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4.5 year old boy hits kids in preschool for no reason
From: scottandlora@earthlink.net
Date: 26 Apr 2006 18:58:50 -0700
My son has started hitting kids in preschool for no reason. He'll justbe sitting there and smack someone unprovoked. My husband and I willbe getting a dissolution in about a month, so I realize tension isthere, but it's not been a really messy dissolution. We have triedeverything from giving rewards for good behavior, which hasn't happenedoften, to taking things away at home. The biggest problem is when youask him why he did it, he denys that he ever hit the kid or says theyhit him. Help.
From: toto
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 02:14:43 GMT
On 26 Apr 2006 18:58:50 -0700, scottandlora@earthlink.net wrote: >My son has started hitting kids in preschool for no reason. He'll just>be sitting there and smack someone unprovoked. My husband and I will>be getting a dissolution in about a month, so I realize tension is>there, but it's not been a really messy dissolution. We have tried>everything from giving rewards for good behavior, which hasn't happened>often, to taking things away at home. The biggest problem is when you>ask him why he did it, he denys that he ever hit the kid or says they>hit him. Help. First of all, since this is happening at preschool, it needs to behandled there in a manner consistent with what you do at home.I would pass this on to the preschool teachers if they are not alreadydealing with the hitting appropriately. Here's my standard advice for stopping children from hitting (nomatter what their reasons, hitting others is unacceptable and needsto be dealt with) While it is difficult, you must stay very close to him at all times for this to work, but it should not last too long if you do it consistently. During the learning period, do not be any further awayfrom your child than an arms length. Stop the hit before the child can actually do it (sometimes you willmiss, but most of the time, you can see it coming and stop it).Acknowledge the anger: "You are very angry about...., but I won't letyou hurt yourself or another person." When you don't manage to stop it comfort the other person first, ignoring the child who did the hitting and keeping them away from theother child with your body if necessary. You *can* encourage thechild who hit to help you comfort after this if you want to try toteach empathy and comforting as well, but *first* you comfort thechild who was hit yourself. Hold his hand firmly, but gently. Say *we touch people with gentle hands* and show him what you mean by gentle hands. I Remove him from the situation (not as punishment, but so that he cannot return to it immediately). It's ok to distract him with anothertoy, but don't play with him for at least a few minutes. Return him to the situation after he is calm and let him try again. If he goes right back to the behavior, repeat the procedure again. Continue this until he realizes that he will not get attention for thebehavior and that he will be removed from playing with you *and* with the other child. It usually doesn't take more than a week for kids to learn that they can't get away with hitting others. Remember to notice and pay attention to him when he is playing nicely and not hitting. Don't overpraise him, but do go to him andplay with him when he is being cooperative. Say "You are taking turns nicely with Johnny.* He will see that when he is playing nicely,he gets the attention he wants. When your child is calm teach him how to breathe out his anger. There are breathing games that you can play that work really well with toddlers and preschoolers and after you teach him how, you can remind him to breathe when he begins to tantrum. These are breathing exercises we used with preschool classes: Ballooning When you balloon, you breathe in (deeply) and as you breath in youstart with your arms at your sides and raise them up parallell toyour shoulders and up over your head. Then you blow it all out,make it exaggerated like a balloon spewing out all the air. Thekids really like it and it really lowers tension. Draining When you drain, you put both hands out in front of you, you twist (andtwist, and twist and twist) your hands around like you were turningoff water and you screw your face all up, then you blow the air outthrough your lips (I know... there will be a little spit!) but thekids really like that one and you can feel the stress and tensionleaving your own body! (automatic stress relief!) You can get the balloon and draining icons from:http://www.beckybailey.com/documents/Icons.pdf Other things you can do to teach your child to handle anger includereading books about emotions, especially about anger and talking abouthow the characters handled this emotion. Some of these books are notabout anger, but just about identifying emotions in words. Books that are good for this:When Sophie Gets Angry, Really, Really Angry by Molly BangHands Are Not For Hitting by Martine Agassi Ph.DWords Are Not for Hurting by Elizabeth VerdickToday I Feel Silly: And Other Moods That Make My Day by Jamie LeeCurtisMy Many Colored Days by Dr. SuessI'm Gonna Like Me : Letting Off a Little Self-Esteem by Jamie LeeCurtisIt's Hard to Be Five : Learning How to Work My Control Panel by Jamie Lee Curtis You can also use role play and have puppets act out scenarios you knowyour child has difficulty with. Let her suggest ways for the puppets to handle the scenario and their anger. You can also have a child who likes to draw, make a picture of what makes him angry. Then you can write down a story about it and readit to him. You can have him dictate the story if he is old enough. Ifhe isn't too verbal, you can make up the story yourself. Good luck! Dorothy --Dorothy There is no sound, no cry in all the worldthat can be heard unless someone listens .. The Outer Limits
