Behavioural analysis

[Chrisscott79]

Hi don't know if this is right but I need advice. Ds is three and started nursery on the 5th Jan this year. 1 week in he has not gone a day without hitting someone. Staff have advised me that he gets excited when the baulk of children come in and that's when he hits. It appears unprovoked each time and I have put it down to adjustment as he's never been in a group of children this large. My problem is after a week in the nursery want to do a behaviour analysis on him (abc) for several sessions and offer support then if things don't improve consider that this may not be the right nursery for him. Do they not have a duty of care to integrate him or spend time teaching him. I find this hard to swallow after one week. I could accept after a month or two but one week is surely wrong. Please help need advice on how to handle this

It's great that they want to look at the ABC of his behaviour. It stands for - = antecedent ie. What led up to the behaviou. B = behaviour ie. What did he do. C = consequence ie. What was the consequence put in place to help him understand why that behaviour was not appropriate.

This is a really good way for the nursery to try and identify the trigger points for your son's frustration and hitting.

In th nursery where I work, we have implemented this system after a child has been with us for only a couple of days if we think it will help us understand him/her better, and work out strategies to try and support them to settle in.

Is it a private nursery or a local authority nursery?

They will be doing alongside everything they do with him to integrate and educate him
He won't notice they are doing it
Its very proactive of the nursery and not a negative at all
They are only observing him and looking at how they can support him
I doubt it will end in his exclusion but yes, they do have the right to exclude him if they feel its not the right setting for him

has he gone from no nursery to going 5 mornings a week? I wouldn't be concerned about them trying to help him, but I would want to talk to them about whether a more gradual phase into nursery might help - but in any case they will know more after they do the abc and be better placed to advise. I don't think you should fight them trying to help him.

I agree with the other three.
Trying to find out when (and therefore possibly why) he is hitting out, has got to be a good thing. Also communicating with you so well is another good thing.
They will also be trying to do all sorts to distract him and prevent him hitting out, but that will be alongside keeping notes of the abc.

But I can't understand why he's not done settling in sessions before starting, either.

Ok bit of an update as we have had a review today. So it's a bright horizons which is partly government funded I think. He's now been there 12 days as he was off for two and they have recorded 5 instances of disruptive behaviour which range from jumping on another childs back to throwing a toy at a child. He is OK when being led by an adult but as soon as he is left to his own devices He is disruptive. The biting has stopped but he is still hitting I'm his disruptive phase. We have 2 weeks of reviews where there has to be noticeable change or they will take the stance that the nursery is not right for him . So basically he won't have even attended for a month before they exclude him. I just don't think there even giving him a chance.

I have tried to integrate him into spurgeons activities but as a stay at home dad these are very limited. I haven't felt welcomed into many of the activities as it is predominantly female environment so I've made the best of what is available to me so soft plays (which he is fine with and interacts well with other children) dad's group etc.. so he has had some integration of sorts.

He's had 2 one hour settling in sessions where he was fine as well.

And thank you all for your replies. Very kind of you all to help and I'm most grateful. ☺