How to explain pushing is wrong to a 5-year old?

[Tartegnin]

Today I was so sad after talking to DD's (aged five) teacher - said that DD pushed another girl into the pool during water program on Friday and seemed to think it was funny. Then DD was banned from participating in the rest of the class and had to sit by the side of the pool the remaining 30 minutes to "think over what she did wrong". Apparantly DD was crying hard the whole time about being excluded.

Our daughter is a bit socially/emotionally delayed, which the school is aware of and has been generally supportive of (in terms of trying to help her catch up). Leaving aside whether leaving her out of 30 minutes of her favorite activity was appropriate (seems to me, that, if the pushing were not malicious, a strong word, a required apology and a second chance might have worked better), I really could use some advice on how to address this with her. I don't think getting angry is useful, because I really think she doesn't understand that pushing is not "fun" and is very unwelcome. I'm going to try using words like "scared" and "sad" to see if she can empathize with others, but I'm not entirely confident this will get through.

Our DD is really a sweet child and always is concerned when others are clearly upset (puts her arm around them and asks what's wrong), but besides the pushing at the pool (which is not only unpleasant but could be dangerous), she also sometimes pushes at the playground or even in class.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated, because this behaviour will surely start to affect her ability to have good relationships with others in the class.

Not sure how useful this will be as I don't know how severe her delay is...

DD is only 3.5y but we have found that a combination of strong "we don't shout/push/kick" etc. type messages combined with "how would you feel if.." has been effective. DD has not been a repeat offender (she has a pathological need for approval) so apologies if this is way off mark.

thanks, Marialuisa. She's not severely delayed, but enough that it's always a bit tough to make friends as she's always a bit behind the curve. We've left her back in Reception 4 this year so that she's the oldest instead of the youngest, which has helped a lot. When I got her home otday, I sat her down and had a serious "chat" about the pushing. She was quite solemn and seemed to take it on board, but it's always hard to know just how much she really understands. I'm just worried if she doesn't sort this out, it will make it hard for her to make friends this year.

Does she have any sensory problems? It's just a lot of children with delays (even mild ones) can- so I wonder if pushing can be her way of dealing with being overwhelmed by people.

my non-verbalautistic son used to sometimes push in an attempt to interact unfortunately.Could that be another possibility?

I think perhaps being a stuck record and reminding her frequently not to push may be the best way- can you ask the school to do the same? All the better if they can remind her before she pushes iyswim.
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Is there any chance of the school setting something up so she gets some help wiith socialising? A lot of schools can be quite inventive these days.

My ds1 (4yrs) pushes if people invade his personal space. As soon as they take even half a step back ds1 is immediately calm again. He knows he shouldn't push but it's instinctive for him.

He goes to a mainstream school where there is a program set up to teach children about social skills. Perhaps your school may consider setting up something similar if they don't already have this.

Thanks Coppertop and Jimjams. I do think there is a bit of the "space" thing, as she is used to having her own space but also her own control over it. In that case, I can understand the pushing a bit. It's the going up to a child and pushing them as an offensive measure that I find upsetting. I've talked to her teacher about how we plan to work on this at home (and the "broken record" method is probably our best bet) and also what DD will understand from their side, so we'll see. I thought about a bit of role play at home, where her dad and I play the pusher and pushee and she can play the teacher to say "we don't push other people, that's not nice, it makes people feel bad" etc., and maybe even let her give one of us a short time out. I thought that might get her to take control of the situation, which is more or less what she tries to do in every case, anyway!

Sounds like you're doing everything right for your little girl, Tarteqnin. Sometimes there's not much you can do- other than to make sure the consequences to pushing are as immediate as possible and try to prevent her being in situations where pushing will be very tempting/dangerous (or try to make sure extra help is around for her at those times).

Can the school provide any extra supervision during the water sessions? I can see why they excluded her because I imagine not many of the kids can swim and that's scary for everyone if they're being pushed into the water, but now they know there's a problem they should be thinking about how to safely include your daughter in these sessions, IMO.

