someone pushed 4 yr old ds today. What should I do?

[MrPinkerton]

Ds week 3 of Reception, doing okish settling in I suppose, however, here and there kids can be a bit 'unpleasant'. So someone shoved him out of the way in the loos today and DP wants me to phone his teacher NOW and tell her.

He is our pfb, in case you were wondering!

Would you phone - I feel a bit embarrassed and maybe like I'm a bit overprotective doing this?

Or not or what?

The main problem here is not that your ds can't cope, or is failing to stick up for himself, is it? In fact, he seems to be coping perfectly well. He had forgotten about the scratch and was as far as we can see happy. If that's not coping, then I don't know what is.

Let's shout it loud: HE IS COPING WITH SCHOOL!

The person who has difficulties is your dh, is it not? This is more likely to be about him than about ds. For some reason, he has fears, either of school as such, or of this particular school, or of other children, or of the whole concept of beginning to let go of ds.

Can you point out to him (gently) that he created the problem with the scratch; that your ds was fine until his Daddy went and told him that he wasn't! And that if he carries on doing this, he risks undermining your ds's confidence and turning him into a frightened and unhappy little boy. Is that what he wants?

IMHO we have none of us the right to give our children our own fears- they'll have their own separate burdens in life, and probably ones we hadn't even thought of; they don't need ours. My Dad who has a dog phobia bravely let me play with (and even feel the puppy teeth of )next-door's dog; I am still grateful to him- dogs have given me a lot of pleasure in life. I would have hate to have had his fears instead.

The other thing you need to tell your dh is that if his ds perceives him to overreact and interfere to much, he is likely to stop confiding in him when he gets into his pre-teens.

Personally I think if you start talking to ds lots about coping mechanisms at this point, you will give him the message that you don't think he is coping as it is. There's no evidence of that, is there? Leave the coping talk until he shows you (without words being put in his mouth) that he is unhappy.

To bore you with further anecdotes:

when I was a young child I was very frightened of other children, and I did in fact get bullied in primary school

I sort of assumed that this would be something my dc's would have to go through

but I took good care not to mention this and to try to stay calm when the inevitable tales of falling-out-with-friends started trickling through

in the event, my dc's were not me. They turned out to be sociable, resilient people who found it easy to make friends; any upsets proved temporary- usually forgotten about in a matter of days

instead they had other problems that I never anticipated. Dd developed a painful chronic disorder and ds has struggled academically. I had my burden and they have theirs.

I often reflect that if I had given them my fears, they would have ended up with twice the number of burdens I had, totally unnecessarily. Life is tough enough without us pointing it to our children.

Thanks Cory for your posts - actually everybody, it's been very useful and I'm thinking hard about our approach to this in general.

We want him to be happy and confident obviously. We do have anxieties - DP currently outstripping mine, mainly because he becomes upset then angry. He drove me up the wall last night admittedly. I did think phoning ds's teacher up a bit ott which is why I posted, but ds had after all been pushed, shoved and scratched during his day, so DP was responding to 3 incidents not just one isolated push.

Ds is in his 3rd week of school and has yet to use the loo there because he doesn't want to ask the teacher to let him go. He peed in his trousers on Monday because he couldn't just ask. Someone shoves him and when we say 'What did you do' he replies 'Nothing'.

We are not there to see what happens and I'm sure it's boisterousness or a bit of clumsiness, but if he can't bring himself to speak (to the kids or the teachers) then we want support him by developing a communicative relationship with his teachers (as they have urged us to do). Only while he learns to respond appropriately himself, obviously. But currently he is unusually quiet, non-verbal, whatever, and this is the feedback from his teachers - at home and with friends he is normal and rowdy - so I think it's hard for some people who posted on this thread to really understand our concerns and to assume we are somewhat hysterical (maybe we are).

Two practical things (I have a fairly gentle son, who is now a resilient nearly 7 year old):

1. We taught him to just hold his hand out and say "Stop". Because it works in all situations and cannot be misunderstood. He got reasonably good at this.

