behaviour issues

[leoniebabey]

hi first post in this area.
my LO is 4 and has recently started school. his behavior has always been very bad, hitting, biting, not listening, not behaving well, smashing the house up, but noone has ever seemed to listen to me about it, anyways had his parents evening last night and his teacher was very concerned about how he doesnt listen etc and that he's behind in most areas. So i told her about his behavior at home and showed her the huge bite from him on my arm, had an appointment with the SENCO worker today and she's put in some referrals for him.
soooo glad someone has finally listened to my concerns about him!
anyone have any experience with a child like this? he's really hard work, add that to being super tired and acting up and another going through terrible 2's i feel like im pulling my hair out most days

 

[elensmile]

my Kate is just the same... I usually try to give her some tasks: help me with cooking, cleaning or something
or invite her friend and let them play in the yard while I'm gardening really helps to relax a little bit..
it's because of such age.. nothing to do really

 

[leoniebabey]

see i dont think it is his age as he's been like this since he could walk, i really think he has some sort of behavior issue. glad were finally going to get help with him!

 

[PresqueVu]

That must be a huge relief someone is finally listening! I know how you feel in that sense, although it sounds like you have more to cope with

My son is a bit outside of the 'normal' range of behaviours and I've had concerns for the last few years, since starting school we've been having regular meetings about this with school reps and he has a behaviour plan in place. We've also got a book that school/childminder/us all write in so we can keep track of things. His behaviour at home can be hugely difficult sometimes, but we've developed ways of managing that - it's predominately school that is the issue at the moment.

It's not about a child being bad, but about them having bad behaviours that they might need extra help working through. Aiden's behaviour plan has a few simple targets on that we remind him of every day, and that has helped him. It's quite specific, rather than 'listen to an adult' it's 'sit still during carpet time' and other things like that. I guess it makes it a much simpler thing to remember and do.

What we've found so far is to work out what triggers he has, and try and work out how to help him (and the teachers!) cope. One thing that's excellent at the moment is a timer that he has to sit on the toilet with, behaviour/reward charts work but only for a short space of time. He's bright, has high energy levels, and gets bored very very easily. Have you tried a reward/sticker chart, or maybe a marble jar for when he's been good?

I've been advised about social stories, has anyone talked to you about these? So you can draw little pictures to map out your day and some items cannot be changed (i.e we catch the bus here) but some he has control over (and we play a game here, what game?). I think it helps because it prepares them for what will be happening, and teaches them some differences between 'I have control over this' and 'but this thing cannot be changed'.

Have time-outs ever helped for you? they call it a 'thinking spot' at school. That kind of violence must be so hard to deal with, Aiden's had some issues with hitting/kicking and it's so horrible when you have to make sure they are safe, but also you've got to get yourself out the way sometimes too! It sounds like you should have been listened to long since about getting help for you all

That's really good now the school are listening though, and I hope you can get the support you need. Hope the above ramble helped a little bit, that's just the things we've been working through here. Quite happy to chat if you'd like, there's some things I'm not comfortable saying on a public forum - though you might want to find a parent looking at it from the other end!

 

[WinterKage]

Its good that you've been listened too x Have you thought of keeping a daily diary of your sons behavior and writing down any triggers? x

 

[Natasha2605]

I've no idea hun but I am so so so glad that somebody is finally listening to you after all these years of putting up with it xx

 

[RachA]

Apart from the biting my son was like this from being 18 months until he was nearly 5. Being at school didn't help because he was so tired and this made him worse.
As he's got older he's been able to understand more about how to control his emotions.

We picked our battles with him. If he started to get violent then we usually put him in his room to calm down as this was a safe place and couldnt do much damage. Once he'd calmed down we could talk to him a bit about what he'd done.
We were so close to getting him looked at because I couldn't cope with the way he was at all but he really started calming down a lot so we didn't feel we needed to.
I think a large part of it is not knowing how to deal with their feelings so they hit out.
One other thing we did was to have a major rethink about what he ate. We totally cut out processed foods and ready meals and limited sweets and chocolate to birthday and Christmas. We noticed that just eating one small but of chocolate would turn him really nasty quite literally as we were watching him.

 

[Boomerslady]

I'm do glad someone is listening and have got the ball rolling with some help.

Ben is a very feisty four year old and is so strong willed. He does occasionally hit but it's rare now days. He did however bite someone in his second week at school so he was put on a sticker chart which over the last 5 weeks has dramatically helped. I was thinking we'd have to go down the SENCO route if he didn't improve. Now we have one incident a week roughly and generally it's something where two boys have been a bit rough, but as they are monitoring Ben I get told.

It's really hard work! I get grief constantly from my family who say it's all my fault and I'm lazy etc. I try my best but yes occasionally I don't follow through because I'm at the end of my tether!! I've even had my sister say she doesn't want him around her 6monyh old on case his behaviour rubs off!!

Sorry to go off on a tangent there but I know where your coming from!!! I hope the ball gets rolling quickly and it helps.