HELP! Behaviour - 7yo

[midnightexpress]

Old-timer here; haven't been on MN for ages but struggling with some of DS2's behaviour and wondering if anyone has any advice. He's 7 and we recently moved to a new area and school. He's settled in well socially but behaviour issues are starting to cause some concern, and I don't know what to do to help him. It's not major things, but he keeps getting picked up for smaller things - talking/giggling in class, a bit of shoving in the playground, being cheeky. Then yesterday he came out in floods of tears because the teacher had put him on a red warning for telling her he didn't have a jacket (it was pouring with rain) when it was in his bag. I think the issue was that he wasn't telling the truth - he told her he'd 'forgotten' he had it, when he always has it with him. The main problem, as I see it, is not so much the severity of what he's doing, but that he absolutely refuses to take responsibility for any of it. It's always someone else's fault, or 'I forgot'.

I don't think it's especially the school move - the same thing was going on at the old school. His teacher last year picked up on it and the not taking responsibility thing, so we tried getting him to be a bit more independent in other ways to encourage this (getting himself ready for school, getting his own breakfast etc), but it doesn't seem to be making any difference to his behaviour. He's a really bright child - really excellent academic report, but he's one of the youngest in the year. I really want to help him, and to get him to realise that it's really not OK to be cheeky to teachers and disruptive in class before he gets older and it becomes more of a problem, or before he gets himself labelled as difficult, but it seems to go in one ear and out the other.

Anyone dealt with anything like this successfully?

Ah, this all sounds very familiar and also became more pronounced following a school move for my DS, now 8. He was 7 when he moved schools. I could have written your post 6 months ago. We went in the opposite direction and have had some success.

We think the behaviour stemmed from an overwhelming sense of being asked to be more grown up before he was ready. With the new school and the move into year 3, there were much higher expectations in terms of independence at school, and I guess we also started placing higher expectations on him at home. I don't think he was ready. We had a chat with him and talked about how sometimes it can all feel way too much when you've got lots of new responsibilities (and freedoms to match) so we were going to help him, because his behaviour at school and home was telling us that he wasn't coping well. Essentially, we removed all responsibility. We started doing everything for him again - calmly and naturally, just like he was 3 again. We went back to helping him clean his teeth, get dressed, get everything ready for school, fully supervising homework, and the like. It sounds tedious, but the extra attention did him wonders. On the downside for him, it meant that he was no longer allowed unsupervised trips to the playground, or to have more grown-up boy freedoms like extended bedtimes. Again, the extra time with him accompanying him to the park, and spending extra time on bedtime stories and routines seemed to help.

We requested a meeting with DS's teacher and we shared our stategy with her and talked about ways she could support the strategy in class. It meant that when he was being disruptive, he was moved to sit next to a teacher before it got out of hand, for example, and he was taken to read quietly indoors if things got out of hand in the playground - all gently, all with compassion for his apparent lack of coping skills.

We had a really good transition into the half term holiday and then an excellent transition back to school. We have been steadily increasing our DS's independence, bit by bit, and scaling back when it seems like he's not coping. We're in a scaling back period at the moment and it seems to be bringing him back again at school and home. We even went back to basics in terms of house rules - being kind, respecting others, telling the truth, and doing as your are told. Each time he 'breaks' one of these house rules, he's sat out from what he's doing for a short time, but close to an adult, and before he goes back to play, etc, we ask him why he was sat out and he explains using the house rules. Again, this has been a helpful strategy at school - the teachers have found it really useful.

Sorry for the long post - I hope it helps and that you and your son can find a solution for all of this, as you say, before he gets labelled at the school for his behaviour. Best wishes!

Thanks very much bendywillow - that's really interesting. Completely the opposite of what we're trying, but I do wonder if perhaps you're right and he just is finding it all a bit overwhelming. We're in Scotland, so the schools break up in a couple of weeks; I'll maybe hold out until after the holidays and see what happens when he goes back. How did your son take it when you started accompanying him to the park and so on? We live right next to the school so I let them walk on their own in the mornings, and I can't imagine he'd be too thrilled if I announced that I was coming too!

Thanks again - it's good to know I'm not the only one!

We didn't make a big deal of accompanying him to the park. If he asks to go, I would say yes - I'll come too. I'd still walk him to school, but we do take this approach to quite an extreme level, as it seems to create a secure base to build upwards from. It seems counter-intuitive, but it does work for our little one, and am so pleased the idea has got you thinking :)