1. Ds started doing judo in Y1. This was not actually to do with self defence, but it has helped enormously with physical self confidence. As far as I can tell they do a lot of rolling around like puppies - it has made Ds hugely more relaxed about a bit of jostling. His younger sister has always been much more relaxed about this (it being the lot in life of younger sisters to be sat on from their early years) but DS has had to learn this, and has done so well.

He sounds a bit like ds actually. Very noisy at home, but found it hard to speak outside the home. He went through a phase when first starting preschool when he would not speak English at all (he is bilingual, though perfectly competent in English). Also very quiet at Infants and needing prompting from the teacher to speak at all (though socialising and making friends with the other children). At Juniors, he still needs to be nudged to join in discussions. But our feeling is that he is making progress every year and that the school is handling him well. (my fear now is that one day they'll find out what he really sounds like )

I don't think in ds's case putting pressure on him to become somebody different would have helped; he needed time to grow in confidence. He was clearly well liked even at the time when he hardly spoke at all, and he did not show other signs of being unhappy about school.

I think you need to separate a couple of different issues here:

one being the genuine problems that ds has, like being frightened of using the loo

These need to be addressed. They are not unusual and not a sign of failure on eiother your part, his part or the school's part. It's just part of his growing up. But of course the practicalities need to be addressed. Don't hesitate to ask the teacher's advice. Maybe he could have a coloured card to show if doesn't want to speak? that's what they did with dd when she found it too hard to tell someone that her back was hurting and she couldn't cope. Maybe someone could remind him at a set time? But go in asking for help, not accusing them.

two being problems that are only problems if you tell him about it. These may be minor scratches, but also failure to interact/make friends etc, things that would be failures in the eyes of your dh, but may not be to him.

For me, it would have been a mahoosive failure if I had lost confidence to the point where I did not put my hand up for every question in class- ds has no such ambitions and doesn't know he is supposed to. On the other hand, for ds, who is sociable, spending most lunch breaks alone would be a bad sign, but I was a bit of a loner so it didn't make me feel bad as long as I wasn't bullied.

Anchovy, Cory - useful and reassuring, thanks.

MrP, you do need to have a word with the teacher about the weeing. That was she can say "Does anyone need a wee?? LittlePinkerton, do you?" and then he can just nod and a TA or someone can take him out.
It's very, very common for kids to be scared of asking, or scared of the communal loos in reception so the teacher will be happy to help you and him manage that fear.

Can you get your Dh to read this thread so he has a better idea of what is worth making a fuss over at school? It sounds like he's a very protective Daddy which is lovely, but as you've seen. It can backfire on LittleP and yourselves.

MrP your son sounds much like DS1. He's very sensitive and when he started school last year they were concerned about how shy and timid he appeared. He is so not like that at home.

When it came to aggression he had 1 particular lad in his class last year who was a bit overexcitable, pushing and hitting most of the kids including DS1 at some point. DS1 was very matter of fact about it and said he just tried to stay out of this lads way which on the whole worked and I thought was a fairly sensible strategy.

On one occasion I got a call from the school to say this boy had thrown a car which had hit DS1 on the face and scratched him. I just said oh well these things happen but they said no its not tolerated and the poor little lad was taken out of the classroom until 1pm when his mum collected him. They actually asked if I wanted to come to the school to see DS1 and check his face. I asked if DS1 was asking for me, they said no

TBH I was surprised they made such a big deal of it, DS1 wasn't that bothered. He'd forgotten about it by the time he came out of school and there was hardly anything to see.

I think kids have their own ways of dealing with situations and as much as possible we have to let them develop that.

Just to add that DS1 is now in Y1 and loves school. He's still not particularly outgoing but thats just the way some kids are at school.

Quick update. DP DID go in with ds yesterday and 'had a word' with one of the Reception teachers who wrote it all down in her little notebook. Fortuneately DP also praised the school and the efforts of ds's teachers in particular. The teacher went through them with me at home time, expressing concern and explaining what may have caused them to happen.

This morning another of his teachers caught me to have a chat about ds, and I let her know that he seems very happy in general, talks positively about it at home and that he needs to get used to the bustle of school life and learn how to say No if someone does something he doesn't like. She agreed and said that he's gradually coming out of himself.

