My son has always been very well behaved, that is until he turned four. Now he doesn't want to listen at school and is misbehaving at home. He is going to school full-time and does not listen to the teacher. He jumps on the tables, walks out of the class without asking and many other incidents too. It boogles my mind as to why he is acting this way at school. I mean if the teacher tells him not to do something he laughs or ignores her. He is trying to get his own way at home and he has consequence to his actions when he does. But he has never jumped on the table at home or some of the other things he doing at school. I guess what i am asking is for some advice or useful suggestions on how to change his behaviour or to understand why he is behaving this way. I might add i have two other children whom i never run into this situation before. Thanks for any suggestions.
Comments for
How to get my 4 year old to listen at school
I am the same person who commented about spankings being severe punishment, earlier. I just wanted to post an update... I've been working with my son on his behavior in school for the past 2 weeks... and he has made a TOTAL 180! I'm so proud of him.
Usually I allow him to play Wii only on the weekends...it's a real treat for him...he absolutely loves it. After thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that a whole week is a LONG time for an almost 4 year old to wait... their attention span and memory is just too short term for that to make a good goal. So, I decided to experiment by allowing him to play a half hour of video games on Wednesday evening, on the condition that he gets a green dot (they have a dot system in his classroom, green = great day yellow = ok day red = bad day) on Monday, Tuesday AND Wednesday. I also gave him a list of 3 things he has to do EVERY DAY in school for it to be a good day, which he memorized and recites to me every morning. 1. Listen to his teacher. 2. Take a good nap. And 3. NO time-outs.
This eventually evolved into 4 things, as I found he started telling me he DID have a good day when he really didn't. So we added NO LYING. He did great the first week... got to play his games on Wednesday...and then had a yellow dot Thursday and a red dot on Friday, which resulted in no video games for the weekend. THIS past week, however...(4 day week due to Good Friday) He had green dots every single day.
His teacher even wrote me a note about the improvement in his behavior, saying that especially when he is reminded of his behavior, he makes a visible conscious effort to fix it. He is even now self-implementing rules! He added a fifth thing to his rules, all by himself: He will clean up his friends toys. A-MAZING. I'm SO proud of him.
Mar 31, 2010
Pact with the Devil 4 year old!! by: Anonymous
Well my 4 year old seems like he may have made a pack with the devil, LOL. But it drives me to wit ends so I turn his T.V. off and make him sit in the room by himself until he has calmed down and can explain to me why he is being punished. This works some of the time and other half is I pray alot. For deliverance!LOL
Mar 26, 2010
Re: Spankings by: Anonymous
The problem with spankings for a child's misbehavior in school is that it is a SEVERE punishment, in the child's mind...especially for one who may never have been spanked before...that will be arriving HOURS after the incident occurred. 4 year old's have a short term memory. I am experiencing a similar issue with my son, who behaves quite well (usually) at home, but is a big handful at school. I have never HAD to spank him, because his behavior has been so good up until this point, that it simply wasn't warranted. I can't imagine that a four year old would be able to make and understand the connection between his behavior at school and a spanking that occurs hours later. I am trying to figure out a way to change MY son's behavior, as well... This is a tough one.
Nov 23, 2008
out with the new by: Anonymous
Now adays, they are trying all this soft technique for punishing the child at scool, and want you to enforse it at home, such as taking away priveledges, etc, i fin d this may work for the the older children, as they can understand , but for the younger ones, that do not have the vocabulary for you to explain logic to, a good old fashoin spanking would be the key. it is short, and sweet, and had automatic results. I believe, once this behavior, even the little things stop at home, the larger attention things like table standing will end. sounds like this child just wants personal one on one attention, like they recieve other places. I suggest telling them that they must share time with the other kids, then they will be heard better, then spank when you are not listened to. as soon as they see the not listening to the "lecture" goes hand in hand with the spank, they might agree to the words faster and easier.
Hope this helps....Just an idea
