaries.

And I would be furious if my child came home bleeding and the child who caused it was not appropriately punished. Wouldn’t you?

@Schleckie in peaceful parenting the natursl consequence might be - kid loses play, toy away, help repair damage or tidy up, comfort sister and whatever other action is needed to put the situation right (although priority would be parent keep sister safe and comfort her first!)- you get the gist.

@year5teacher that's still peaceful parenting, which does focus on simple boundaries and natural consequences in a calm way.

Also, I think expecting him to basically realise “I screamed at my sister and she was upset and didn’t want to play with me - that’s a bad thing and I upset her so I shouldn’t do that anymore” is way too much for a 4 year old. He does not have that kind of empathy or thinking yet. I suppose if you explain to him it’s different but I still don’t think it’s enough.

@Noranorav fair enough, my focus is more on the fact that the natural consequences clearly aren’t really working (or are meaning he’s struggling with the change in culture at school). I’m not the greatest fan of time outs, but I do think it’s sometimes necessary.

When he hit the other child today he wasn’t allowed to go to forest school for the first 10 minutes, he apparently said to the teacher “I don’t like forest school anyway” so I think they felt the consequence of his action was not having the desired effect on him.

I know he does like forest school there though so I think he said it because he is just quite defiant and doesn’t want to admit he is disappointed about his own behaviour.

The pre school is quite formal, it’s intended he will go to the school there and I think they do expect a lot of the children but at the same time he is behaving inappropriately for any childcare setting. He does get a lot of freedom to play and it was in PE today that he was apparently being disruptive by not listening.

@Schleckie no I was just giving a couple of examples. I set clear boundaries and am strict about them. I just don’t agree with the punishment and time out approach.

I have spoken with a health visitor about him before as I have always found him quite difficult from age 2.5, everything she suggested I was already doing...I feel totally unsure of what to do now.

I do think he probably needs more positive attention as he probably gets a lot of telling off and I need to counteract that with more positive interactions. I am finding it all harder than ever at the moment trying to homeschool my DD and work too!

[quote Noranorav]@Schleckie in peaceful parenting the natursl consequence might be - kid loses play, toy away, help repair damage or tidy up, comfort sister and whatever other action is needed to put the situation right (although priority would be parent keep sister safe and comfort her first!)- you get the gist.[/quote]
That's just a normal consequence isn't it? That's the sort of thing I'd always do. I've never used a naughty step, I don't believe that works. The consequence should match the behaviour as far as possible in my my view. I'd never say I do "natural parenting". I'm going to go research this.

@sunbo
So what is the natural consequence if he throws the toy and it hurts his sister?
Or he is being a "baddie" and he hurts his sister?
What happens if he throws a toy and breaks it and it belongs to his sister?
Are you actually teaching him that hurting people is wrong, because the 'natural consequence' of his sister not wanting to play with him seems pretty lame.
He sounds like he needs clearer, stronger parenting. I wouldn't bother with naughty steps and sticker charts either, though.

As an ex teacher , a natural consequence doesnt send the message effectively. Children arent as sophisticated as we are, things need spelling out. So he doesn't get to play or he gets a toy removed & he's told why. And yes, you need lots of praise for good behaviour. Clearly specified boundaries & expectations (& routine) are reassuring to children. Imagine being in a world where there aren't any of those things to give you structure & security: that's chaotic , confusing & scary.