Do you have an alpha child (particularly a boy)?

[headfairy]

I've always suspected ds is a bit alpha, he's very articulate and quite bossy and he always wants to be in charge/the leader/lead play. I've tried my hardest to teach him to share, let other people choose games etc.

Today at his preschool I was chatting to one of the teachers and she also said he's very alpha. He always wants to be the one who leads the class out to the playground (its a job they give to the child they think has been the kindest that day) and he finds it really hard to accept when he's not the leader, to the extent he's said he doesn't want to go to preshool any more because he hates all the teachers.

He's September born, so he'll be the oldest in his year, he's physically very strong and confident. To us of course he's our pfb, the first boy born in our family for 35 years and is a bit spoilt if I'm honest (my mum absolutely dotes on him). That combined with his strong personality I can see him ending up getting in trouble a lot when he goes up to Primary school (he starts in September).

What I really want to know is there something I need to really focus on seeing he's such an alpha child? Apart from making sure he's not always the centre of attention and dominating play when he's with other children, is there something else I should be doing?

Obviously if you've got a strong willed 'leader' type child you can't change his basic personality ( not that suggesting you'd want to/should of course!!) but perhaps the most important thing you could do is to teach him how to be kind and aware of other people's feelings as much as you can. I understand that he may be seen as very special within your family and as you say, maybe a bit spoilt but obviously he has to learn that not everyone in the world will put him first. I don't have alpha children (quite the opposite) but do have an extremely competitive 4 y o ds which I'm finding really hard to deal with so you have my sympathy . In fact I came on mn to start a thread about that after an awful trip out with him and a friend of his!!

My DS is like that. Nursery were very good with him and spent the months before school helping him to realise he couldn't always be in charge. He started reception in September and has managed just fine. He's super-confident , still likes to lead play but has learnt to put his hand up and knows the teachers are in charge. He's always being invited to parties so he's probably not a little brat as the other kids wouldn't play with him if he was.

The thing is I've made him like it as I was the school wallflower. DD is going to be like DS too.

The teachers will also be able to work on your DS a bit, they'll have dealt with lots of bossy children in the past.

thanks Meglet. I will hopefully get a chance to see ds's new YR teacher when they do home visits over the summer, and I will mention that he's a little ahem pushy. He's also very popular at the moment, but I really don't want him to alienate those friends he has got by being insufferably bossy. My DD is also turning out in a similar mould, what on earth is going on? :o Our nanny brings her dd to work with her, she's two weeks older than dd, and my dd bosses her around ALL the time

Peggoty, it must be something about 4 year old boys. DS is also ridiculously competitive (that he did get from his dad :o). so I try to not let him win at everything, though he often does because he's just so flipping strong. He can floor me :o I know they get a testosterone surge at this age, so some of the more boisterous behaviour is just hormonal I guess, but if you have a strong confident boy with it, it's really tough!

A lot of the behaviour you've described is ime attributable to age rather than being an alpha male.
DS1 is very alpha. He's very good at sport, he's bright and he has lots of friends. He often says that when he says something other children 'listen.' He's also exceptionally kind and well behaved. His school have a traffic light system and he's never once been in trouble in the five years he's been at school. The point I'm making is that alpha doesn't necessarily equal bad behaviour. There are lots of boys who are badly behaved in his year who are not as popular etc as him. In fact he often steps in to stop bullying etc. If you can encourage him to be kind and well behaved without compromising his strong character, you'll be on to a winner

Thanks thebestisyettocome, I really hope I can do that. Your ds sounds lovely :) That's exactly what I want for mine. I do think a lot of it is age related, despite being articulate, he's still learning how to express himself when he's annoyed, and he can be quite blunt and aggressive. We have at least moved on from hitting, which is progress!