My Son Was Naughty at Preschool

Is this the three year old who wanted the sleepover?
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He is three, he is going for the reaction.

Does he hit you at home? How about his friends? Where did he learn the swear words?

K., you need to take some responsibility here and ask your self some hard questions. What kind of behavior are you encouraging at home that is spilling over to school? How do you handle it? Do you let him run amok in your house? Do you have the TV on all the time? Does he watch shows with hitting and violence and bad language? Does someone in your house swear?

You need to take a parenting class and learn how to handle your son. If you don't learn now, you're going to have a huge problem on your hands.

Dawn

At this age, children usually act out because A) they have emotions they do not know how to verbalize or react appropriately to, B) they have witness the same behavior and are mimicking it, or C) a combination of the two.

Seeing how swearing was involved I would have to guess B. Figure out where the violence and swearing is coming from and remove it from his atmosphere.

Then have a sit down talk with him about what is not allowed and what the punishment will be. Spell it out clearly so he won't be surprised by the punishment. Be consistent and know it may take a while to unlearn behavior.

What was the school's response? I'm assuming that they disciplined. I think that it will not be effective for you to provide a punishment too - at least this time. Sit down and talk to him and let him know that its not appropriate and if it happens again that xy and z will happen and follow through if it does. Hopefully whatever the school did and your discussion with him will nip it in the bud.

Well, if they are still going to let him stay at the school, I agree with Sarah's suggestion of doing some hard thinking. Where did your son hear this language? Does he hear it often at home, when people are angry? And as for the hitting... pretty much the same. Is he allowed to watch television shows where people hit each other?

If we look at hallmarks of 3, 4 and 5 year old development, while some parents will argue that their kids can tell 'pretend/fantasy from reality, it's by and large concluded that this is still a hard area of discernment for kids. SO, if there's violent media/play going on at home, now it the time to change that. Kids do not understand the real-life consequences of their actions (that part of the brain doesn't develop for some time.) My husband tells a story of being four and wanting to run through a plate glass window on the storm door much like George Reeve did in the original Superman show... he gave himself a nice cut head, needed stitches and fortunately ONLY spiderwebbed the glass. All that to say, if this is an issue of tv/games, time to change what's going on.

You don't say that this is an unusual event or not, or if you son has had other problems controlling his body.. if he does, you might consider talking to the pediatrician about a behavioral eval or some parent coaching. However, most average young children do not strike adults in this manner and certainly not adults that aren't their parents.

You should discipline him, what do you usually do when he misbehaves? What works best for this child?

I'm not really getting these responses. People are saying you need to take a parenting class and that this is the result of something going on in your home. Well, then, I wonder why that same advice is not being given to all those parents who write in about how their child hit them. When we have that sort of post, people always recommend doing something like saying to your child "I see you're upset with mommy. Perhaps you can go to your room until you are feeling better." or some other such nonsense.

I don't get the difference.

Hi, K.:

What kind of structure do you have at home?

Are you married?

Is the husband involved with the training of your child?

A child's behavior in public is a demonstration of what is going on in the home.

I suggest you and your husband take parenting classes.
I would also suggest both of you take co-dependency classes.
www.coda.org

In the mean time have a family circle meeting with your child.

You become a facilitator and ask him these questions and don't respond until he finishes answering all the questions:
1) What happened?
2) What were you thinking of at the time?
3) What have you thought about since?
4) Who has been affected by what you have done? In what way?
5) What do you think you need to do to make things right?

Once he finishes answering these questions, you ask others attending one by one, ending with yourself:
1) Tell him what you thougth when you realized what had happened.
2) Tell him what impact this incident has had on you and others.
3) Tell him what has been the hardest thing for you.
4) Tell him what you think needs to happen to make things right.

This will help repair the harm and restore all relationships.

Good luck.
D.
www.iirp.edu

What did they do to give him consequences? They should be the ones to do so. Then you talking to him about it is enough. He needs instant consequences and they need to be the ones to do them.

I'd not go get him either. I always tell the teachers if he's misbehaving they need to keep him because I work 3 jobs and if he's at home he's playing and watching TV. SO if they send him home it's a lot of fun for him. He'll act up again and again to come home so he can play.

They tend to keep them there if they know it's a reward to go home and not punishment. Keeping them in school and the school working to teach the child how to act better will benefit him in the long run. That way he sees the teachers and school as authority figures and not someone he can manipulate.