Question about behavior problem in a 3 year old
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"Jennifer" jon...@csus.edu
Delurking to see if anybody has any ideas because I'm at my wits end.
A little background, my daughter is 3 almost 4. She's been going to the same home daycare since she was 3 months old. It's a wonderful, stimulating environment and her caregiver treats her wonderfully. No problem in that regard. My daughter is also exceptionally bright for her age....loves when she can practice writing and "school-type" work. Again, that's not a problem The problem is her behavior. She's acting up..pushing, hitting, not listening at all at daycare and sometimes at home as well. And her bad days are seriously outweighing her good days. I know all kids her age are gonna have bad times...thats normal. But this is getting out of hand. We've tried all kinds of discipline and she basically doesnt care. She basically waits out whatever the punishment is and then goes and does the behavior again when she feels like it. It's like she decides that sometimes the immediate "joy" she gets from whatever behavior she does is worth whatever will happen to her later. There's nothing that bothers her enough to make her change her behavior...we've tried rewarding good behavior, punishing bad behavior, both....nothing's working.
Anybody have any ideas or even a been there, done that that might help? We dont know what else to do at this point....
Jen
Scott Lindstrom sco...@ssec.wisc.edu
You need to decide on a punishment and stick with it, not try one and then discard it. Hard to do, I realize, when there are precious few things that bother her. Also, if she's 3, almost 4, and exceptionally bright, you might start talking to her about your expectations of her (not when she is misbehaving, of course). And how frustrating it is when she doesn't listen, etc.
That might help her, and it might help you too.
Oh, and this is mostly likely a phase, btw. You could just wait it out!
scott, dd 9 and ds 6.5
--
Scott S. Lindstrom | A lawyer can be disbarred; Can sco...@ssec.wisc.edu | a meteorologist be disgusted?
http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~scottl/homepage1.html
"preciosa" quarkgi...@yahoo.com.au
My son has always tried it on too. He is quite willful and stubborn and will defy any attempt to discipline. However, if I stick with one thing and keep at it eventually he gives it up.
He is very very bright also, and can find the loophole. I find I have to be very very clear with my expectations from him and he eventually gets it. I would recommend the same as a previous poster. Pick one punishment and stick with it. Three year olds take a while, probably because they act before thinking quite often. And, as said, if she's bright, explain why.
Certainly, it might take a while, but eventually she'll give it up.
My son used to pick up sticks and threaten people with them at the same age.
I used to take away the stick, look him firmly in the eye and say no.
Eventually he stopped. So it will stop eventually. It's just persistence.
I don't think you need to worry that she'll be like forever. If she is very bright she might be getting frustrated, I know that was the case for my son.
He's certainly not a violent boy now at all.
And, something that I have found to work remarkably well with my son is framing in the positive. Rather than saying 'don't hit her'. I say 'please play with ..... nicely'. I start things with 'Can you please....', or 'I'd like you to ..........' I think that telling these bright kids what they should be doing rather than what they shouldn't gives them the opportunity to get it right. I have certainly found that the most effective way to deal with my difficult son.
If it really does persist, and you are very worried, I would recommend that you get professional advice. It doesn't mean that you've got a problem child or anything, just that it's sometimes nice to get one on one support from an outsider. I've done that before and I have to say that was very helpful for me.
I will say that my son is about to start high school now and doing very well at school and is quite a positive kid, although he's been really really difficult to deal with. They actually turn out OK remarkably enough if you stick with it, and not let them get the better of you too often ;-) !!! LOL Good luck, and nice to meet you Preciosa
mu ...@warlock.org ()
Currently going through it - sort of. Bright 4-year-old. Has a bit of a problem with thumping people, and wailing when he doesn't get his way.
He is coming out of it, slowly. Being at school with other children helps.
Clearly demarking rough houseplay with his friends, or daddy (mummy does not do rough horseplay) helps. Consistently reinforcing the idea that he can't hit or wail his way to getting what he wants helps.
It is hard, sometimes. He is good at getting _really upset_ about things and you have to judge what is "really upset" and what is part of the child's application of the only force they know how to use on you. An environment where the child is encouraged to ask, and clearly gets rewarded when they do things the "proper way" also helps, since it reinforces those times when discipline is applied.
