sitting down to counsel of war tonight with dh with regards to ds's (3) behaviour....can you help us?

[Heathcliffscathy]

ds is generally lovely little boy blah blah di bolleaux.

we have had trouble with him before in terms of hitting/kicking/scratching generally lashing out at other children and us, but with a combination of positive parenting and making it very clear that behaviour was unacceptable got through it and until recently he was really great.

in the last few weeks, he has been hauled up for lashing out (when wants something another kid has for example) at nursery 3 times.

dh and I very depressed about this. we never accept this kind of behaviour from him at home, always say 'no' firmly and explain what is wrong. often confiscate toy that he used to hit, or say 'no park now' if he has been crappy.

trouble is, he says sorry, often gets upset and cries, but then does exactly same thing ten mins later.

we do a LOT of positive praising for behaviour we like, and a lot of modelling of good behaviour, thanking each other, being appreciative of each other and helping each other.

please help us??? what is the right way to curb this behaviour? how can we be more consistent. something has to be done, as I don't want him to become the 'naughty' kid at nursery (to be fair, they are at pains to tell me how lovely he is, that this isn't a big deal, but that he is thinking of something to distract the teller off with when being told off rather than taking it in. they have also said that part of the problem seems to be that he is very bright, verbally precocious and charming and therefore gets away with stuff.)

help mn please.

lol at blah blah di bolleaux!

what about a chart in nursery, split into morning and afternoon, where he gets a sad face if he has been naughty and a happy face if good.

Then at the end of the week, he gets a treat if no sad faces?

I've found quiet time, of one sort or another, to be a good punishment for this sort of behaviour. A few minutes sitting staring at a wall being bored is a very good and appropriate punishment, imo.

Does he do this outside nursery? If it's just at nursery, it's largely up to nursery to sort it out, iyswim. Maybe they aren't praising enough? Maybe they aren't punishing clearly enough?

His behaviour sounds very very normal for the age, and doesn't mean he'll be a thug at 5.

I should add that it isn't just at nursery, although, more so there, he does have friends round and it seems to depend on his mood tbh.

i really don't want to make excuses, but he has had a persistent cough for a couple of weeks now, taking it's toll on sleep at night (including nosebleeds) and i don't think that is helping at all.

having said that we need to do something.

I'm worried about using charts, we have used them before to great effect, but equally, i hate that he is doing something for a treat....this came home to me when we went shopping for dh on saturday and ds was asking when he could get his treat almost before we'd left the house.

sigh.

we are not getting it right at the moment.

Hello love.
Sorry you and you DS are going through this. He must be so miserable with it all himself.

Charlotte has a habit of really, really shouting 'NOOOOO' at her teacher at the moment.

We are trying to gether out of this habit by:

• letting her know that when she is good and doesn't shout everyone is happy and she is allowed to do something she likes at the end of the day. At school this is play with dolls and at home watch a DVD. We tell her again and again that if she shouts it makes everyone sad and she has to have time out and do dvd/doll. We then go on to say 'no shouting, shouting finished, mummy happy, Charlotte happy, Charlotte allowed DVD'. Keeping the language simple. Everytime she shouts at school, (she's testing er teacher), she is given time out. She'll keep coming out and saying 'Miss happy?' and the teacher will say 'no Charloote, Charlotte shouted, Miss sad', and Charlotte goes back to time out until she says sorry. She is then given a cuddle and she's ok again, until the next time!

We're gettign there/. We got her out of the hair pulling and now it's the shouting.

Don't now if anything there will help.
Don't know if we're doing it right ourselves.
Good luck.

I know what you mean sophable about rewarding 'normal' behaviour, but I think in a 3yo, you can't sometimes articulate the ins and outs of unacceptable behaviour (and expect them to understand), sometimes you just need to change the habit.

sophable, if the charts worked in the past could the treat not be things like going to the park, getting to watch fave dvd, going swimming, doing something like baking or painting?

god teecee it's such a grind isn't it?

am tired just thinking about it.

yes he is pretty mis at the moment, much much whingier than usual.

i'm probably bitch mother from hell, as this may be about being ill....but having said that if i waited til he didn't have cold to try to sort our behaviour out so that his gets sorted out (i totally believe that childrens behaviour is a reflection of what is happening (even if unsaid) around them...esp parents) then it would never happen.

that has to win prize for most convoluted sentence doesn't it?

i've said that if he is good at nursery today he can have friend roudn for lunch, am dreading going in a minute and realising that he hasn't been good and i have take said friend home....oh god.

you're right huw, and ae, you too, we shoudl make treats non material things.

