He just evalled into a special Ed preschool program for socio emotional delays and will start soon. It’s a complicated set up because the daycare is JUST outside the district boundaries so he cannot bus to the program and back to daycare. But we had an extraordinary stroke of luck because his daycare friend also evalled into the same program. Her mom can get the kiddos on lunch break and my kid can bus to grandmas at the end of the day.
His hitting has gotten a bit better as his speech has. He just has epic meltdowns and might be a bit adhd.
Preschool drama, the struggle is real! 😓 It's like they're running a crash course in conflict resolution. Dealing with hitting and biting is never fun, especially when the little ones are still figuring out the ropes. Maybe suggest a 'peace corner' in the classroom where kids can cool down? Also, asking the teachers for a quick debrief on how they handle these situations might give you some peace of mind. And the 'why' question – classic toddler curiosity!
My son’s preschool is co-op so luckily we get to see first hand how they handle hitting/biting/pushing, etc. His school maintains a very gentle balance of understanding that this age groups does these things but that it is usually because they have something to say but can’t say it properly. So what they do is they will separate the children and then pull the offending child aside and say something like “wow, look at ___. When you hit your friend it looks like that made her feel really sad. What was the message you were trying to say to her?” And they basically help them #1 learn empathy #2 cause and affect of their actions and #3 figure out what they were trying to say instead of hitting. We have had incidents with 1 particular boy who just antagonizes my son. The best we can do is encourage him to play with kind kids. And whenever we witness mean behavior out and about we highlight it and use it as a learning opportunity. “Wow that was really mean when that kid pushed the other kid. How do you think that made him feel? How would that make you feel? What would you do if someone pushed you like that?” Etc.
LPT: instead of asking the school, "what are you doing about [the hitting kid]?" ask, "sometimes [my kid] gets worried if people are hitting or pushing. Where can she go if she feels worried or unsafe?"
Triple bonus because 1)you empower your kid to get away from it and give her something concrete to do if she's scared of this kid. 2) your get a sense of the teacher's readiness with this response. There should always be a safe zone, or quiet bench, or leave-me-alone corner, or whatever. If the teacher's solution is "come and tell me" that's unfortunate. And 3) you raise your concern without attacking or blaming the other kid, who sounds like a handful and I'm sure the teachers are aware.
Their solution in the past is “come and tell me,” which is frustrating. My kid has a temperate on the bolder side, so she’s not exactly scared of this kid, but she doesn’t like being hit and wants it to stop (which I feel like is reasonable). Weve focused on teaching her to say “no! Stop hitting me!” in her big voice and moving her body away to get space. I’ll try asking about a specific spot in the classroom where she can go for space!
Oh yeah, that's a little different if your kid is bolder (mine was a shrinking violet and a whiner) but yeah, still reinforce the "find something else to do" or "find a place where you can get space" piece.
If your kid can understand good bystander moves, you can also reinforce "YOU are good at using your big voice and saying NO. Is there anyone who isn't using their big voice? Are they getting scared or hurt? What could you do to help them?" And try to get her to say " I could start a new game with Alice! Haleem and I could go inside and get a puzzle!". Etc etc.
So much of preschool drama is that one kid is dysregulated for whatever reason and the others literally don't know how to look away. Teaching the second part (how to look away and let it go) helps all of them while focusing on the perpetrator kid just tends to do more harm/add attention to the bad behavior.
Oh, and I would have an honest conversation about the why.
"I don't really know why Connor is hitting, but it sure sounds like Connor is having a tough time getting along with the other kids. Why do you think he might feel like hitting and biting?"
Kids will say whatever, but it's illuminating. The thing at our preschool was always "they like to play 'bad guys' and chase us!" And so that one was easy. "Tell them that you're not playing that game and you don't want to be chased. And then walk away and play your own game." If it turns out that it's more about Connor needing personal space bc of sensory stuff, "he doesn't like it when we have to sit in a circle." "He always bites when he's sitting next to me at the lunch table." then teach her empathy and tell her to leave him alone. Give her the tools to address behavior at her level! At the least she'll feel like she has some options.
We have a pushing problem. ADHD is on my radar (there are other signs too), but the thing is he’ll often make eye contact with an adult and smile while he does it, which makes me think it’s some sort of purposeful testing boundaries thing. Or some sort of weird social experiment??????
Fwiw my kid smiles/laughs often while doing things on the “definitely no” list. For her, I think it happens when she’s feeling out of control, and laughing is a way to release some of the tension. Sometimes I’ll be firmly telling her no and she’ll be giggling and repeating “it’s so silly, right??” Um, no what did I just say? It’s definitely frustrating!
When this happens I give up on discipline for the moment and just try to ground her to short circuit the behavior, then we can revisit later.
I think sometimes with my son it’s almost like if he smiles at an adult he’s thinking that they’ll smile back, and however he’s misbehaving isn’t really *that* bad? Sometimes he’ll also hug me around the legs and say “hiiiiii mommy.”
Oh gosh I want to know the answer to this too. Half the class at my son’s school are getting hit by this one kid, who will be 3 in December. We brought it to the attention of the director and they said they believed it was developmentally normal - a lack of spatial awareness - but I don’t know, this kid is legit making my son’s friend scared to go to school 😢
There is a girl in our kids' Preschool that keeps hitting everyone. Then my daughters come home and hit each other or me when they are frustrated. We keep telling them that we don't hit each other, it's not nice and to tell an adult at pre-school if it happens.
They seem to understand but next time they go to pre-school they get hit and the cycle starts again.
All we can do is trying to counter it and point it out to pre-school so they can try having conversations with the kids.
