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chardonnay24
member
3 y/o comparing self to peers (really long)
chardonnay24
member
As he's become more verbal in the last couple months, I've noticed that my son has started to compare himself to peers. Generally it involves things that they are "allowed" to do that he is not. He has a good friend, "Daniel", that we see several times a week. Daniel is the complete opposite of my kiddo - gentle, quiet, calm. A lot of our friends have been having babies recently and Daniel has been allowed to hold them. My kid is pretty high energy and while he is not aggressive to babies, he has a lot of impulsive and erratic movements so I don't trust him to hold newborns yet, even with an adult helping. We went to visit a friend's new baby (without Daniel) this weekend and he kept repeating, "I no hold baby. Daniel hold all the babies. Mommy say I no hold babies." In addition, Daniel is allowed to have toys that we don't play with at home (generally, choking hazards or small, thin items that my kiddo puts in his nose or ears). Every time we visit, A comments on these differences.
In general, we stick to a routine and do the same activities from week to week. At library storytime, we have a consequence for every action. If he throws his bell or hits someone with his drumstick, he loses it. If he runs away from me from the storytime room into the main library, we leave. If he runs inside the storytime room, he sits with me. If he tries to destroy a book that we are returning, he loses the privilege of continuing to put the books in the book return. Without fail, he does at least one or two of these things at storytime and the consequence is carried out. And then for more than a week, he tells every adult that he sees that, "All the kids had drumsticks. Daniel had a drumstick. I no have drumstick. I hit friend with drumstick and Mama take it away".
On the one hand, I feel bad for him. He really struggles with impulse control and he always tends to lose control when there is more going on (rainy day, busy library, lots of kids and noise). I feel like all day long, he gets consequences and has things in his life that are noticeably different from other kids. He has a lot of trouble connecting the consequence to the action and behaving appropriately on the next go round. This is true even for natural consequences. If he falls off of something and gets hurt, he gets back on as soon as he is recovered. So I feel like even though he is verbalizing his actions and consequences, he doesn't really understand why other kids are allowed things that he is not. On the other hand, how will he ever learn if I don't have consequences and follow through for the undesirable behaviors?
We do our best to set him up for success, praise him for good behaviors, give him control of the situation as long as it doesn't interfere with health or safety, etc. So out of every day, 10 out of 12 hours are completely focused on him and the things that he IS allowed. But for some reason, he only focuses on the few hours a week that he sees differences between himself and his peers. And it's obviously weighing on him, because he will tell someone a week later. At preschool today, he told both teachers and his aide about an incident that happened at the park last week.
I don't really know what I'm asking here. I guess, what would you say to him in response to these thoughts? I feel like just repeating what he is telling me is not really effective. I don't know whether to empathize, or talk about things that he can do or play with or privileges that he is allowed, or if I should just repeat what he tells me, like, "Yes, A, when you hit your friend with the drumstick, it hurts, and now you cannot play with your drumstick. You can play with your hands." The other things (playing with choking hazards, holding babies) are a little bit harder to explain to him because he didn't necessarily do anything wrong, I am just trying to minimize risk for him and other children.
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Re: 3 y/o comparing self to peers (really long)