From: Ericka Kammerer
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 23:08:23 -0400
toto wrote:> On 26 Apr 2006 18:58:50 -0700, scottandlora@earthlink.net wrote:> >> My son has started hitting kids in preschool for no reason. He'll just>> be sitting there and smack someone unprovoked. My husband and I will>> be getting a dissolution in about a month, so I realize tension is>> there, but it's not been a really messy dissolution. We have tried>> everything from giving rewards for good behavior, which hasn't happened>> often, to taking things away at home. The biggest problem is when you>> ask him why he did it, he denys that he ever hit the kid or says they>> hit him. Help.> > First of all, since this is happening at preschool, it needs to be> handled there in a manner consistent with what you do at home.> I would pass this on to the preschool teachers if they are not already> dealing with the hitting appropriately. Yep. There's not a lot you can do to effectivelyaddress this problem when your hours and miles removedfrom it. If the preschool teachers are suggesting thatthis is something you have to fix, you need a differentpreschool. You should be involved in discussing howto deal with this, and you should be supporting theirapproach at home and reinforcing it, but the behaviorshave to be dealt with in the moment (and I think Dorothy'sadvice on things to do is excellent--and should beexactly what good preschool teachers would suggest). Best wishes,Ericka
From: chrissypete2@aol.com
Date: 26 Apr 2006 21:09:31 -0700
We had a few hitters at our co-op preschools and all working parentswere instructed to inform the teacher upon witnessing it versus tryingto handle it in differing ways. She would go to the child hit andensure they were okay then turn to the child who hit and gently leadthem to a time-out while sharing "we use our words and not our hands orfists". This usually worked about the second time when they figured outshe was going to be consistent with it. It really is generally a way ofexpressing their frustration and they really need to be taught analternative way of expressing it. Seriously though, when schools lookto parents to fix a problem that is only occuring at school.....itdrives me bonkers. Kids happen to be smart enough to know what they canget away with and where. Preschool definitely needs to find a system,and if they don't have one, you suggesting one would be a good start.Some teachers refuse to offer discipline of any sort though, so I wishyou the best of luck.
From: Ericka Kammerer
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 10:37:26 -0400
chrissypete2@aol.com wrote:> We had a few hitters at our co-op preschools and all working parents> were instructed to inform the teacher upon witnessing it versus trying> to handle it in differing ways. She would go to the child hit and> ensure they were okay then turn to the child who hit and gently lead> them to a time-out while sharing "we use our words and not our hands or> fists". This usually worked about the second time when they figured out> she was going to be consistent with it. It really is generally a way of> expressing their frustration and they really need to be taught an> alternative way of expressing it. Absolutely, which is why you ideally need to be*proactive* about it. Ideally, the teacher learns whenthe behavior is likely to occur, watches for risky situations,and intervenes *before* the hitting happens to teachthe appropriate behaviors, rather than relying onconsequences after the fact. Also, when you've got a real problem hitter(rather than a kid who just does it occasionallybecause of frustration), using time outs after thefact often doesn't really fix the problem. Thatmay not be the situation in the OP's case, though. > Seriously though, when schools look> to parents to fix a problem that is only occuring at school.....it> drives me bonkers. Kids happen to be smart enough to know what they can> get away with and where. Preschool definitely needs to find a system,> and if they don't have one, you suggesting one would be a good start.> Some teachers refuse to offer discipline of any sort though, so I wish> you the best of luck. We've had the opposite problem at our school,with some parents being upset that the teachers wereusing an approach using shadowing and proactive teachingtechniques rather than punishing the hitter. Best wishes,Ericka
From: an588@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Catherine Woodgold)
Date: 27 Apr 2006 13:44:26 GMT
Ericka Kammerer (eek@comcast.net) writes:> Yep. There's not a lot you can do to effectively> address this problem when your hours and miles removed> from it. If the preschool teachers are suggesting that> this is something you have to fix, you need a different> preschool. You should be involved in discussing how> to deal with this, and you should be supporting their> approach at home and reinforcing it, but the behaviors> have to be dealt with in the moment (and I think Dorothy's> advice on things to do is excellent--and should be> exactly what good preschool teachers would suggest). You could spend a week at preschool with him, teachinghim as Dorothy suggests. That may be good, but hasthe danger that he may try to get you to spendanother week with him by starting to hit again.
