My 4 year old son has become increasingly violent. He's always been a bit of a push and laugh kid but over the past few weeks his pushing and hitting is to hurt others.
His kindy teacher approached me yesterday as he was hitting and pushing his classmates and also bit one of them. He's never ever bit anyone in his life intentionally. They are keeping a record of each time he hurts someone to hopefully get to the bottom of it.
This afternoon I took him to his first soccer session and he kept pushing kids for no reason. The coach kept saying to keep his hands to himself but he wouldn't listen. The coach mentioned to all of the kids that their ears must be painted on because people weren't listening. My son the continually hit the teacher in the stomach. I grabbed him and left and told him he's never going back to soccer because of today's behaviour.
I'm not sure what strategies to use for this as the behaviour has started all of a sudden and for no reason. There is no violence in the home except for sometimes my husband and I raising our voices.
Please help a mum out. He used to be such a great kid but now I'm embarrassed and worried about him.
Suddenly violent son
Suddenly violent son
Posted in:
Behaviour
4 Replies
Was he happy or sad to be removed from soccer? Was he laughing when he pushed the children?
To be honest it sounds like you are going to need the support of a child psychologist to help with a behaviour plan. It’s also a very good time to get a referral to a peadiatrician for a check up.
He fell into a screaming heap then kicked me when I removed him from soccer.
He used to laughed when he pushed others but now I can see it's in anger.
We're going to the GP soon to get a health care plan for speech therapy so I'll ask about his behavior then
I think there’s your answer, he has trouble communicating and gets frustrated. I bet when the speech picks up, the frustration goes away, you’ll likely kill two birds with one stone. I think that’s why two and three year olds can be hard, because they have trouble expressing themselves with words, but when their speech gets better they settle down. Good luck.
At a guess it's frustration. Anger, attention, wanting to change or fix something that he just doesn't know how to or can't, whatever it is, I'd say emotions are the reason.
The first thing with behaviour issues are to look at the whole picture - is he eating well, drinking water, getting enough and good proper sleep, you guys not raising voices, etc. it's amazing how kids ability to cope can change depending on those factors, especially sleep.
I would find a short term consequence, but not that it means going home - remove him, give him the chance to tantrum but then calm down, talk about how he was feeling - angry, sad, mean, hurt, tired, etc talk about what else he could do because it's OK to have feelings but hurting people is not ok, give him ideas to express it in other ways that are ok, ie stomping his feet, saying how he feels, taking himself away, then put him back in. Let him Practice, remind him when you see him getting wound up and praise him lots when he chooses one of the suggested ideas instead of hitting.
You could even sit with him when he's calm and ask his input in what he's feeling when he does that and what else he thinks he could do instead that will help him but not hurt others. Maybe a punching pillow? Come up with four or five ideas that he can remember, even make a poster or picture cards to remind him.