To think this isn’t normal 3 yo behaviour?

[Threestepsbackwwards]

Consistent with shoving other kids out of the way, trying to kick for no reason, etc.

It’s been going on since about 16 months for context.

Hi OP, forget about your son for the moment. You're doing the right stuff.

Please, think about yourself. You sound so low and your husband sounds really unhelpful.

I have a child with various SEN but nothing that was picked up by nursery or school (mostly it isn't in the UK unless behaviours are extreme - as a poster earlier in the thread said, we don't have a proper paediatrician system here).

She was quite violent although to us rather than other kids. With the right help and support she did get a lot better.

If you Google "your local authority name" plus "local offer" you will find parent groups and local services.

I'm sure this has been said already but if playgrounds are a particular flash point, avoid them for a while? Go on walks, scoot to the shops or round a big park or something, kick a football? If he's finding the proximity of other DC hard, reduce the amount of it.

The Explosive Child (Greene) and 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child (Bernstein) are good books. Lots of parents go through something like this.

Also, @BertieBotts know her stuff. I've learnt a lot from her!

Another thought - in our area you can self refer to Speech and Language therapy. Maybe you can in yours?

I wouldn't be surprised if your DS doesn't properly understand what you are telling him to do/not do.

Thanks @Phineyj . They aren’t normally … usually it’s soft play. But he gets so much better then regresses … and I’m not in a very good place so am obviously not dealing with it well.

Any sort of removal from the situation makes him more angry and it takes a long time to settle him then.

I had that too. If we couldn't avoid the situation upfront and things did kick off, there was no quick or easy solution, it would take enldess time and patience to get him out and calm him down.

One of my worst ever was waiting out more than an hour trying to calm 6 year old DC down kicking and screaming in the changing room before I could even start to get him home safely from an after-school club. And one of the loveliest kindest things another Mum ever said to me was "see you next week".

So he’s three now. Let’s say in another two years we’re still here and he’s five. Is he still just a baby then?

That was my DC. He was still doing this shit long after most kids had outgrown it. So, diagnosis, support, kindness and the long haul of us teaching him to do better and him slo-o-owly growing into it.

I do obviously follow him round and physically prevent him attacking. But it isn’t always possible especially in play areas designed for kids.

Sometimes we couldn't go to those places because it wasn't safe. Or sometimes we went to "special needs" sessions because it was OK for us to stay that close to DC.

90% of the parenting is done by me so if it’s poor parenting I definitely take responsibility for that.

It doesn't work like that though, The parent who steps back is also responsible. You and DH are a team and how you split the parenting between you or parent together makes a difference.

a lot of the behaviour isn’t as a result of over stimulation - it’s just mean.

One of the things that used to trigger my DC was that he had a very fixed idea of how things should be. So if he imagined himself playing on the climbing frame by himself and there was another kid there, well that was ALL WRONG. It wasn't even a case of the other kid being in DC's way - in DC's mind he just wasn't supposed to be there.

Violated expectation still are a kind of trigger for DC, but DC is so much older and wiser and more mature than a three year old so he manages it much better!

Nursery just say he’s fine now apart from the odd incident.

Your DC may have have learned what to expect at nursery by now, and nursery may be making sure he knows what to expect and what to do. My DC's nursery did that so DC was totally fine at nursery. Then he went to school and it was all new and that was like letting a stick of gelignite loose in the playground! We had no idea. Not an experience I'd wish on any parent.

You could ask the nursery if there have been any more incidents since the last time you talked to them - don't say anything about withdrawing him. They've told you about some specific incidents where it wasn't all fine. And that's what you raise with the doctor or whoever - "Well the nursery said DS did this and he did that. They haven't excluded him and they say he's much better now but they have told me about these things."

My child has done this from 19 months. Hes now 4 and has strongly suspected adhd and it statemented st school.

Sorry. Its really tough.

I’m positive he understands, honestly. Feeding a baby excuses typos

so he sometimes lashes out. That’s not acceptable but understandable if another kid is in his space or taking a toy. Obviously I’m not saying that’s OK but that’s where I can understand.

Then theres the random acts of unpleasantness and I know some people don’t like that but what else can I call it? Going across a room to snatch something from a younger child then wrestling them to the floor when they try to hold onto it? Kicking another child’s head? Scrambling onto a slide and shoving other kids out of the way? At the park he stood at the top of a slide for ages refusing to move so no one else could go on it.

It’s not normal. I don’t care what anybody says, it isn’t ASD or ADHD or dyspraxia or anything like that causing those sorts of behaviours.

I don’t care what anybody says, it isn’t ASD or ADHD or dyspraxia or anything like that causing those sorts of behaviours.

Who can say? At three years old almost any child could turn out to have one of those conditions and those behaviours might make some of these conditions a little bit more likely. We can't diagnose by Internet and that means we can't say your child definitely is "normal" either. I'm not saying your DC does have any of those conditions because a three year old could do any or all of those things with no condition at all, like the pp upthread their child just grew out of it. But mine didn't.

What I'm trying to say is that it's not the end of the world if they do have a condition or if they don't. And you wont be alone either way. Other parents have been there, done that, and we've got got the battle scars (and the children we've successfully raised!) to share with you.

