Desperately in help about agressive 6 and a half year old

[jessicaf23]

I am a nanny and look after 3 boys the eldest two are brothers the oldest is almost 7 in August, the middle one is 4 and the little one who is there cousin is 2 years old all boys okay yes they can be a handful but I love them.

I have been working for both families for almost 2 years it started off fine with the older one but his behavior suddenly changed his mum told me he is causing trouble at school, he starts at home but now he starts with me. It started approx 4-5 months ago where he became very agreesive towards me kicking me in the ribs over 10 times causing very bad bruising, hes hit me, punched me, kicked me and disobeys me constantly the 2 younger ones are trouble but don't do ANYTHING like that to me.

Every time I talk to his mum about it she gets all defensive okay fair enough but I do say to him "I have had enough of you and I am fed up" yes I am aware it doesn't help but I know he does it constantly to wind me up and his mum says I talk to him about it, she takes away toys and privileges but he carries on doing it though when I give him a treat i.e after school we stop off for ice cream or give him chocolate he ends up behaving terribly again.

How can i deal with this? His mum clearly isn't doing anything about it, she ends up having a go at me about it leaving me EXTREMELY upset and a very bad infulence on the little one who is starting to copy his behaviour thankfully the 4 year old isn't but they are both little monkey's

I am getting fed up of it and fear sometimes that he will do some serious damage to me and feared about a month ago he really badly bruised or possibly even broke my ribs I couldn't carry the 4 or 2 year old at all and was in agony for days because of him.

I am now desperate for help as I cannot deal with it anymore its my 2 only jobs after before being jobless for 1.5 years I love the 2 little ones to bits but the older one is a bully

PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!! sorry its so long but I needed to explain the whole situation

Sorry to hear about this. I think you need some proper advice from someone who is an expert Nanny or works with children, hopefully one will be along shortly. But this is absolutely not ok. The mum has to take this seriously and do something about it immediately. No wonder she is defensive! This little boy needs some help from a child therapist, he will get in trouble if he is so violent.

How are you managing his behaviour? Have you been on any training to help you use positive behaviour management techniques?

If this is just about him having insufficient boundaries, you need to sit down with his parents and plan an approach that you can all use so that he knows what the boundaries are and that exactly the same consequences will happen every time he crosses them. Make the consequences natural ones which are the result of his behaviour, e.g. No, we can't stop for an ice cream today because you didn't get ready when you were asked so we now don't have time.

At the same time you all need to be picking up on the positives in his behaviour and offering praise. They don't have to be big things. Just stepping over a toy instead of standing on it or hanging his coat up without being asked need to be highlighted and praised.

If you are all already doing these things and you feel that this is more than behaviour and this child may have a developmental disorder, ask the parents to make a GP appointment and request a referral for assessment. They may not find this easy to hear but you have a responsibility to let them know.

In the meantime, the parents and you can ask the family support worker via school to book you onto a safe handling course which should help you to manage situations with this child better, prevent them from escalating and restrain him safely if necessary.

You should not be in a position where you are being injured by him. Don't allow the parents to take no action on this. If they will not take steps to solve this you need to find a different job.

I am praising him for the good things I am going to talk to his mum today about his behaviour as yesterday he kicked me in the chin, tickled me when I was at the end of the bed and fell off, he tried to kick me with his football and I am really fed up of his behaviour now