how to punish my dd for this ....

[iwantanother1]

my dd1 is 7 in a couple of weeks she has had behaviour problems since she was about 4 she is on her second school as she was asked to leave nursary because she was biting. she has bit a few t9imes at this school but yesterday i was called to the school to pick dd up as she had bit a ta and drew blood.

i was very upset with her so when i got to the school i did raise my voice at her and told her of in front of the teachers and dept head and my dd started crying so the dept head said she has been told of by me so she does not need to be punished by them. i told them they had to take golden time off her and play time as it is not acceptable and they need to show her.

at home she is grounded to her room for a week but school has done nothing to punish her.

i am getting so upset with her behaviour and dont know what to do to stopn her being so naughty

please help me

I'm no expert (my DC's are younger), but it sounds to me that she needs a little extra support at school. What are the school doing to help her control her behaviour? What triggered her to bite the TA?

I think that after the weekend, when everyone has calmed down, you should go into the school and have a meeting with her teacher, and perhaps the SENCO, about her difficulties.

At 7, she may be able to learn to manage her behaviour herself (eg being allowed to leave the room and go somewhere to calm down if she feels she is about to lose control). I saw a documentary when children of this age, with quite severe difficulties (probably more severe than your DD) made great progress using this type of approach.

She's six. A week long punishment is over the top and utterly pointless. What do you think it will achieve???

the reason the school have said they don't want to punish her is because they think you have over-reacted, and they are right.

this is the only punishment left we have tried all sorts and even ignored her bad behaviour and praised the good but she dont care what punishment we give her she is currently rolling round her bed singing

ace i have had meetings with the head and her teacher about her behaviour and they gave her a star chart that hasnt worked iv had 1 meeting with the SN lady and im waiting for a call to arrange another.
the reason she bit the TA was dd had another little girls shoes on and wouldnt take them off so TA said she would count to 3 for to take them off she wouldnt so the TA said she would remove them and that is when she bit her.

If she is six going on seven, she's in Yr 2 - yes? That seems quite old to me for a child to be biting still so I think you are right to want to work out what to do now.

If she has had behaviour problems since she was 4, how have you been tackling them so far? - have you been to your GP to discuss your concerns about her? I don't know whether simply reacting to each incident as it occurs with punishment is going to be helpful or whether you need to have a more long term programme of support in place for her.

Perhaps your DD didn't want to behave badly, but just lost her temper... Perhaps she was even embarrassed about wearing the wrong shoe and panicked (children can be odd about things like that as I'm sure you know. My DS1 had a total meltdown when another child put his kit in DS1's bag by mistake). Even if she seems like she doesn't care, she probably does

FWIW, in my extremely unqualified opinion, I think the key thing is for you and the school to help her to learn to react in more appropriate ways to the daily irritation of school life. Maybe the SEN person can help with this.

you can't ground her to her room for a week fgs, that's pindown and it's abusive

Do you think there is a developmental problem? Have you been to your GP/seen a paediatrician about her difficulties?

Could there be a food intolerance or something disturbing her psychologically?

You can't just punish, punish, punish and hope it goes away, you have to egange with the problem and deal with the causes of the behaviour.

I know how horrible it is for you, but IMO you won't get anywhere with this until you tackle root causes and find out what kind of help and support your daughter needs.

I totally agree with the last two posts.

isn't pindown when you physically restrain someone?

anyway sounds like she needs a proper assessment because she is old for this type of behaviour without reason.

how does she feel about it when she's calmed down? what does she say? is she remorseful, can she explain what she did wrong?

pindown

it involved shutting children in a room with nothing to do, basically

a family member of mine worked for the disgusting pig that was responsible for it

please don't ground a young child to her room for a week!

Also, being a bit of a hippy, I'm of the opinion that no recurring behaviour should be punished until you and the child have worked together to promote the opposite/required behaviour.

My DS (when he was only 4 and he has quite severe SN) could understand this concept.

Of course biting is ubnnaceptable but the punishment you are considering is completely out of proportion.

I would talk to her about the required behaviour and reward her - sticker chart leading to a 'gift' that she can work towards - for every school day that she manages to display acceptable behaviour.

I really recommend the parenting course/book called The Incredible Years, it helped me turn from a shouter to a calmer parent with DC who actively wanted to co-operate.

Hi I think the school should at least tell her that if she does it again then she will not be able to go out at playtime etc, but I think they are right not to punish her after you have already told her off as they are trying to maintain you as the ultimate discipliner and you have grounded her at home.

I think I would want to know why she bit the TA. What was going on to provoke such an attack. Its quite something for a child to bite an adult, kid to kid is usually heat of the moment stuff, but what was going on here?

And if she has been punished for it in the past and that's not worked, then its time to look for alternatives and maybe the school could help with that. such as ways to deal with her anger. I have heard some kids have a red card and when they feel like they are about to get angry (from frustration, fear, etc) they hold up the red card and the teacher lets them go to a quiet space to cool off / calm down.

