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Pre-School and Daycare
mrsblueeyes
member
3 y.o. ds has hit 3 kids in 3 days at school, please help
mrsblueeyes
member
Hi ladies,
I don't post often but I need some help. My ds is in a mixed-age (3,4,5 year old) Montessori classroom 5 mornings a week. He seems to really enjoy school and we've never had a problem. However, he hit 3 seperate kids on 3 different days last week. He has never hit anyone before. The teacher doesn't entirely know what happened in each incident. She thinks that the older kids may have been a little pushy and he wasn't able to articulate to them to leave him alone so instead he hit them.
I don't know what to do. I feel horrible and feel like I've failed as a parent. When we ask our ds he admits to hitting them but can't say why he did it. There hasn't been any huge life changes and he seems like his normal self otherwise. We talked again, again about how we don't hit, ever. I don't want to make a huge deal out of it because then he'll think he gets attention for hitting. Help? Other suggestions? Thanks.
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Re: 3 y.o. ds has hit 3 kids in 3 days at school, please help
DD -- 5YO
DS -- 3YO
Kids that age just don't know how to articulate feelings. Clearly something made him upset - frustrated, mad, sad or similar. Can you just talk with him about what led up to the hitting and try to find out why he was upset? I would ask what were you doing before you it XXX. Were you happy or sad or mad? Ask why and what happened. I then would try to give him some sense of how to handle it. For example if someone took his toy and that's why he hit I would say "tell XXX not to take your toy because it's not nice and ask for it back If he doesn't give it back then ask the teacher for help". This gives him some way of handling it himself in a productive way. I have a 4 year old and he tattles a lot so I have been trying to teach him how to handle the situation himself and giving him examples of what to say when things like that happen.
Just so you know - you have not failed as a parent. My kid bit a few kids at school out of no where. He had never bit anyone...in fact he had been bit several times in the months previous. I felt terrible. All of this is normal for kids that age. Just keep the communication open with him and don't yell at him about hitting...I always just told my son that I was really sad that he bit someone because I knew it probably hurt bad. He hates when I am sad.....Then I tell him how sad I was when someone else bit him. I ask him if it was nice to do....let him think through it. I ask him how he would feel if someone bit him.....they will learn. It's a process (that is never ending....haha!)
Ditto PP's.
And... ROLE PLAY!!!
Either you and DH pretend to be 2 kids in that situation and show him the right way to handle it or for us puppets are HUGE for role playing.
When we really need to drive a lesson home we actually use their lovies and put them in that social situation. We let them see how sad/angry/confused it makes their lovie when they get hit so they can understand the other person's feelings being on the receiving end. We also use the lovies or puppets or stuffed animals to model the appropriate words and behaviors and then have them practice.
Lip load him (like the PP's have all suggested) and then practice with him.
GL!
Total score: 6 pregnancies, 5 losses, 2 amazing blessings that I'm thankful for every single day.
I was thinking that too. Since this is a new issue I would try as PP's suggested and hopefully that will curb the behavior. Hang in there and don't feel like a bad mom, we have all been there (in fact I've been there a lot
).