From: dragonlady
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 04:31:38 GMT
In article , toto wrote: > Stop the hit before the child can actually do it (sometimes you will> miss, but most of the time, you can see it coming and stop it).> Acknowledge the anger: "You are very angry about...., but I won't let> you hurt yourself or another person This is a problem when the hitting appears to be unprovoked, as the OP described. I get the image of a child simply, out of the blue and for no reason, smaking another child. I had one who did that sort of thing, and it was MUCH more difficult to deal with than the one who hit when he was angry about something. It was harder to see coming, and therefore harder to prevent and harder to stop. (The one incident I remember most clearly was in the car. She was drifting off to sleep, and kept jerking herself awake. For no apparent reason, on one of those occassions, she just reached out and smacked her brother, who was calmly watching out the window. They were about 3 at the time, and I'm convinced she did it just to get some excitement going to keep herself awake, as she hated falling asleep in the car.) Eventually this, too, CAN be stopped, and with many of the same techniques -- but when it isn't out of anger but out of something else (curiosity? boredom? who knows!) it is a bigger challenge.-- Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care
From: an588@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Catherine Woodgold)
Date: 27 Apr 2006 13:42:38 GMT
toto (scarecrow@wicked.witch) writes:> While it is difficult, you must stay very close to him at all times > for this to work, but it should not last too long if you do it > consistently. During the learning period, do not be any further away> from your child than an arms length. ... Dorothy has excellent advice, as usual. Another excellent book is "The Mad Family Gets TheirMads Out." This book can be read aloud to young childrenand teaches them to breathe out their anger.Use it as one of several methods.
From: asweetnectarwomb@gmail.com
Date: 27 Apr 2006 01:37:06 -0700
I think he's just being angry at the situation. No matter how unmessyyour dissolution is, no child can ever understand it. My suggestion is just keep showing him that, inspite of what's going onbetween the 2 of you, parents, you still can love each other, althoughin a different kind of ways. Keep telling him that there's nothing changed if it comes to love,especially yours to him. When time goes by and he sees how the two of you still can be goodparents for him, and he's not lack of love, I believe he'll stop it. Just keep co-operating with teachers at the preschool, let them knowthe whole situation so they can help you maximumly. Cheers,ninahttp://asweetnectarwomb.lipblogs.com/
From: an588@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Catherine Woodgold)
Date: 27 Apr 2006 13:39:25 GMT
(scottandlora@earthlink.net) writes:> My son has started hitting kids in preschool for no reason. He'll just> be sitting there and smack someone unprovoked. My husband and I will> be getting a dissolution in about a month, so I realize tension is> there, but it's not been a really messy dissolution. We have tried> everything from giving rewards for good behavior, which hasn't happened> often, to taking things away at home. The biggest problem is when you> ask him why he did it, he denys that he ever hit the kid or says they> hit him. Help. Probably it's related to the dissolution. (I'm not familiarwith that word but assume it's something like a divorce orseparation.) However un-messy, that kind of thing is a really,really big deal for the children. There are some good books about the effects of divorce onchildren. It would be a good idea to read them. Offering rewards for good behaviour or taking away toys athome are likely to do more harm than good, IMO. If therewards for good behaviour are really rewards for goodbehaviour, fine. But if they're something you set upto try to prevent hitting, they can become like blackmail -- the child can demand more and more rewards just to refrainfrom tearing the house apart. Taking away toys at homeis too far removed from the hitting both in time andin logical connection. It feels like a punishment andincreases resentment and tension, adding to the problem. Spend more time listening to him talk about his