It is absolutley a habit. Like when you wake once at 4.40am, then the next night the same happens and before you know it you're waking at 4.30 for a week. Then something happens to break that cycle. Doesn't mean it won't happen again, but it won't last.

We astopped the hair pulling, now we're shouting. That too will stop and it will more than likely be replaced with something else but it'll all stop eventually.

I think a lot of it is down to frustration. With L it's her lack of vocab, with your son maybe he is frustrated and bored and not being stretched ewnough mentally at this playgroup, maybe he's frustrated and bored???????

I'm no expert (God only knows!) but our ds is nearly 3 and he lashes out when he gets annoyed or upset (usually at his big sis).

IMO...little boys do tend to be quite physical in the sense that they can't really vocalise their frustrations or annoyances and therefore the quickest and most effective way for them to express their feelings is physically, by hitting or punching or whatever. That's not excusing it for one minute, it's just the way a lot of boys are.

With our ds we play it right down, don't make a big hoo-hah out of it, sit him on a 'naughty chair' (just to get him cooled down and away from dd who is normally crying becaused her brother hit her) and ask ds 'what did you do that was naughty', 'why did you do it', 'you know that was naughty, don't you?' 'you didn't mean to hit her, did you? You love her really, go and say sorry, give her a kiss' and by that time dd has normally calmed down enough to accept that her brother can be an annoying little thing sometimes but she still loves him really too.

So I guess we try to help him vocalise what the original problem was, how he dealt with it, why he was wrong, and how to put it right. It can be quite a process (while the dinner burns in the kitchen!) but IMO it's important to help dcs understand themselves and understand why they react badly to things sometimes.

My hope is that by training him to reason with us about his behaviour, he will learn to reason with himself and to stophimself when he starts getting angry. He's still very little but as he gets older I'm sure I'll go down the route of teaching him to count to 10 or walk away or think about something else or whatever distraction techniques can stop him becoming so angry thathe lashes out physically.

IMO these things take time and patience. It sounds like you're doing al the right things - it's just that annoyance / anger are really powerful forces and they take some subduing. So IMO the earlier I start training ds to deal with anger, hopefully the less of a problem it will be.

Sorry, v. long-winded answer!

Given the problem is at nursery, it really should (mostly) be dealt with at nursery. They need to have a plan in place to fix things - it's really not your remit, sophable, although of course I understand you being concerned.

(I have a particular interest in this sort of thing, as I'm involved in a parent-run nursery, where parents do shifts.)

I guess the one big thing you can do at home is reinforce and remind him about the right behaviour. Find out from the staff what's normally setting him off (wanting what another kid has), and work on getting him to do the right thing when that happens (ask nicely, get the staff to arrange for everyone to get their turn etc etc).

WEll, having met your very delightful, calm, well-behaved and engging little boy - this does sound like a particularly isolated patch of troubled waters in his llittle life.

So...I wonder.....

Could you teach him another way to handle the frustration he feels when he really can't have anything? I think it's very hard for kids to channel the upsurge of jealousy / frustration / anger they feel when something doesn't go their way...and trying to compel them to be calm and quiet is hard for them too. I confess i don't know how you could do this...but letting him know that it's ok to feel it might be a start..it just isn't ok to act on it in quite that way. Get him to practise saying 'i was playing with that' quite assertively, and 'could i have a turn with that in a minute please', so that he can express himself verbally rather than lasshing out.

