Consequences for bad behaviour at 5?

[MyCatHatesOtherCats]

What consequences do you use for bad behaviour in 5 year olds?

Specifically, I’d be interested to know what consequences you would deploy for deliberately weeing on the floor...

If he was eyeballing your DH as he did it I would say that it was a form of extreme attention seeking.

If time out isn’t working you could look at time in.

www.thebump.com/a/toddler-time-ins

Yep, we had also had his little sister 18 months before the behaviour started. It's hard for them I think.

We haven’t tried visual timetables, no - that’s a good idea. We are in a new routine of me being back at work plus him in school and wraparound after school so are kind of feeling our way a bit. Normally when we do school pick-up he comes in, gets changed and has a snack in front of the tv to wind down. On wraparound days we eat as soon as the kids are home.

I like the tent/beanbag idea. I have suggested him retreating to his bedroom to calm down but he’s not having that at all.

I’m also interested that you say your son is autistic, as I do have some concerns that DS may have some neurodiversity. But school have no concerns so I am kind of just keeping an eye on it to see whether the issues persist as he matures. Don’t feel you have to answer as it’s obviously personal, but there anything in particular that led to your DS’s diagnosis?

I can't find the one we used but there's loads of books to use to explore feelings when I looked. So I'd find something you think would work with your ds.

We also has great success with timetables as feeling ambushed and out of control was a trigger. Also a timer that DC controlled. We also tried signing when he was struggling with verbalising things, with some success.

Hi my ds didn't actually have meltdowns at 5. He was completely passive.

He's very cognitively able but he just didn't really engage with others. Couldn't hold 2 way conversations, cannot read facial expressions, tone or body language. He couldn't describe how he felt beyond happy or sad which is why we worked on expanding his description of how he felt.

It maybe change of routine that's triggering his upset. If it's escalating and going on for this amount of time it's likely meltdown which is harder to manage.

So a weekly visual timetable showing each day and what will happen each day and a reminder each day may help him manage.

Schools often say children are fine which usually means they don't cause an issue. My ds was fine at school in respect you'd probably not even notice he was there as he was so quiet!

I'd ask for a meeting with teacher and ask direct questions you want answered such as "does ds settle as well when the activity changes from routine". "Does ds play with friends or alongside them. Or does he move play towards his interests"

It's very hard to describe sometimes what particular things make you think they are autistic but me and my family just knew ds was from about 18 months. Although no learning difficulties he just was quite typical.

If you have concerns approach the GP and ask for a referral to a developmental paediatrician. I always think never underestimate mother's intuition!

He’s testing and challenging you to see how you’ll respond as well as trying to deal with difficult feelings he’s having. If you go down the punishments/consequences route I would worry the whole thing will escalate.

The temptation to to react with control and to get pretty tough when actually what might be needed is some softness and babying for a while. Sounds like he’s dealing with quite a lot at the moment. So maybe Time In and love bombing rather than punishments.

Don’t make a big deal about the weeing incident. The more attention you give it the more likely he is to do it again. I found Penelope Leach pretty useful to read in situations like this.

For deliberate mess making of any kind, I would make them clear it up, but not punish that age. I have never found time out to work and saying something is "naughty" just seems to make them want to do something to live up to the label. Hugging it out can work when they are in an utter rage. Also just saying what do you think you are going to achieve here, or similar, but that would need to be said before total loss of control.

@N4ish

He’s testing and challenging you to see how you’ll respond as well as trying to deal with difficult feelings he’s having. If you go down the punishments/consequences route I would worry the whole thing will escalate.

The temptation to to react with control and to get pretty tough when actually what might be needed is some softness and babying for a while. Sounds like he’s dealing with quite a lot at the moment. So maybe Time In and love bombing rather than punishments.

Don’t make a big deal about the weeing incident. The more attention you give it the more likely he is to do it again. I found Penelope Leach pretty useful to read in situations like this.

I agree with this (and I need to remind myself of it when I’m in the moment). Op, I’m going through similar with my 5 year old dd, there are a lot of similarities right down to the change in work pattern and wrap around care. My dd completely loses control, she’ll launch things in temper (causing absolute meyhem), become physical accompanied by shouting and screaming. Her school feedback are things like “absolute delight”, “very well behaved and polite”.

When she’s not in “the moment” she’s loving, caring and has a huge heart. I think the little ones (and lots of us big ones too) are finding everything unsettling at the moment, they’re reminded constantly about the pandemic (surrounded by mask wearers, encouraged to constantly wash their hands, don’t go near people not even your own family who don’t live with you) that’s some pretty scary shit for them to process and for some the only way they can release those feelings is by doing things that aren’t welcomed by others. All that is along with suddenly being thrust back into school life then wrap around care.

Your post has reminded me that it’s important to see the bigger picture, I have noticed that when I use the “you need a hug” stance the situation quickly diffuses resulting in her calming down, apologising and trying to articulate how she was feeling. I think some of us need to employ “pandemic parenting” which is going to be a fine tuning exercise however we look at it.