Very sensitive ds's behaviour gone down the pan since he started kindy, it's long while I sort it out in my head, kind suggestions please

[phdlife]

ds is 3.11. He had always been at home with me but in January started a 5-day fortnight at a nearby kindergarten (pre-prep in the local lingo). There are 2 teachers and 22 kids, they go 8:45-2:45, they sleep there and it seems to be an excellent little kindy - he and the teacher adore each other and he says he is loving it.

On kindy days +1 ds is knackered (to be expected) but I think also there's another factor of over-stimulation going on - he's always been extremely sensitive to noise; at kindy he plays with the girls because the boys are (in his words), too noisy and just running around yelling. Plus, while normally he talks my ear off, he has very little to say about kindy.

And at home he spends a lot of time screaming at 2.11 dd that he's not her friend, he's not speaking to her, go away - and that's if she just looks like she might enter the same room. Any toy of his she touches he just explodes in frustration, whether he was playing with it or not. Conversely if she shouts at him he collapses in tears. From begging for extra responsibilities he's now refusing to do basic things like dress himself and a "I've asked you not to X, if you do it again I will have to put it away" type request has been getting me punched.

I've been resorting to carting him down to his room because I cannot bear the constant cycle of screaming/tears and I refuse to be hit, but he hates this and it makes everything worse.

However time-outs aren't working either. Ds's temper goes from happy to nuclear in half a second, often before I can speak or move and then he simply cannot stay in a time-out spot (we've never had to use them so he's got no practice) - and of course dd then appears, thus throwing fuelling the conflagration.

I'm in a very bad way sleep-wise; I'm trying to fix it but dd has other plans. My brain is really bloody scrambled and I'm sad because of it, so I may well be missing something obvious here. Please be gentle pointing it out...

it sounds like a pita stage.

actually, what's a five day fortnight? mornings? 9-3 is a loooooong day ime, at our local state nursery they won't really let them do that until they are 4.
also, can he have some quiet time after nursery to decompress? i wonder if being competitive for toys/space etc at kindy is making him act this out with his sister, perhaps really, really, almost white-noisy quiet in his room might help?

he sounds knackered to be honest... could he be hungry/dehydrated as well I know it sounds odd but Ds and a few of his friends needed much more food/water but are too young to really ask for it...so maybe feeding him a snack/water/juice as soon as he finishes kindy with a slow walk home in fresh air or some fresh air at home as soon as you get there.. have a look at some of the just started reception threads on mnet - different age/process but very much about adjustment to being in big groups - often need own 'space' to unwind after having to be 'social orientated' esp at that age could dd 'help'you for a bit to give him some room/let him potter...sorry bit wordy but hth..

sorry had to abandon this yesterday, thanks for suggestions.

aitch a 5-day fortnight means he goes M,T,W one week and M,T the next.

also I don't think he is being competitive for toys at kindy iykwim - I think he's spending a lot of time on the sidelines. for instance he's only brought home one or two paintings and I know he LOVES painting; he's brought home no craft but here he is always crafting something.

he was complaining again today about how noisy the boys there are. it's part over-socialised and part just plain old over-stimulated.

3rdnparty he is definitely dehydrated, as it is stupidly hot and although his own water bottle is always available it comes home nearly as full as when he left. don't know how to fix that one.

I will think more on how to get him better-quality quiet time after kindy. So far his "quiet-time" has been tv which I know looks bad but it is a quiet show (playschool) which I think he misses from his morning routine and I use it to get a pile of snacks into him. (and drinks, if I stand over him.) He will resist like fury (change that kid's routine? couldn't I have some root canals done instead?) but now I've realised the over=stimulation bit I guess I have to do that.

I don't know how I'd get him to have quiet time in his room - he hates being in there (or anywhere) on his own.

Mornings are the worst, tbh.

In the afternoons I've been aiming to give them an hour of unadulterated mama-time which goes pretty well if I've got dinner pre-prepared - I think ideally he'd rather have that than quiet time, especially if he could get rid of dd during that time.

they have been playing so sweetly today and he keeps telling her, "but dd, I'm your best friend!" sadly she is living on Planet No so for the most part she's not having a bar of it

dehydration is a real pain - about a mixture of juice and water for a treat after kindy/fresh cold that you bring to pick up...or if really hot make some ice lollies - mine are about 2/3 water to 1/3 juice but ds much more likely to eat a icelolly if not in a drinking mood - maybe you could all have together so gets mummy time as well!

i wouldn't worry about the quiet time not being in his room just some calm space... also quiet tv not the end of the world..

re mornings does he like stuff like duplo/lego or train track my ds started getting more involved about that age doig different layouts or again outside in the fresh air a football net/ball something he can do himself....hth

DS1 could never cope with more than 2 days a week at nursery at that age - I tried 3 and his behaviour was dreadful.
Could you move to doing Monday and Wednesday every week so he has a break in between?

but being sidelined doesn't mean not being tense about not having the toys that other kids have, etc. i think it's pretty tense-making being on the sidelines...

it does sound like dehydration might be playing a part, but also if you can not switch the telly on it might be better... three is a tricky age, though, for being able to occupy themselves, i do see that.

