I have a bit of an issue with how to teach my daughter to stand up for herself at daycare.
There are a few children my girl plays with and she likes playing with them, but they get into frequent arguments and the children use objects to hit her and take things away from her. The ladies at the centre are fantastic, but for obvious reasons cant really do much about whats going on except talk to the children.
Don't get me wrong, it goes both ways, but she never had to use violence before this stage to solve her problems. The other day she hit a child with blocks she was playing with and bit a child. The children I refer to don't listen when the ladies in her room talk to them, neither does my girl, I've seen it happen in front of me, the children just flat out ignore them and continues on with whatever they are doing.
I've tried to talk to her about going to the teachers, telling the children she doesn't like what they are doing, I've told her to raise her voice at them and put her hand in front of them to stop them, going and playing with another thing, but she is constantly backing down now, and tells me she gets bored at daycare because she can't play with what she wants because the children take it away or tell her she can't play and the teachers don't do anything.
She is a very rough girl, don't get me wrong, she's not a princess by any means, loves to play rough, in the dirt, etc, but I'm getting a bit tired of telling her to back down all the time.. How can I teach her to stand up for herself, be firm in some circumstances (ie, a child tries to take her toy, or wont let her play with a certain toy blocks or lego or whatever to stand her ground..) I don't want to tell her to retaliate when the children hit her but that's becoming the only thing I can really rely on at this point..
I just want her to learn to not let the other children take everything from her without getting into a hitting/throwing fight over it. She's 4, we are moving centres in the new year but for now we need to stick at this one.
2 Replies
It's a bit of a worry that the children don't seem to even acknowledge the staffs 'talking'. This sort of situation isn't the norm in most early learning environments so I think it's good you're moving centre.
I think for the mean time I'd try and continue encouraging the positive conflict resolution techniques you already have been but I tell my kids "if someone is physically threatening you or hurting you and you've used your words to get them to stop but they don't. I give you permission to use your hands to defend yourself however you need to". Obviously, physical retaliation should be a last resort though.
It will take time. Its called assertiveness if you want to gogle how to develop that skill. Definitely talk to the teachers as its becoming an issue. No point telling them to go to teachers if nothing happens when they do.