move him or not?!

[Beth2537]

Little boy attends a small private preschool, he has been attending since January. I have been getting negative comments about his behavior he is 3.3yrs. He is well behaved at home with the odd melt down over some issues. Is this a sign that he is unhappy there? He only goes a couple of afternoons.

Nursery worker here!

Moving him could affect his behaviour so first think about everything that could be causing it.

Has there been a change at home? New sibling, change of sleeping/daily routine, illness.

Is there someone st nursery that could be triggering bad behaviour, I.e is he fighting with another child?

Speak to his key person and see what you can do to help him. Perhaps she can include some extra one on one time and provide him with some opportunities to express himself. Normally the nursery will be more than happy to work alongside you to help him!

Let me know how you get on!

I think it's a sign that the setting isn't right for him. Boys (or my boys) need space and lots of physical activity and some settings aren't geared to for that.

My thought is that maybe two afternoons a week isn’t often enough for him to have settled properly yet? If he’s only been going since January it’s still early days. I think it’s a bit of a leap to assume there’s anything wrong.

How are his communication skills? Sometimes frustration with people can cause issues. Is he developing normally in other areas?

Does he mix with others the rest of the week or is he getting over excited wanting to run around as its his only interaction with other children and he doesn't want to stop and listen?

So if he's got a good social life going to groups play dates etc. on say 3 other days and he sleeps well (over tiredness can cause over stimulated looking behaviour), I would look to see if this group offer him enough or if their expectations are too much for a child his age, some will expect a lot of carpet time for example which is not really appropriate for this age past a few minutes, can you observe a session?

Two afternoons a week is really hard for him, I'd suggest. He can't get into a routine, as it's too long between sessions; when he gets to nursery most of the other children have already been there all day so he is always having to slot into their day; and it's hard to make friends as the other children will naturally become closer to the children that they see more frequently.

Before moving him, have a proper meeting with his key worker and the room leader to discuss his behaviour and what they think is happening. I would consider doing more sessions to give him some consistency too.

How reasonable have their concerns about his behaviour been? My son’s nursery while quite good has a bit of an anal culture about it (very popular with lower middle class families) so we get a bit of a mixed bag. There are reasonable complaints like ‘he hit another kid today’ and ‘he refuses to come in for lunch timE’ and then there are unreasonable concerns like ‘today he stared at a picture for a really long time today, like thirty seconds, and then he got very happy about it’ and ‘he just refuses to conform!’ We’ve just learned to filter the genuinely bad or concerning behaviours from the down right weird things the staff (ok, two particular staff members) complain about.