Talk common sense to a small, sad person (and her son who's not doing so well either)

[gizmo]

DS1 is five, rising six. Beautiful, impulsive and hairy, with a fair brain in his head, as far as I can tell. Before he started school I had thought it would be so straightforward: as a nursery child from very early on he?s quite self sufficient and social and comfortable working in groups of children?

Hollow laughter. As we get into year 1 I look forward and fear for him. He spent the first year crashing around and trying to make friends but he was too physical: trying to tickle people who didn?t want it, trying to play tag with kids who just wanted to play their own games. Leaning on other children trying to sit quietly in class. He didn?t fit in well with them and it got worse as some of the boys realised he was quite easily wound up ? so they teased him and the tickling has turned to scratching, and the tag is turning to hitting. No-one wants to play with him now, and I don?t blame them

I hoped it would get better once we changed the after school care arrangements: he was sooo tired from going to after school club. But now we have a nanny and he comes home and slobs out and still when I talk to school or read his special behaviour book we?re getting incidents of hitting, scratching, barging people.

Why is he doing this? He shows no sign of it at home at all: he?s too active to be described as gentle but he knows where the line is and won?t cross it. If friends come over for a playdate he?s perfectly happily puttering around with them and I can?t think of an incident where he has hurt anyone. We?ve talked about it until I?m blue in the face but he is clamlike about school and extracting even a tiny nugget of information from him involves a huge amount of pressure.

So, folks, what to do? I don?t want him to have a dazzling social calendar but the idea of him being turned into the school bully is horrible. On my last visit to his teacher I realised that all the other children had written the name of a classmate under ?my best friend? in their little ?about me? books. Except DS1, who had written his nanny?s name. Nice to know they get along, but it would have cheered me up no end to see the name of one of his class mates there

Thanks Captainmummy and Isgrassgreener. It's comforting to get some perspective on this, because DS is my PFB and I'm really not sure what counts as 'normal' behaviour in a five year old. I thought this sort of stuff was pretty par for the course, to be honest, until I got a letter from school at the end of last year telling me that they were having problems with DS.

So I have ordered 'how to talk' from Amazon and drawing on what little I remembered had a nice evening with DS last night. DS got got a positive note in his book and we made a fuss of him and then I resolved not to talk about school any more. Until bedtime, when in response to a remark he made about his teacher I tried Anchovy's indirect 'so what's the naughtiest thing anyone in your class has done?' I got a very knowing look from that and he said 'that's me, I'm a bad boy' . Instantly abandoning all my 'how to talk' good intentions, rather than just reflecting it back to him I said 'no you're not, you're a good boy who makes mistakes sometimes - and everyone makes mistakes'. Bah, should have shut up and listened some more .

However, if I wasn't convinced before that the current approach isn't working, I am now. So actions for the next few weeks:

1. stop harping on about school when he's at home. I'm going to start writing down some brief notes about his good behaviour for his behaviour book so his teacher can see his good side
2. go talk to teacher. We need to thrash out a plan of attack that starts from the premise that DS1 is a good boy who just needs some help to fit in
3. get DS a few allies to play through judicious playdating
4. possibly give DS another context to learn some social skills. Beavers looks promising because it's not far away and some of his school mates (including boy x) already go.

Wish me luck!

I wish you lots of luck. What a loving mummy!

You're good Gizmo.

Your action plan sounds marvellous. I may have to copy it for myself. Well done. Let us know how you get on.

Gizmo, you've had loads of good advice here, and I don't have anything new to add. Just wanted to say that my nephew was a lot like this when he was your boy's age - it was a worse problem, actually, my sister was beyond her wits' end. But somehow, by using some of these strategies, just riding it out and saying 'he's lovely, he's growing and changing, it will all come right one day', they got through it. And he is still a bit socially awkward and probably will never be Top Kid: but he does fine, really likes school, has his mates etc. It will be OK, he has you to see to that...