My 5 year old is constantly fighting at school

[Chucka]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone had any advise or been through something similiar about the following;

My son is generally a good boy, he has a bit of a temper, but nothing that has made me worry before now.

I am currently 6 months pregnant and suffering with severe SPD. I was signed off work for 3 weeks and everything was fine with my son, both before I was off and whilst.

I went back to work 3 weeks ago. Last Friday my son got into a fight with a child in the playground and I got called up the school. He was punished at school with no play on Monday. He also had no DS, Wii, computer or his cartoons for a week, in the course of this week, I have been called up the school on three seperate instances, with different children involved.

There is no more I can take away from him as punishment. Could this be because of all the changes going on in our family? - new baby, my condition, me not being at home? Have any of you had similar experiences?
Should I really worry that this is psychological or is it just that he's reacting to the changes happening around him?

Any advice would be gratefully received.

Do you know how these incidents start?

Normally playing initially, then it gets out of hand, or doesn't go his way.

I just wondered if the school is sure that it is your son starting the fights, or if it just escalates from rough play. Although since he has different opponents, it does suggests that he is the driving force. Does he give any explanation for it?

How long has he been at school? If he's 5, am I right in thinking he's perhaps just started in September? So when you say things were OK before you were signed off,he had only just started? (IYSWIM?)

You say you've taken away his DS/computer/Wii/cartoon privileges....what sort of things does he do on all of these things? Is it possible he's playing thumpy/killing superhero type stuff and playacting it in the playground?

good point by Bucharest there...a DS and a Wi at 5 is quite a lot of techno stuff. If I were you I would seriously look at how much time he is spending on these....at what he plays.

Even non violent games can affect children if they spend too much time gaming.

Sorry, it took a while to reply - yes, the school is sure that my son is the instigator at least in the last two incidents. He can't explain why, says he doesn't know.
He's in year 1, so he's almost 6. The class he's in are the same members as his reception year and it is a very boisterous class.
Cartoons - yes are often fighting, but he doesn't get fighting games on his DS or Wii.
He is also restricted to an hour a day of a weekend - no more.He doesn't have either the rest of the week.

Well, my story is similar...
My boy is now 5 and a half. He has been in trouble alot for fighting or "inappropriate" behaviour.
Often it would be slapping or pushing, he says because someone did it to him.
We have set up rules that if someone does something to him that he doesn't like, he is to tell the teacher. The big rule is the "do unto others" rule, which he was very proud to tell his teacher, but unfortunately never followed!
Last Friday, he was in trouble for kneeing a boy in school and then punching (or pushing as he tells it) a girl in the stomach at the after school care.
We decided we'd had enough. We have taken away his privilages before, banned him from any tv/dvd's, even made him watch us put his dvd's into a bag for charity. This time we set up a "reward chart" whereby he initially puts his 4 most beloved toys in a bag (hidden in our room) and a 4 week chart is drawn up (school days only).
The idea is to ENCOURAGE good behaviour. If he has a sticker for every day, he gets one of the toys back at the end of the week, BUT if he misses just one day, that toy goes to charity. And if he gets through the whole month and has all his toys back, he'll recieve a bonus(probably by way of going to movies or something...we actually didn't think that far ahead).
Guess how many days we got through???
ONE!
I'm not joking. A note was in his bag today saying he was in trouble not once but 3 times.
Slapping a child, kneeing a child and HITTING A TEACHER!!!
I cannot describe my sadness or dissappointment.
Please do not even suggest slapping him or giving him a good hiding...I am not a softy but I was belted as a child and it taught me nothing accept to make sure I wasn't caught and to LIE really well!
Thanks for reading. I hope someone out there, someday soon, has something that will help, because right now I feel like taking him to a specialist!

I don't know if this is helpful but the boys in DD's Y1 class were really tricky - all the mobs (mother of boys) were complaining about fighting, bullying, roughness etc. Y2 they got a very strict (but lovely teacher) and all changed. A couple of the trickiest boys left but the rest just seemed to grow up and calm down. All the girls (who had been delightful in Y1) started falling out...

Y1 kids are very little and school is so designed for girls. Do you think that the school is dealing with your boy's physical needs sufficiently?

One thing that might help is to give your boy some exercise before school - like a run around in the park. Boys just seem to have so much energy and need to get rid of it somehow - all the sitting around in school is tough for them.

Well my story is similar. My 5year old left Africa and came to England on 4 June 2013 . So we registered him into the school. The first time he liked the school but later on he told me that mummy I do not want to go back to the school we put him in.I asked the reason why he does not like it n'he told me that the kids call him atoddler, sparky, asparstic and other sorts of names. so it did not make me feel good at all. After 2 weeks the teachers at school told me that he was involved in a fight but it was an equal and it was not too bad but he just needs to know the school rules of not play fight. He came back home I banned him from watching cartoons. So it had taken like 1 week before him involving in wright until when he told me that they called him avegetable. I told him that did u report to the teachers when they called u names he told me yes he did but the teacher did not respond to him. The next day they told me that he punched some kid in the eye and they put him in cooling corner after this boy had messed up his toy train 3 times. He says that he reports to the teacher but the teacher they do not listen o him and when I went to school the following morning to ask the teacher what makes my son fights all the time with other kids, the teacher says that she does not know but to only watch over him next term and not even the parents of the other kids whom my son hits have come up to complain. So am really stressed with the situation and also expecting in 2 weeks. The good thing with my son is that he is doing well in his class although he is still struggling to speak English as well as the other kids. Please I need your advise if you happen to read my article. Thx

I got in an insane amount of fights from the 1st grade onwards to the 4th anger management was a great help not so much for the anger just more so learning to control my bad impulses but the main reason I got into conflict was because I didn't like how some people treated each other I was basically a bouncer for the weakest kids.
(Not sure if this helps but your kid might not be the as bad as they appear )

Year 1 is a lot more tiring than F2 so that would be my 1st thought.
Make sure he gets enough sleep and rest. Maybe pause any hobbies he does or cut them down.

Is he eating enough at breakfast and lunch- again I’ve found being hungry can hinder emotional regulation.

Does he have any good friends? In year 1 cliques are probably forming. Have school said anything about this?

Does he see other children of the same/similar age out of school? This can be helpful for practising social skills.I’d be tempted to do a weekly meet up and strengthen some friendships.

Does he know any other playground games? Eg tig, the floor is lava, football- could you encourage him to play these? Might help if he has a focus.

Finally, sometimes you just hit a shitty spot and they don’t usually last.