Please offer some help/advice - hitting

[ihatecbeebies]

My DS was in preschool last year and was quite difficult, he didn't listen to the teachers and would hit the other children. He started primary school yesterday and when I took him in again today the teacher took me aside and told me that he had a bad day yesterday. He didn't do anything he was asked and hit 4 children, headbutting one (I don't even know where he's ever seen a headbutting before and was in shock when she told me!!). She said this couldn't happen at all which I obviously agreed with and said I'd talk to him.

The problem is I am really struggling with what to do about this, he's an only child so I've not encountered this before and at home his behaviour is really great, we're always complimented on it. He does what he is asked at home and if he does hit/talk back/refuse something I ask I send him for a 'time out', and if he continues to hit after that then time out again and he isn't allowed a privilege.

I don't smack him, I don't let him watch anything he shouldn't on tv, I make sure he eats healthily and is in bed for 7pm. I don't know how to stop the behaviour at school, when he was at preschool and it happened I'd take away favourite toys and privileges (like tv, going to softplay etc) and if he behaved he'd get a lot of praise but tbh nothing I done stopped the bad behaviour, where am I going wrong? - I'd appreciate any advice or someone who's had the same experience what did the primary school do, do they expel children so young?

Could you talk to him and ask him why he is doing it? Perhaps even try some roundabout methods like getting him to draw a picture of what happened during the hitting incident, you might gain quite a lot of understanding from his reaction - whether he's angry, seems happy, or draws the other children much bigger than him, or something. There's some good stuff in "How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk" along these lines. It could be that he's getting frustrated/angry and doesn't know or think to act differently in the heat of the moment - he reacted similarly in nursery, you say, so it could be along these lines. Or perhaps he is overwhelmed by being in an environment with lots of people. Or he could be being picked on, or it could be as simple as a communication difficulty or not understanding why other children won't relate to him in a particular way. (By happy BTW, I don't mean to imply that means he just likes it, since he doesn't do it in other situations, I'd say it's more likely that he would feel happy if he felt he had got to the level of the other children, or got them back for something, or that he'd finally made them listen to him or any other thing along these lines)

I expect that an extra punishment after school would miss the point entirely, I expect he gets some kind of punishment at school, and it sounds like you are pretty hot on these kinds of issues at home, so it's not that he needs extra discouragement to lash out in this way, I think it's more likely he needs to be shown or taught some coping mechanisms for when he wants to lash out.

And I think with the coping mechanisms, BTW, if there's anyone who you can speak to at the school to make sure you're on the same page with this, that would be helpful. The school might even have some suggestions, they might have a quiet corner he can take himself off to, or a cushion he can go and hit, or something. Hopefully he will learn to use these strategies more reliably as he gets older.

He's not being picked on as it is a different school he's went to so a group of different children but still the same problems. I was just called to the school there to collect him early as he'd punched the teacher! Had a meeting with the head teacher and assistant head and he told them that I hit him last night (which I definite didn't) but he kept arguing with me and said I did so the teachers now think I hit him too and said they'll pass my name on to an organisation that would offer me help and support outside of school. She also said that it was very unusual for a child so young to have their parent called to the school to remove them for their behaviour, especially on the 2nd day of school, I almost burst out crying in the middle of the meeting.