My three year old boy causing havoc at preschool

[littleboy]

He’s not listening at circle time, disruptive during any lessons or activities where he just needs to sit and listen. He laughs at the teachers and just continues the behaviour.

they remove him if he’s too disruptive and ignoring them.

at home, he has a fair amount of tantrums and doesn’t listen particularly well. We use consequences like taking toys away, taking him out of the situation. We use a reward star jar for good behaviour and praise good behaviour as much as possible, rather than always focusing in on bad behaviour.

I deflect a lot, give options and pre-empt situations as to avoid fall outs / confrontations. I find that if I’m too confrontational with him, it just ends badly and he acts up even more. It’s almost as if he wants to go against what you want him to do, so it’s best to not use too many words sometimes and just get him to do it.

anyway, he’s definitely a hand full ! He turned 3 recently and is quite a clever little boy in many ways, but he does have days where he’s pretty unbearable and has a lot of tantrums. Clearly at preschool it’s also a strain on the teachers. Unless he’s fully engaged, he becomes disruptive.

any advice ?

Ignore it OP. There is likely nothing wrong with him. Loads of 3 year olds are little 💩 and they end up just fine as they grow. Sounds like he needs firm boundaries, plenty of rules, consequences, praise and consistency.

To be honest, he does sound a bit like my ds when he was at nursery. He has since been diagnosed with adhd. But it's far too soon to know. He could just not be ready- 3 is still very young - for such a boring, regimented environment. I think we expect too much of them too soon.

He was three last month. He’s the youngest.

I would second finding a better preschool with a bit more outdoor action.

This one has a lot of outdoor action but I do think some of the time is more formal ‘ lessons ‘.

God, he's so young. Could you leave it for a bit longer?

I think it just the wrong environment for him at present. A year on, he might be ready for the more sit down and quiet structure of pre school. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with him

Yeah I mean it’s kind of done now for the term. I’ll need to think what to do after the summer.

I put my son in pre-school at 4 and it was full time. Looking back, he was far too young and just not ready. It breaks my heart when I think about it now.

Do you think normal nurseries are better ? Preschool nursery worked really well for my DD, when she was 3. Much better than the normal day nursery was for her.

Sounds like he’s exactly where he needs to be developmentally. At 3 they only have the attention span of a few minutes, if that and if it’s not something he’s interested in, he won’t even focus for that long.
If he’s only just started after Easter, that would only be four or five weeks of sessions, he’ll still be getting used to the routine and what’s expected of him.
Dont worry at the moment, it sounds like what you are doing at home is working, and he will settle in nursery once he gets to know them and they get to know him.

Maybe an assessment of some description should be applied to you as you seem to lack social skills and struggle with normal communication.

My DD (3) has just started pre-school and is exactly the same OP, she comes home telling me they've put her in time out pretty much every day and I get reports from them of her doing all sorts like climbing on the furniture last week! I think it's just the age vs the expectations, this is a nursery attached to a school and has more sitting down and listening and structure than the private nursery DS attended, so I think it's just DD adjusting to the new environment and nothing more. She has got very tricky to get dressed before she goes (she goes floppy and lies on the floor giggling when she doesn't want to do something) but I'm not concerned about her wider development atm, I think she's just 3 in a class full of mostly 4 year olds.

The OP is comparing her ds behaviour with the rest of the class. I’m pretty sure she means he can’t still or respond appropriately for his age

Aw OP this was my now 26 year old eldest DS, his ADHD presented as soon as he learned to crawl tbh. I was embarrassed being ‘that mum’ always asked to stop and have a word after each session.
It took until he was 7 for a formal diagnosis and medication but to this day he says if it hadn’t have been for that he’d never have had the concentration in his studies to make it to uni.
i won’t deny there may be a few challenges ahead but honestly once he learns to articulate himself better it gets a little easier to understand.

It sounds to me that he’s not quite ready for pre school. I don’t think there’s a lot more to it than that and I’m the proud mother of two SEND kids and a preschooler who borders on lunacy at certain times of the day! Your son is only very little - developmentally he’s closer to two than three now so things like carpet time/circle time can be too much for some little ones.