feelings.Bedtime is often an excellent time for this. Listen tohim about everything, including about the dissolution.You may need to prompt him to get him talking about it.Keep him informed about what's going on, so hewon't imagine worse things. He likely feels some strong feelings such as anger,hatred, helplessness, fear, etc. He needs to hear thathis feelings are being listened to and accepted. I'm sure he sometimes has better behaviour than atother times. You can try to catch him at the bettertimes and praise him. For the hitting, something immediate like being takenaway from the other children for a period of time mighthelp. He can be told that he's not allowed to be thereunless he can follow the rules and respect other people.See "Abuse it/Lose it" linked fromhttp://borntoexplore.org/discipline.htm There are suggestions about discipline onmy parenting page, and a few book recommendations. http://www.ncf.ca/~an588/par_home.html This is a delicate situation. It's good to put lots ofenergy into it. You could: take a parenting course;try to repair the marriage; read lots of books; consultfriends; consult experts such as psychologists and theschool principal. I hope the hitting gets nipped in thebud.
From: an588@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Catherine Woodgold)
Date: 29 Apr 2006 17:25:25 GMT
I seem to remember that years ago on this newsgroupit was pointed out that kids who watched the PowerRangers cartoon show would attack other kids for noapparent reason, even when they didn't appear angry.No one knew why that particular cartoon had thateffect. (scottandlora@earthlink.net) writes:> My son has started hitting kids in preschool for no reason. He'll just> be sitting there and smack someone unprovoked. My husband and I will> be getting a dissolution in about a month, so I realize tension is> there, but it's not been a really messy dissolution. We have tried> everything from giving rewards for good behavior, which hasn't happened> often, to taking things away at home. The biggest problem is when you> ask him why he did it, he denys that he ever hit the kid or says they> hit him. Help.>
From: toto
Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 02:47:31 GMT
On 29 Apr 2006 17:25:25 GMT, an588@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (CatherineWoodgold) wrote: >I seem to remember that years ago on this newsgroup>it was pointed out that kids who watched the Power>Rangers cartoon show would attack other kids for no>apparent reason, even when they didn't appear angry.>No one knew why that particular cartoon had that>effect. I don't remember that, but superhero play is often valuable topreschoolers. http://www.redleafpress.org/client/archives/features/rl_Nov2004_feature.cfm Q. Why are children so attracted to superhero play? A. Preschoolers want to feel powerful. They also want to have closefriendships, so finding a balancing between power and relationshipsbecomes a huge challenge. They?re looking for ways to express theirhopes and fears, feelings that grow as they become more able toimagine the past and future. They?re starting to think about deepquestions: Am I good or bad? What is death? What is fair? Young children don?t explore these issues passively?they turn theirquestions into play so they can actively explore them. Superhero playtouches on many of the questions preschoolers are asking aboutthemselves and the world. Q.What do you see as the biggest misconception about superhero play? A. Many adults want to ban superhero play because they worry it willcreate violent teenagers. While research does connects watching toomuch media violence to aggressive behavior, that doesn?t mean playingwith guns and pretending to be a superhero or bad guy will turnchildren into criminals. Most children use superhero play to exploretheir feelings symbolically. They are not necessarily learning to beviolent?in fact, when adults facilitate it, superhero play can helpchildren learn non-violence. There are children who use the play to reenact the real violence intheir lives?abuse, rage, fear, humiliation, racism. They need adultswho acknowledge this unfair treatment, work to eliminate it, and setclear limits on violent play.--Dorothy There is no sound, no cry in all the worldthat can be heard unless someone listens .. The Outer Limits
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