I think she needs help to understand why she does it and how she feels before and after she does it.

this the second time she has bit someone in 3 weeks she knows wrong and right.
its only been in the 4 months that she has turned violent she ran up to dp and punched him in the nuts and another time we heard dd2 crying and found dd1 kicking dd2 in the belly .

this is so tough for you i dont think there are any quick fixes and punishing is not working.

what happened 4 months ago? something has triggered this behaviour.

This could be classic attention seeking behaviour, hard as it seems but even getting told off is attention.

she knows it is wrong but does it anyway, and punishments dont work, so what is the cause and what is the pay off - it is clearly worth putting up with the punishments for her. Is she jealous of dd2? is she worried about school? Is she testing the boundaries of what she can and cannot do?

iwantanother1, have you spoken with your GP about this? Are there any other issues?

My DS can hit out at other children occasionally (the same age as your DD) and is being investigated for Aspergers (not to suggest your DD is the same). However, one of the issues/problems he has is tactile defensiveness so that if he feels harrassed by too many people near him he can hit out. He is also deemed to have social communication problems and is getting 15 hours of one to one time as a result.

If this has been ongoing since your DD was 4 then it might be worth speaking to the school nurse and asking for a referral to the community paediatrician (if they have one in your area).

I think grounding her for a week is not going to help if there is an underlying issue which has not been resolved.

Can you forget the grounding and ask dd in a sympathetic way why she bit the TA.

Also ask her what else she could do if that situation happened again and let her generate the alternatives herself if she can.

Do you spend a lot of time with her and give her a lot of undivided attention at home doing positive activities?

4 months ago her head teacher was suspened and it turns out he had to many kids in the classes so when a new head came they spilt year 1 and 2 and made 3 classes so the bottom 6 kids in yr 2 went in to the top yr 1. when she was in yr 2 class she had some problems with concertating but never hit out like she has been since moving classes.

i will be talking to the SN teacher at the school and she will be referring dd to CAMS and then see what they say .

I would be refering her asap to cahms and phoning up your ed pyschs to come in and observe to get the ball rolling.
I really wouldnt punish.
I am a teacher and I dont punish children if it isnt their fault ie steps havent been taken by the adults to help the child's special needs.

Your daughter needs help not pointless punishment.

IWA1 I think other poster are right that you have to work with her to get her to stop this behaviour. It's really stressful for you, i know. I have a DS1 who is 4.5 and find that trying to get to the root of his feelings which caused the behaviour is much more productive than punishing him, when he is likely to feel resentful for not having his initial feelings listened to and even more so for then being punished on top. I know your DD is much older but it sounds lie she's got "stuck" in this behaviour since she was 4. Were there any major changes

Of course all children need to be taught what is right and wrong and some children may do "naughty" things to test us but I believe much of children's bad behaviour is often due to them having underlying problems or feelings they are unable to communicate to us. M DH is a bit like this, he isn't used to expressing how he is feeling so can sometimes be hideously grumpy (luckily he doesn't bite anyone!). I was brought up differently so it took me a while to realise that when he's snappy etc it's not because he's nasty (naughty) but because he's sad, or worried etc. but now instead of snappy back and escalating it, or sulking and ignoring him, I bombard him with kindness and we all feel better much quicker.

I can't comment on any underlying SN issues but I sounds like it needs more investigation.

Also just wondering what, if anything, happened 4 months ago and also if there were any changes in her life when she was 4?

Can you try this...

praise her all the time when not biting every 15 mins....then increase it by 10 min intervals until every 3 hrs good behaviour with nice reward...i.e 10 mins reading a book/sweets/anything she likes

Dont punish/remind her of bad behaviour at all and dedirect if she tries to bite or has (dont show any negetive communication as she may thrive on it).

Go to GP and ask for referral to Paed or Psychologist...is she delayed in any way emotional/communication/senory etc or even really hyper or highly strun esp in school....sign she's not coping! Does she cry or get anxious in school?

Also was their any trigger back then at 4yrs...death in family? seperation? vaccine? any change however small...even starting school.

I do agree that grounding a seven year old for a week is pointless, within a few days she will have forgotten what she's grounded for, I don't thinks its cruel though or that you are being bad, I just think your frustrated. Calm down, all kids misbehave and if she has only been violent for a few weeks then the chances are it a phase and she,s pushing the boundaries to see how far they stretch.

Talk to her, see if there is something bothering her at school or home
She may feel punishment is the only way to get attention, try a reward chart for good behaviour, don't completely ignore the bad, just don't over react, give her a small punishment and then leave it.
speak to the school. so if they think there is more to it.

it might all blow over and she will stop it as quick as she started it

Can you find out by talking to her, what is bothering her at the moment?
Problem is, some people just wont open up about their deepest feelings, so it might be hard to find out if she is jealous of her little sister, for example.

She probably wont even know herself why she did the biting, but you might be able to figuer it out, if you could get to whats upsetting her.
Have you already tried giving her 1 to 1 attention, say on a Saturday afternoon with one parent, while the other one looks after dd2?

I dont agree that bad behaviour shouldnt be punished, because you suspect that there is a deeper reason.
Eg, if she is doing it to get attention and prove that the boundaries still exist, because shes jealous of the baby, then how will she feel if the boundaries DONT exist any more?
But you can try to find out about the deeper reason at the same time.