For more general pushing incidents which are not so clearly health and safety issues, I think I would agree an immediate time out policy with the school if it were me- NOT for half an hour though, just a few minutes followed by a very short "no pushing or you can't play" type explanation. I think sometimes talking too much about these sorts of things is counterproductive. Kids feel upset at our upset but not necessarily at what they did. They want to please us and so will say "yeah, yeah we understand," either to stop us being upset or, rarely, because they really do understand... in theory. But in practice, especially if they have even mild social/developmental delays, their impulsiveness or excitement or hypersensitivity to sound, smell, proximity to others etc takes over and it really is very hard for them to control themselves. My theory is that this sort of behaviour in this sort of context really improves only when kids are developmentally ready and actually has very little to do with parent/teacher handling, as long as that's not harsh/inconsistent.

In other words, this rambling post seems to be saying that I think this is a phase that you can't do much about- Jeez, how unhelpful is that! Sorry Tarteqnin. Your daughter sounds like a sweetiepie though and so do you- don't worry too much if you can help it. It sounds like the school are sympathetic and know it's not your fault or your daughter's. This will pass, I reckon. Don't know when, though.

Tartegnin, as others have said, I think you are going about things the right way and your daughter sounds really lovely and caring. Have you tried social stories with her? I am no expert but we were encouragedto use social stories with our son to help him understand situations in real life that he has found difficult (or is about to face a situation which he may difficult)so that he understands the feelings that go with these situations and can come to terms with them in an environment he feels safe in. I haven't explained it very well so you may want to do a google search on 'social stories' for a clearer explanation! but we were told that these stories should have a set pattern - the same beginning (e.g. once upon a time, not so very long ago, there was a lovely little girl called inset your dd's name) then have the event and what the protagonist felt or feared she may feel in that situation and how it was acknowledged that it was okay to feel that way and what could be done to cope with the feeling (eg clap your hands if excited instead of pushing someone else) and end with how s/he felt after she had applied the new strategy. As I said you will get a better explanation if you do a google search! HTH!

Thanks, everyone. Your support and comments and suggestions brought tears to my eyes. I think of myself as pretty capable/educated/grownup but get worked up possibly out of all proportion when it comes to DD. Mumsnet has been a gret source of info, but more importantly, of advice. Sometimes, you just need someone to say "you're doing ok, and so is your daughter." The suggestions are also super, though, and I will discuss better "time out" management with the school and also look up social stories (sounds like a very good approach, sis!)

Thanks again to everyone. I'll try to give as good as I get in terms of support and advice.

Social stories have worked really well for ds1. We've used 2 of these so far and they've been a great success. If you google for Carol Gray's site you should find an explanation of how they are written. I think there are also some sample stories too. When you first look at the story it's hard to see how it can make a difference but in ds1's case it really does!

Good luck, Tartegnin

ct - I have thought of using social stories with my dd but feel stupid as I don't know how to? Any suggestions gratefully received

BH - Our portage worker printed out a lot of info from the Carol Gray site so that we could see the theory behind social stories. Ds1's SALT did the actual writing for us but there are lots of samples on the internet that can be used/adapted. I think mrsforgetful posted a list of useful sites on a thread fairly recently with lots of samples. Can't remember the thread title though.

Can't do links but the thread title is "social stories websites...YES! YES! YES! and a bit of PECS too." It's still in the "current" section of the search facility.

ct - thank you

I'm back ... ...

Things really were improving, and the social stories helped. Then yesterday I got a call from the school to pick up DD because she had pushed a boy and he had split his lip. Well ... when I got there, it turns out more that she had been misbehaving by not getting into line as she should have, but was running around, instead, and then she accidentally pushed into a little boy on line and he fell and hit his cheek against the table (not a split lip).