Maybe a more relaxed nursery to build up his listening skills would suit him better?

Most areas will not assess a child for ADHD until at least 6 years old.

It might just be that the settings isn’t right for him. It sounds very structured for a 3 year old. Speak to the nursery about what strategies work at home/previous nursery and see if they can incorporate them there.

Obviously nursery are not expecting him to focus all day. Each nursery has story and song time and various activities that require focus for young children. They don't all focus amazingly but some do and few are seriously disruptive.
Obviously the nursery has concers as does the OP. It's unhelpful to say "3 is too young for circle time" ' it's really not.

OP I'm sorry you’re going through this and hope you get good tips. I'm not sure what to suggest - my similar-aged DC can be a real handful and it's probably hard for you to figure out what is age related and what is not.
Certainly children with a variety of diagnoses can exhibit early symptoms but others are just working through a phase. Best of luck.

The differences between children start to become more noticeable at this age. I knew my DC didn't behave like most other children, I always knew it, DH wouldn't believe me until he saw it for himself at a sports day.

The teachers told me what I already knew and recommended interventions, which, now DH was on board with, we took on any advice and support we could and went full throttle.

It soon became apparent, with psychological observations and response to interventions that DC was ND, very much so!

EHCP, moving to a specialist school, wow the difference and so thankful of all of the help to enable this. Xxx

He isnt too young for circle time. He has been to nursery before so he should know the general rules and know not to laugh at the teacher. It could be that he has extra needs and it could also be that he is just a silly boy. Keep listening to the nursery and monitoring him at home but always make sure to remind him of behaviour expectations at nursery and home.

He sounds like a normal 3 year old boy. Perhaps it’s the wrong setting for him. But I am not in the UK, but Nordics and kids here don’t start having such a structured program waaay later.

No, preschool has structure and routine. There is story time/ circle time, free play time, organised activity time, outdoor time, snack time, quiet play time, tidy up time, coats on/ off time.

Part of the aim of a preschool environment is to provide a predictable routine, which makes the children feel.secure. The elements of the routine are in place so the teachers can observe the developing social and emotional skills of the children - sitting and listening to a story, participating with manners in a conversation about the story, particupating in singing/ matching the tone of the song, sharing toys/ playing cooperatively, listening to instructiins and cooperating, and general ability to self regulate. Certain activities within the routine will be designed to exercise fine or gross motor skills. Some activities will be there to stimulate an interest in self expression/ writing/ art.

The activities, and the fact that children are expected to be able to transition fairly smoothly from one activity to the next, provide an ideal environment for teachers to note when there's a pattern of disruptive behaviour/ inability to listen and cooperate.

If there's a child or children disrupting activities, seeking attention, tantrumming, etc, it can be very frustrating or even scary for the rest of the children, and teachers can't focus on organising and observing the others.

Early childhood settings have a required ratio of students to teachers in order to provide adequate support for all the children. Staff are spread too thin if one staff member has to in effect constantly attend to one specific dysregulated child.

OP it could be ADHD but I don’t think any NHS providers will diagnose this young - more school age. But it might not be ADHD and just his maturity and little personality.
Personally I would try swapping from the preschool to either a more play focused nursery or a registered child minder. They both have educational targets but not as rigid environment. Lot of preschools are not very nice places tbh - it could be as simple as that!

My 1st really struggled when moved to preschool group at 3 yo. I think she struggled with going from very free play to a more structured, "preparing them for school" kind of setting. Also the age group is 3 to 5 yo and I think she found some of the older kids difficult to deal with. She took a while to adjust, and until the September when the older kids went away to Reception, she'd have a lot of tantrums and very difficult behaviours. It's calmed down a lot now since.

Took the words out of my mouth.

My DC got politely asked to leave a toddler gym class at 3. Could do all of the activities but couldn't do the waiting in line and would run circles around the edge of the activity area inbetween their turn.

Reception was a circus too.