Didn’t RTFT but you said he was in nursery and was essentially bullied by older girls. He is now behaving in a certain way towards other children. Could it be that he learned from being bullied that is how you treat children that can be bullied? That is how you defend yourself, by bullying first? @Threestepsbackwwards

@onlyforeignerinthevillage that was at a childminders. We withdrew him as it wasn’t working well and enrolled him in nursery. He’s been there for 2 years now.

No, you're right, you can't attribute stuff directly to some kind of label.

But you could see it as he gets an idea in his head and he gets fixated on it so this has to happen regardless of whatever else is going on. The idea being fixated could be related to some kind of diagnosable condition.

Or it could be something like he just gets an impulse and follows it. Like the other day my 2yo was drawing on a balloon with a pencil, with predictable results. He of course had no idea that a sharp pencil would pop a balloon, because he is 2. Or when they decide to taste sand and then go "Bleugh". Young children up to about 5-7 are very physical in their interaction with the world and much less literally verbal. They do rather than think. I would never confidently say that a child under 7 understands something in the sense that they feel it viscerally, like an adult would. Adults and older children feel empathy in a very different sense, so for example hurting someone would feel very very wrong to us, if someone told you that you should hurt your son for example, and continue even if he cries, you would likely struggle to do this, even if you thought due to advice it was the right course of action. Whereas young children can sometimes see causing pain and suffering as just another experiment. If I press this button on a toy, it makes a funny noise. If I bite my baby brother's finger, he makes a funny noise. It is only different to us as the adult because we have a sense of empathy for the baby and can connect that experience to our own experiences of pain and suffering. Young children are only learning this and only do it intermittently, it is not present all the time as it is in adults and older children.

Behaviour is communication, so whatever he is doing is telling you something. It would be nice if it was easy to understand, but it is not always easy to understand.

Communication in this sense not necessarily meaning conscious choosing to do X to portray message Y. But for example, it tells you - he finds this situation difficult, or something (e.g. the toy being "his") is REALLY important to him, or he badly wants attention and he knows that there are certain things which REALLY alarm adults and will get all the attention on him, things like that.

I think the setting, as it relates to his behaviour, isn’t the main point. It is more likely what he learned there eg from the older girls and how you defend yourself/stop what you want from being taken away from you - better examples of triggers above by @BertieBotts

There is the very very outside chance you are seeing a child with complex mental health issues, which can be negated if intervention is brought in early, there is the chance they have some ND and there is a chance it is a behaviour they will grow out of.

In all of the above situations you have to get into the local system to access support. I would suggest you share your concerns with nursery again and ask them document any incidents there. You can ask for them to make it available when you want and not have a daily postmortem.

And finally your dh needs to step up. I appreciate he may not have availability due to work but he needs to take the reigns of the mental load now. You are running on fumes and no matter the outcome you need to be in full fettle, oxygen first is what comes to mind.

Oh god was waiting for this response!

autism is a neurological condition and is ALOT more than bad behaviour. My son is severely autistic with severe learning disabilities and until he was a teenager we barely knew we had him. Never had a tantrum/meltdown or anything.

I wish my parents had read your comments @BertieBotts - you have such a knack for explaining this.

OP - please listen to @BertieBotts and in particular the stuff about empathy. Ascribing the traits you’ve ascribed to a 3 year old can create a self-fulfilling prophecy where you see everything he does as wantonly unfeeling and/or spiteful rather than a product of his development. My parents used that kind of language (evil, spiteful, nasty, unpleasant) to describe me when I was barely 2.5 and their refusal to seek any help for it meant an extremely poor attachment and ultimately disintegration of the relationship altogether.

I’d also agree with others that you need some support yourself.

OP - hope you find this reassuring!!

My son (now 7) behaved rather like the way you describe... perhaps from age 2? He was certainly at it age 3. By the age of 5 it had stopped. He's the loveliest, gentlest, thoughtful kid now. We get comments about this from school too, so it isn't just our observations. We've never had reports of him lashing out at school either - they would certainly say!

I never once thought he had any issues or wasn't 'normal.' I just saw it as undesirable behaviour and it was my job as parent to teach him to behave in a more appropriate way. I saw it that I needed him to recognise what he was doing, why he did it and why it was wrong. I never did hard punishments with him. Having said that on one occasion after he whacked me, he was sent to bed without a bed time storey and sobbed himself to sleep 😩. I made it very clear I loved him, not his behaviour and how it wasn't acceptable to hit. Otherwise - It was always remove from situation very firmly tell him what he had done was unacceptable and why. We would then discuss feelings/ others feelings. I've always kept cool and calm with him in these situations (despite feeling bloody cross and wanting to yell). There were some useful age appropriate kids books we read together and discussed - sorry I can't recall the titles now. I'm sure you'll find some in your local library though. It doesn't sound like what you are doing is that dissimilar. It was just a long process, but it eventually paid off!!

Gradually over time I noticed him developing more control, we got to a point where it stopped. It was so gradual I couldn't name when, but I remembered thinking to myself "I can't remember the last time he hit."

If you could discuss feelings your child was nothing like mine. OK?

I won’t be returning to the thread. Have a good new year and thank you.