So, I was relieved, in a way, not just because the little boy didn't seem very hurt, but also because, even though it was very naughty and disobedient behaviour, the pushing was only accidental. I punished DD by taking away tv yesterday and calmly explaining over and over again that it was because she had been naughty at school and as a result someone got hurt. I thought it was all handled pretty well (after the first, kind of over-reacting phone call), because before we left school I had DD apologize to the little boy (who was actually rather mature about it) and the teachers explained calmly to DD that they weren't angry, but very disappointed since she had been such a good girl otherwise.

On the way home, she told me how another little girl pushed her in the morning, so I took the opportunity to say how naughty that was and how I hoped DD told the girl that there's no pushing in school and it is not nice and can hurt people.

So... I was pretty happy over the whole thing thinking it was just some misbehaving high spirits, and that it had all be handled pretty well. Then, today I hear that she was DELIBERATELY pushing kids at school today. Now I don't know what to do. I feel like maybe it is some kind of reaction to being punished yesterday, but we tried to make it clear that it was punishing for not being in line and that we understood that the pushing was an accident. I've taken away tv privileges again today, but this is all a big step backwards after several very good weeks.

What to do now? (Or am I over-reacting big time?)

my first thoughts are that sending her home for something that was clearly an accident was a massive over-reaction on the school's part. Kids mess around like this from time-to-time, the school should be able to handle it without calling you in. TBH if DD did this i would be "disappointed" but not feel inclined to punish her-that would be the school's job.

Sorry, I know this is not helpful but I can't help feeling that the school isn't managing the more challenging side of your DD's behaviour at all well.

As for stopping your DD pushing, i guess it's back to the social stories and broken record technique?

Yes go back to the social stories. Can the school introduce social stories with her? I'm having problems with the school mismanaging ds1's behaviour at the moment (escalating it badly- been told that by a professional- I had no idea it was going on until last week) and have written a behaviour plan for school to follow. If he does X, do Y type thing. I suspect this will put the school's nose out of joint - but I do think its reached that stage for us. For you it might be better if you ask for a meeting with the school to agree on a consistent approach between school and home. it does sound as if the school is over-reacting to her behaviour- do you think they could be a bit stumped how to handle her- that is what is happening in my son's case I think.

Thanks Jimjams and Marialuisa - your comments are really appreciated. On Friday, I went to DDs class as a Halloween helper, and got to observe her first hand for the whole morning for the first time. It maybe wasn't the best representation, since there were loads of Halloween activities and a small parade, so not a typical day, but it was very interesting to see her behaviour and interaction with the other children. I would say that for 90% of the time, she was no better or worse than any of them (maybe even a bit better), and her really tough moments were when they had to line up to go from one activity to another. Sometimes they had to wait several minutes in line, and DD would get very fidgety and refuse to stay in line, or she wouldn't hold her partners hand, or she would start poking the person in front of her, or pulling kids' hands down over their eyes. That sort of thing. It was quite naughty behavior, but not extraordinary, and I was even a bit relieved to see it. Other children had been doing some provocative things at other times, and this was pretty much in line. It seems so specifically concentrated for her at line time, that I think we can work with her - the social stories have been moderately successful and, combined with "broken record" could really make a difference. The school is pretty switched on about her, but generally demands a bit higher level of compliance than I personally think is necessary at this age (4-5). I explained to the teacher about our home sticker chart, and repeated the sticker idea to DD over the weekend, so we'll see if she gets a sticker today.

can you talk to the school about queuing? If she is a bit socially dealyed this will be very difficult for her. DS1 finds lining up incredibly hard to do. He does now line up to come in from the playground, and he leads the class to assembly but it has been introduced slowly. Big timers are available (like big egg timers) some for 30seconds- some for 1 min- maybe the school could use these to slowly build up the length of time she can wait for. I do think if lining up is the problem there is a lot the school could be doing. (As another example my friend's dd- at another school- bit her mealtime assistant when she was expected to queue- now lunchtime procedure has been changed- schools should be switched onto the problems this can cause really).