please help me - i just dont know what to do any more

[hoarsewhisperer]

hi
Sorry, but this is long and i dont know where to start, but i feel like such a cr*p parent at the moment and like i havelet my ds down big time.

Last week we had parents evening at school at which i was told that my ds (5 years old) is very easily led by other children and that if he's asked by another child to for example hit someone else, he will do it. Obviously he's doing this because deep down inside he wants to be liked more, and he is an insecure child ( i dont know why - but i was when i was little too). I have spoken to him about it and told him that he has lots of friends (he genuinely has) and that doing silly things that other people ask you to do, wont make them like you anymore. i try to ask him what he would do in various situations, with the answer "walk away and tell the teacher" or "tell them that i'm not doing it" being the goal. He KNOWS the answer, but the problem is that when push comes to shove, it all goes out of the window. Yesterday something happened when he was playing with a friend at the football park and he kicked a boy. NOW, i dont know what happened as i was too busy concentrating on ds2 at that moment, and ds1 claims that he didn't kick said child on purpose but that it was an accident.....but i think he might have been egged on to do it by his mate.

part 2 is that he also has a temper and that periodically he "loses it" if someone provokes him, which results in him pushing or pinching someone else. I am trying to teach him to count to ten, and he always promises ":I will never do it again mummy"....but then he does (not every day - but maybe twice a week). He can be so sweet too - yesterday he helped our neigbours little boy to put his wellies on, did his jacket up for him and so on so they could go out and play in the garden...i praised this alot and told him how nice it was.

We have a star chart in the kitchen and he is doing well with the stickers for things like sharing with his brother and so on, but the other things really worry me. This week i have promised a trip to macdonalds which is real forbidden fruit in our family, if he behaves. I'm desperate to know how to stop teh bad behaviour - please help me if you have any ideas, or reassure me that this is normal in young boys.

This sounds like perfectly normal 5 year old behaviour to me (well just like mine and his mates anyway). Just keep consistent with how you are handling it and work at boosting his confidence. You are not a crap mum!

thanks junk collector. I am really thinking i will go and buy the steve biddulph book. The whole education system is i think sorely lacking on positive everyday role models for little boys and it seems like teachers etc, expect them to behave like the girls....i.e sit still, listen, never react with their fists and so on. The problem is - you only ever see your own childs problems - everyone elses children seem so perfect sometimes!
thanks for the reassurance

Steve Biddulph is really good. He points out that boys need to be boys, which sounds like obvious advice, but something I think we forget. You're right about schools being geared to girls. On saying that though, my Ds's reception teacher is a man, which is really good as he has some understanding of what being a 5 year old boy is like (Cos it's a mystery to me quite frankly).

It's funny what you say about other people's kids seeming perfect. I met a woman though NCT with DS2 (didn't do it the first time round), coincidentally she has a DS the same age as DS1. We used to see him occasionally before DS1 started school and I used to think he was perfect and wish my DS was like that. Now they are in the same class at school and good friends. He has been to our house quite a lot and whilst I am very fond of him he is by no means perfect (stubborn and argumentative as well as funny and polite!). I think we spend so much time looking through a microscope at our own children's fault, we sometimes forget that they a just normal and balanced (good and bad)