will try ice lollies - exactly the kind of good idea my fried brain can no longer come up with. so far watermelon has been my mainstay but it's coming to the end of the season. still 28 degrees tho

karoleann I will ask them about dropping a day but I think it's a fixed deal, there's some line between daycare and school that this year blurs and I don't quite understand.

it's not just a tricky age, aitch, it's his personality as well - he hasn't moved much beyond the velcro baby he was to start with...

have been thinking about what i did with dd at this stage...

when she went into hysterics, as she did fairly regularly when she started a new, more schooly nursery, and was EXHAUSTED, i treated it more as a thing that was more terrifying for her than it was for me, iykwim?

so her temper would go from 0-60 in a millisecond and my previously pissed off 'I am going to count to three etc' tone would be all 'oh my goodness what's happened are you okay?' and crucially 'have you got a noisy head?' (from memory, this is what dd described a temper tantrum as one day).

the noisy head being a bit of a deus ex machina rather than something in or of her was the getout clause... she would sob 'YEEES' and that was my cue to comfort her and calm her down, iykwim? it ended the stand off.

we also found that saying 'careful, you might get a noisy head, take a deep breath and breathe out slowly' etc was a good way to head off tantrums a good percentage of the time as well.

it's frightening for them, i think. like a brainstorm or something. so yes, not much you can do about the tantrums possibly, but you can at least 'manage' them a bit. hth

oh that noisy head thing is a good metaphor, I can totally see that.

Sometimes I've managed to get him to settle but trying to get him to blow the hair off my forehead (it makes him take deep breaths and amuses him a little) but I also see that counting and "we're running out of time for x" has made things worse. He sees those as threats instead of consequences. Plus he's been asking me to feed him most meals which is making me nuts but I think he needs the comfort of backsliding a little.

I can try to work with this a bit better. Still going to struggle getting him to do anything (eat, dress, teeth, sunscreen) on those mornings we have to get out, even with help. How did you manage that?

i think he needs babying for a bit, then. pita for you but when they feel a bit overwhelmed they need it, imo. regarding the mornings. no telly, obv, that's a nightmare in the morning. clothes, shoes, jacked, everything you lay out the night before on the sofa or wherever least stressful to keep eye on other little ones and you just do it for them. we expect our eldests to grow up fast and want our babies to be babies forever, i think. me and dh are already laughing at ourselves for what we had dd1 doing (er, riding a pony at the age of two and a half with no helmet in a roman park -health and safety NIGHTMARE - she loved it btw) that we would never in a million years let dd2 do now.

thanks aitch. am going to run now, see if I can get myself a little bit ready before he wakes (he's sleeping late this morning, amen!)

Just wanted to say 'thanks' for posting this thread as it really struck a chord with me. My DS, who is 3.4 recently went from 2-3 days at nursery (8.30-4.30) and I've noticed his behaviour has gone from mainly very good to pretty awful - particularly the days following nursery. I'd been wondering if it's just tiredness, but he's so aggressive and angry sometimes and his tantrums are out of control on occasion and he was NEVER like that before. I'd been putting it down to him turning 3 and perhaps reaching a new developmental stage, but your post has got me thinking. I really don't know what to do as I'm expecting another baby in 8 weeks' time. Ho hum.

All my kids have gone through the horrors when settling into pre-school/montessori.

It does sound a long day for him too - my just-turned-4 DD3 comes home at 12:30. Do see if they can be any way flexible, dropping the 5th day as suggested above, or perhaps he could be picked up after lunch?
DO ask his teacher if she can remind him to have a drink every so often, too.

Keep an eye on his sensitivity to noise, too. Have you noticed this with anything else? Does he cringe when a bus roars past, is he afraid of hand-dryers, hoovers etc? If so, you might look into Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). It could equally be because he's tired/overwhelmed though :)

thanks for those posts - I will have a chat to the teachers and see what they think.

Juneau you have my sympathies :)

what I notice is that if he's had a good night's sleep (11hrs) + a good nap (2hrs), a good, early dinner, and spent the day with just family, he's a bright, extremely articulate, happy, helpful little chap who adores his little sister.

But on kindy days even that isn't enough to compensate for the stimulation he gets and every little thing is Too Much. I think as Aitch said I was expecting him to be too grown up when in fact he needs just a little babying to get through this transition. It certainly helped last night, that I had all the dinner prep done and could give him and dd 100% til the last minute. Think I will have to plan for leftovers on kindy nights! And more tricks to get water into him as temps are STILL around 30 [sweaty]

Thanks for reminders about developmental disorders but I do think he's just a sensitive kid adjusting to a big change. I think I was just too tired to have twigged how big a change it is...

regarding the noisy head, btw, i have remembered that the reason dd coined the term was because i asked her what it felt like when she had a temper tantrum. have a nice chat with him when he's in a good mood (maybe take him out just you and he, if at all possible?) and find out what it feels like to be him at the moment. you might find that he has more understanding than you know, and what's more you might find that he's not enjoying it an more than you are. (although obv don't expect to have the convo for any more than about thirty seconds before he''s off to something else. )