The other thing that might help is a very practical session in taking turns. Children are frequently exorted to 'share' - a rather woolly and intangible concept for little ones. 'taking turns' is much more practical for them, imo. Invite a co-operative friend to play and make a game of 'taking turns' - your turn, his turn, your turn, his turn..in v quick succession - 5 seconds turns each, then they hand it over, then ask for it back, and then again. A notion of taking turns might re-assure him that there is a way that he WILL get the toy in a moment, so it isn't the end of the world that he hasn't got it NOW. My nanny and I taught her child and DS to do this v early on and I am sure that it avoided a lot of toddler / pre-schooler strife between them!

Anyway - sorry if this is teaching you to suck eggs or not appropriate...can't think of anything else except wait for the phase to pass! And remember that nursery will have seen it all - and more - before!

sophable I just cannot believe how amazingly skilled and dedicated ds's can be at doing what THEY want to do, they have amazing stubbornness and generally remember what they want to remember then sod the rest!

my ds can be very loving too, it is just very waring and hard to focus on the good stuff when the bad stuff hurts

like the taking turns idea Blu

He's 3 sophable- be realistic. Give him time to learn acceptable behaviour (it'll take years yet). I think expecting him to never lash out etc - if he is that way inclined- is unrealistic at 3. Carry on reifnorcing alternatives, but do be realistic about how long it will take.

A phrase that our DCs (excellent) nursery instilled into all the children was to 'use your words'. Any lashing out was intervened and the 'use your words' phrase said repeatedly until the child in question was able to articulate what it was they wanted and ask for it nicely.

So the lashing out wasn't dwelled on, but the desired behaviour was.

The nursery owner's view was that boys ability to articulate needs at this age lags the girls somewhat and they tend to use physical means of communication instead. Helping them to articulate what they needed or wanted helped them find their voice in a non-physical way

We adopted the phrase for home use with remarkable success too

As Jimjams says - it did take time though!

TBH Sophable three times in a few weeks doesn't sound too bad to me. If the nursery are saying it's not a big deal I am not sure why you are so worried. All 3 year olds go through phases of this and with consistency at home and nursery it should be just that - a phase.

I think sometimes if you are the kind of adult to whom violence of any kind is abhorrent (and I know I am) you can have a disproportionate response to this sort of behaviour. I have been there! And my ds is a very gentle soul now, at nearly 7.

Hi Soph, I have a similar probelm with my ds who is 4 (see my thread in Behaviour section) so will follow this with interest.

Your ds sounds alot like mine tbh, and dh and I feel really down that we're not getting it right either....so we end up grumpy/snapping at each other.

Oh forgot to say - it was a Montessori nursery - so the child being asked to share or give up the toy always had the right to say no!

Again though, they were asked to try and articulate why they were saying no - and often it was 'because he's just kicked me!'

He sounds like my ds, when he is tired and/or hungry (esp. the bit about distracting the teller-off instead of taking it in ). It sounds as though this cough disrupting his sleep (and presumably it's disrupting yours as well, which doesn't help) could account for a large part of it, but I agree that you need to make it clear that his behaviour isn't acceptable just because he's feeling under the weather.

Other things I might want to check just in case: if it is largely in nursery that he has a problem, is he getting hungry during the day? Is he eating up the food they provide? Is he getting enough snacks in-between?

Also, I agree with roseylea about the lashing out being quite a boy thing. He's at the age where his friends start to become important to him - have any of his particular mates left the nursery or been away recently? Ds went through a similar sort of frustrated phase when he had just turned 3, and eventually we found out he'd had a massive falling out with one of his friends which had culminated in friend saying ds would no longer be welcome at his birthday party. Which ds considered to be a major trauma. Once apologies had been made and the party invite reinstated, his behaviour improved overnight.

Hi sophable, I don't know if this will help but a good friend of mine has had this problem - her son is 3 and a lovely boy but tends to lash out at his sister and friends. She finds that he hates the 'organised' side of nursery - circle time, etc. and is much happier playing or running around. She has found that new swimming lessons are really helping - focussing him on a new physical activity in a different group of children and there are BADGES to work towards!! Also, it's physically tiring, which helps! Just thought I'd mention it - maybe your DS would enjoy a new activity away from the nursery group?

How did your 'council of war' go?