My 3.5 year old is in trouble at nursery for scratching - how do we deal ?

[Kayleigh]

My ds2 3.5 has scratched another child in the nursery school playground today, apparently unprovoked. My childminder collected him from nursery and was called in to the classroom by the teachers. Apparently he has marked another little boys face quite badly. They think the incident was unprovoked, and he hasn't said anything that would make me think there was a reason for it.

He has quite a temper and if he isn't happy he will kick out at furniture or throw whatever is closest to him. He has also been known to kick us . This has been dealt with in the past by time out on the stairs, taking away treats, pasta out of his jar (reward system) etc. But I have never known him to willfully hurt someone unprovoked before.

I gave him a serious talking to when we got home, but he wasn't really too bothered by any of it until I said he wouldn't have his usual chocolate treat. At which point he grabbed a small side table and threw it.

Dh is at this moment having a serious chat with him while ds2 is in the bath.

Have we done enough ? Should he have a more severe punishment ? My ds1 is much more sensitive than ds2 so i've never really encountered this before.

Help !!

NO .. a 3.5 year old needs immediate reaction to a problem like scratching which I'm sure he got at school

You need to ask teachers how they dealt with it though and what they would suggest for the future so you have a consistent approach at home and at school perhaps

You can only correct behaviour if you see it and can react immediately (action = consequence).. it is incredibly unfair to do it afterwards on a child so young IMHO

Talking about it is a good idea though as long as you don't push the point that he's naughty . .its the behaviour that's naughty

THe other thing to say is that acting out like this is a PHASE .. he will grow through it and begin to realise how socially unacceptable it is

HTH

Hi Kayleigh.

I agree with twiglett. He's still very young and a childs immediate reaction is often to lash out. I wouldn't worry too much about it, it's probably just one of those things and even if he had done it as a reaction to somehting, he's probably forgotton all about it by now.

A while back I minded my neice whilst SIL was on a training thing. Neice is roughly same age as grandson. Anyway, she's started scratching and went for gransdon five times, actually marking his face quite badly on the last time. He's so placid and when I lost my temper with her and shouted no on the third time she got him, she started to cry and he just walked over and gave her a dummy (aaww).

When her mum got back and saw grandsons face she was mortified especially as I was so calm about it - but they are small children, it is just one of those things. At his age, he's probably starting to assert himself, I'm sure that once he realises that he can hurt someone - he will grow out of it.

Thanks girls, I appreciate your advice and you are right. In the clear light of day I can see that I overreacted a bit. Am just glad i wasn't too harsh on him .... just no pocket money for 10 years and bread and water for supper for a month

When I picked him up today I was putting on his coat standing next to another mum, and her son came out of the class and said "Mummy, the little boy said sorry to me"
to which I said "Aaaah, you must be X"
I apologised to his mum who thankfully said what i would have said under the circumstances, that these things happen. And then on the way to the car I told ds2 he was a good boy for apologising, and he said he wouldn't scratch again. Was quite proud of him for going to apologise on his own.

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