5 year old becoming the naughty child?

[SkyBlue1987]

Hello all, my five year old who has been at school for a couple of months now, is I fear becoming the disruptive child. This is new to me as I was the super well behaved child at school, although I believe my husband was also not too well behaved when he was at school. My son is very bright, not to the extent of being gifted, but he does say he is bored a lot and really, he just doesn’t listen or want to follow instructions/do what the rest of the class is doing. He just wants to do his own thing/make his own rules up. I want to resolve this asap so it doesn’t affect his long term learning but I am at a loss of what to do or what consequences to initiate for disrupting the class at school. Looking for advice from parents who have been in the same situation.

Have you talked to his teachers?

Yes they have chatted to us briefly to let us know he was becoming a bit disruptive. It’s not a major issue yet but want to start working on it.

I'm guessing if he has only been there a couple of months you aren't in England? Or did he start later in the year for a reason?
Some children find it really hard adjusting into full time school...the routines and rules 5 days a week can be alot for them.As it's such early days I would just watch and wait.
It doesn't mean he is naughty because he is being disruptive, he might just be more of an active learner or bored like you say by the structure of it all.
They need to adapt to him rather than the other way round at that age.A good school will do that to a reasonable extent.

Thanks, no we are not in the UK, kids start at five where we are but he has been in preschool/daycare since he was one so is definitely used to being in a leaning environment. He wasn’t perfectly behaved at daycare either but not such a big deal.

Why does he have to be ‘perfectly behaved’? He’s 5.

I think you need some more details from the school @SkyBlue1987 so might be worth asking for a meeting or even just a phone call?

School is a massive adjustment, some kids take longer to settle than others.

It depends on what "disruptive" things they're talking about I guess? Fidgeting and wondering off from the mat at story time? Par for the course! Being destructive or lashing out, more serious and needs addressing asap. Either way, I'm betting they've seen it all before and should have some solid plans in place to help him.

Because he's disrupting the rest of the class. Imagine your child was one who wanted to listen to the story, for instance, and OP's child kept spoiling it by interrupting or he was taking her things, or prodding and annoying her. I've no idea what he was actually doing of course.

I would recommend talking to his Teacher too. Ask what he’s doing exactly and if they have any concerns about him.

I would do this very quick progress checker too jist to double check that his communication is on track and it’s not a hearing problem that is behind his behaviour

Is his behaviour worse than in childcare or have your expectations suddenly changed?

I wouldn't call him the naughty child. He's slightly disruptive not naughty. I don't think its realistic for a child to be perfectly behaved all the time. There will be phases throughout the term/year where behaviour decreases for a variety of reasons.

He says he is bored so I would address this first - have you addressed this with the teachers? Does he find the work too easy or too hard? Does he complete it quickly? Does he understand the tasks? Is there a pattern to his not listening and disruptiveness e.g. a certain lesson.

My DS has had a hard Y2 (along with the rest of the class apparently!). There are several factors that could be effecting behaviour - teacher (our teacher went on mat leave after Term 1 so new teacher and style of teaching), others in the class, time in the term, step up of work level and a whole lot of other reasons.

I was recommended not to implement consequences outside of school for behaviour in school. School address it there and then. Instead we were recommended a reward system for the good things. e.g. if we have a week of no 'consequences' at school, my DS can pick from a list of rewards. A whole term he gets to pick an additional after school activity to do. It's worked really well since being implemented. It's taken a few terms but we (fingers crossed) seem to be there with it now.

This.

Im a teacher and a parent of a 4.5yo.

I think you need to see what the issues are (presumably can’t sit still/keep quiet/let others have a good turn?), then ask how school are dealing with it, and try to implement the same techniques at home.

is he used to sitting and listening, waiting his turn, etc. at home? Or does he get immediate attention all the time ? I’d also consider whether he has screen time and how much. It is a MASSIVE factor in shortened attention spans, patience etc.

She didn’t say he has to be “perfectly behaved”, so I’m not sure why you’re using quotation marks here?!?

However, if he is becoming very disruptive, the issue is that he’s not the only kid in the class, and he’s therefore impeding others’ learning.

Has anything changed at home recently? He may be reacting to that. The key thing is to talk to his teacher and see what they feel the issues are. Set up a system for checking in regularly with them how he has been and make sure he knows you are checking and following up on the good reports as well as the not so good.

If they weren’t checked before he started school, get his eyesight and hearing checked as he may be missing instructions or finding the work harder than he should be because he can’t access it. Don’t rely on thinking he is fine at home, which is a smaller, quieter environment with familiar cues he can pick up on to know what is expected of him. Appearing to not be listening and making up his own rules might indicate that he can’t hear everything or that he can’t process the language (something which his teachers should have picked up on), so just decides to do as he thinks.