Murff...
iowacookie ...@aol.com (Iowacookiemom)
A couple of suggestions from someone who has been there, done that, bought the t-shirt... ;-) First, consider keeping a log of her behavior, and asking the daycare provider to do the same. When we had this problem, one of our frustrations was that we weren't there to see much of it happen. By having the daycare keep a log, and doing the same at home, we were able to see patterns (for example, our son's problems were happening right before meal time -- daycare found a way to get him some extra recess/activity time then, and at home we would go for a walk or some sort of outdoor, active thing. Totally solved the problem. The log only needs to have the child's action, what the adult response was, how the child reacted to the response, date and time. It might be eye-opening.
Second, read Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish's "How To Talk So Kids Will Listen (and Listen So Kids Will Talk)." Especially, note the power of saying to a child, "I can see how angry/upset/sad/whatever you are." There's great power in letting a child know her message is getting across. It was a life-changing book for me.
Good luck!
-Dawn Mom to Henry, 9
d ...@aol.com (Deod)
Hi: << The problem is her behavior. She's acting up..pushing, hitting, not listening at all at daycare and sometimes at home as well. And her bad days are seriously outweighing her good days.>> Let me present another perspective which may or may not be apt. Let's say your husband has a job and you think his boss is just great. Your husband, however, complains about his coworkers and the job and more and more frequently comes home grumpy and rather quickly can become upset with you or other members of the family. Even though he chose the job as opposed to having it chosen for him, he might feel he has to keep the job which does little for his happiness when all he wants is to quit. He might even be unhappy enough so as to act in a fashion at work that could get him fired.
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Kiminy kim...@insightbb.com
Does she behave this way at home? I ask this because you use the word "we" to describe how she is disciplined at daycare, but if it's at daycare, how are you actually involved in the discipline?
The daycares that we have had experience with all have had set ways to discipline children-usually some form of time-out. All children should receive the same discipline for the same kind of behavior. Our daughter had minor, typical infractions when she was in daycare, but a couple of time-out sessions was pretty much enough to help her stay in line. Our son, OTOH, started having serious behavior problems when he was about 4. The more agressive stuff (hitting, poking, etc) happened at daycare, and caused problems, but he also tended to be much more impulsive at home, including throwing things for no reason, tearing apart toys, and making as much noise as he could at any time of the day or night.
Something that helped us a lot was a book called 1-2-3 Magic. The philosophy is that a lot of misbehavior in children is simply a way of getting attention, and negative attention is just as interesting for the child as positive attention. It's not just a question of counting to 3 before punishing a child, since it encourages the parent or caretaker to give positive attention on a regular basis, to help prevent the child from seeking negative attention (by misbehaving). In this daycare situation, since your daughter seems to be very gifted, she may in fact be bored, and could even feel (subconsciously) that the adults pay more attention to the children who misbehave.
Misbehaving gets their attention, and helps relieve the boredom at the same time. If she behaves well at home, then it could be that she gets enough attention and is kept active enough that she doesn't get bored.
If she only misbehaves at daycare, it's probably worth observing the cl*** a little to see 1) how bad the misbehavior really is, and 2) what is likely to set off the misbehavior. I used to arrive early to pick up my kids, and just watch them (through a door window) for a little while. When I could I would pick the kids up early, and that would give me a chance to see what things are like in the middle of the day, too.
If it does seem like boredom has a lot to do with it, you might see if the daycare would be willing to let her be with an older group for a little while, to see if that helps. Or her teacher could give her more interesting things to do, or more responsibility in the cl***room (like helping one of the other children with the "cl***room" work).
Kim
LisaBell lisabell...@yahoo.com
It sounds to me like your daughter is bored. After all, a home daycare is limited in scope and companions, however wonderful the caregiver may be - and you say she has been going to the same home care for almost 4 years. Kids this age, and particularly the very bright ones, need the stimulation of variety in their environment and the kids around them. I would be looking to the source of her acting up, rather than a quick fix through use of a new method of discipline, especially since she is already resistant to punishment. Any chance you can find her a new, larger, daycare?
--Lisabell
mal ...@chennaiads.com (Ram)
If I were to guess, you had a second baby just around the time she started acting like that. Basically the situation changed such a way that she started getting less attention. It might help pin point when this started happenning and try to remember what changed since then.
Kids' preference is first to get positive attention. Then if possible negative attention. They hate no attention. She feels like she's getting no attention right now and wants to get to one grade higher -
negative attention. My advice would be to spend some time EXCLUSIVELY with her every day for about an hour at least and you'll see the situation improve.
Also, remember THEIR priorities - punishment is better than being ignored. To control negative behaviour, ignore it rather than giving punishment and of course encourage positive behaviour.
If you follow above two steps, you will see improvement in a week.
-Ram
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