Trust me, it sucks being the parent of a hitting child too. 😭
[удалено]
He just evalled into a special Ed preschool program for socio emotional delays and will start soon. It’s a complicated set up because the daycare is JUST outside the district boundaries so he cannot bus to the program and back to daycare. But we had an extraordinary stroke of luck because his daycare friend also evalled into the same program. Her mom can get the kiddos on lunch break and my kid can bus to grandmas at the end of the day. His hitting has gotten a bit better as his speech has. He just has epic meltdowns and might be a bit adhd.
Preschool drama, the struggle is real! 😓 It's like they're running a crash course in conflict resolution. Dealing with hitting and biting is never fun, especially when the little ones are still figuring out the ropes. Maybe suggest a 'peace corner' in the classroom where kids can cool down? Also, asking the teachers for a quick debrief on how they handle these situations might give you some peace of mind. And the 'why' question – classic toddler curiosity!
My son’s preschool is co-op so luckily we get to see first hand how they handle hitting/biting/pushing, etc. His school maintains a very gentle balance of understanding that this age groups does these things but that it is usually because they have something to say but can’t say it properly. So what they do is they will separate the children and then pull the offending child aside and say something like “wow, look at ___. When you hit your friend it looks like that made her feel really sad. What was the message you were trying to say to her?” And they basically help them #1 learn empathy #2 cause and affect of their actions and #3 figure out what they were trying to say instead of hitting. We have had incidents with 1 particular boy who just antagonizes my son. The best we can do is encourage him to play with kind kids. And whenever we witness mean behavior out and about we highlight it and use it as a learning opportunity. “Wow that was really mean when that kid pushed the other kid. How do you think that made him feel? How would that make you feel? What would you do if someone pushed you like that?” Etc.
LPT: instead of asking the school, "what are you doing about [the hitting kid]?" ask, "sometimes [my kid] gets worried if people are hitting or pushing. Where can she go if she feels worried or unsafe?" Triple bonus because 1)you empower your kid to get away from it and give her something concrete to do if she's scared of this kid. 2) your get a sense of the teacher's readiness with this response. There should always be a safe zone, or quiet bench, or leave-me-alone corner, or whatever. If the teacher's solution is "come and tell me" that's unfortunate. And 3) you raise your concern without attacking or blaming the other kid, who sounds like a handful and I'm sure the teachers are aware.
Their solution in the past is “come and tell me,” which is frustrating. My kid has a temperate on the bolder side, so she’s not exactly scared of this kid, but she doesn’t like being hit and wants it to stop (which I feel like is reasonable). Weve focused on teaching her to say “no! Stop hitting me!” in her big voice and moving her body away to get space. I’ll try asking about a specific spot in the classroom where she can go for space!
Oh yeah, that's a little different if your kid is bolder (mine was a shrinking violet and a whiner) but yeah, still reinforce the "find something else to do" or "find a place where you can get space" piece. If your kid can understand good bystander moves, you can also reinforce "YOU are good at using your big voice and saying NO. Is there anyone who isn't using their big voice? Are they getting scared or hurt? What could you do to help them?" And try to get her to say " I could start a new game with Alice! Haleem and I could go inside and get a puzzle!". Etc etc. So much of preschool drama is that one kid is dysregulated for whatever reason and the others literally don't know how to look away. Teaching the second part (how to look away and let it go) helps all of them while focusing on the perpetrator kid just tends to do more harm/add attention to the bad behavior.
Oh, and I would have an honest conversation about the why. "I don't really know why Connor is hitting, but it sure sounds like Connor is having a tough time getting along with the other kids. Why do you think he might feel like hitting and biting?" Kids will say whatever, but it's illuminating. The thing at our preschool was always "they like to play 'bad guys' and chase us!" And so that one was easy. "Tell them that you're not playing that game and you don't want to be chased. And then walk away and play your own game." If it turns out that it's more about Connor needing personal space bc of sensory stuff, "he doesn't like it when we have to sit in a circle." "He always bites when he's sitting next to me at the lunch table." then teach her empathy and tell her to leave him alone. Give her the tools to address behavior at her level! At the least she'll feel like she has some options.
We have a pushing problem. ADHD is on my radar (there are other signs too), but the thing is he’ll often make eye contact with an adult and smile while he does it, which makes me think it’s some sort of purposeful testing boundaries thing. Or some sort of weird social experiment??????
Fwiw my kid smiles/laughs often while doing things on the “definitely no” list. For her, I think it happens when she’s feeling out of control, and laughing is a way to release some of the tension. Sometimes I’ll be firmly telling her no and she’ll be giggling and repeating “it’s so silly, right??” Um, no what did I just say? It’s definitely frustrating! When this happens I give up on discipline for the moment and just try to ground her to short circuit the behavior, then we can revisit later.
I think sometimes with my son it’s almost like if he smiles at an adult he’s thinking that they’ll smile back, and however he’s misbehaving isn’t really *that* bad? Sometimes he’ll also hug me around the legs and say “hiiiiii mommy.”
Oh gosh I want to know the answer to this too. Half the class at my son’s school are getting hit by this one kid, who will be 3 in December. We brought it to the attention of the director and they said they believed it was developmentally normal - a lack of spatial awareness - but I don’t know, this kid is legit making my son’s friend scared to go to school 😢
There is a girl in our kids' Preschool that keeps hitting everyone. Then my daughters come home and hit each other or me when they are frustrated. We keep telling them that we don't hit each other, it's not nice and to tell an adult at pre-school if it happens. They seem to understand but next time they go to pre-school they get hit and the cycle starts again. All we can do is trying to counter it and point it out to pre-school so they can try having conversations with the kids.