They may of course be giggling about us in the staff room but their reaction to this has been wholly positive in my view. I thought I would post just in case someone read this thread and felt they couldn't call upon the teachers with a worry in case it was too minor (as I guess were ours) for them to bother with.

Dd has been pushed around at school, shes the same age as your son, first the girl punched her hand onto the table (i did'nt say anything), then she punched her in the stomache (i spoke to the teacher and the mother spoke to me), then she shut dd in the cloakroom (i spoke to the mother). The little girl is still pushing her around and the mother has told me to get dd to push her back (dd does'nt like this idea) in a way i think she needs to push her back, i know its wrong but i can't see this little girl giving in unless dd stands up to her

Marne. Well I guess I would be beside myself if this happens to ds. Actually I'm appalled that your dd has to put up with this.

I know we need to teach ds to stand up for himself, and DP has been tempted to tell DS to 'shove back' but I've asked him not to. The reason, in our case, is that I want him to learn how to verbalise his need for someone to stop and not hit back. I'm concerned that the 'shov'em back route will cause problems in a year or two when a potentially still silent ds hits out because we've told him it's ok, and cause himself (and others) further problems.

Your poor dd. She needs to give this little girl a very wide berth.

Oh, please don't tell him to shove back - that's not good behaviour at all. The rules we give our DSes are:

1. Tell the child it's not ok. Loudly if needed.
2. If that doesn't work, get away from them.
3. And tell a teacher.

These are rules the schools like.

DS2 has just started nursery, and was hit and scratched by the same little boy two days running. He wasn't particularly bothered in either case, and I've since found out the little boy in question is young for the year (DS2 is old), and is no doubt having his own settling in struggles. I have mentioned it to the teacher, as they need to know which kids/situations to keep an eye on - giving all the details DS2 gave, where, what circumstances, etc. (But I'm not cross with the school at all, it's not their fault!)

Quite right, NotQuiteCockney, agreed.

Glad I found this thread. DS has been in reception 3 wks. End of week 2, I was told by his teacher that he was 'pushing' other children in his class and she was being strict with him. I totally supported this action and reinforced it by reminding DS that it wasn't acceptable to push other children. Roll on this week, major fight yesterday with a boy from the other reception class in the playground. DS came off obviously the worse for wear, multiple scratches on his face and a bitten ear. Pissed off to say the least - DS looked pretty battle scarred. The other little boy had not a scratch on him but had a severe ticking off. Apparently today, they were the best of friends and played together according to DS who also revealed later at bath time that he was hit by a different bigger boy! Don't know what to think/do. That's 2 days in a row! Well, I've got the weekend to calm down and think how many thousands of other reception age parents go through this every autumn.

I am sorry MrPinkerton that your DS has been pushed in the loos today. It could very well have been my son that pushed him (he has had a very bad nearly two weeks).

The teachers are talking to him, and are excluding him from particular activities. They have tried to reward and "punish" him , but they don't seem to motivate him (even though he got very upset when a teacher took it upon herself to remove a reward he had previously earned for "good" behaviour).

He is generally a "good" boy, but seems to be going through a hard time settling into the routine and discline of school (not just the playtime of nursery).

We are going to see the teacher, and head of Foundation Stage next week, and are going to see a private Educational Psychologist (if you're interested, at the cost of £505 + VAT).

We are very saddened by his behaviour, have spoken to the teachers involved, have tried to reinforce postive behaviour, and have tried our utmost to teach him the "rules" of acceptable social behaviour.

I hope your DS is pushed in the loos no more.

My DS told me the other day another boy kicked him in the head.

Tryng to control my anxiety I asked why, what happened? He said he didn't know why, he was lying on the floor and x kicked him in the head.

The lying on the floor comment made me pause to think, and it was only after extensive questioning and information extracting he thought it was relevant to explain that they were playing 'pile on' (self explanotory I imagine) and his head got kicked in the general scuffle.

I told him if he wished to avoid future injury to avoid 'pile on' and was very greatful I'd not marched up to the school.

(hope the relevance of this is evident)