5 year olds behaviour at school

[dee771]

My 5, nearly 6, year old son has been having continuing beahvioural problems at school. At home we don't have many issues with him at all, he is quite active and rarely sits still but does entertain himself and is generally well behaved. He attends dance and swimming classes and rarely has problems there as well. He is in Kindergarten at school and he is academically smart and does well with maths, reading and writing. His behavioural problems are usually concerning other boys - he is rough in the playground, we have just received a note home saying he hit two boys heads together, I have been called to the school on 3 occasions concerning him having hit his head, last week he stole 20c from a girl after school while waiting for my husband to pick him up then he lied about it 5 times before he told the teacher the truth, these are just a few of the many issues that have occurred at school this year. We have been to see his teacher on numerous occasions to work out strategies on how to deal with him. Our difficulty is that he is not the same at home and it is hard for us to discipline him for behaviour that he has done at school. We have tried behaviour charts that have worked for a while but he loses interest quickly. He doesnt seem concerned of consequences nor concerned that he is constantly in trouble. He has an older sister who is 10, we have had no issues with her ever at school. Any advice would be appreciated we are at a loss of what to do.

[specialmom]

Hi.  One other thing I would do is work with him at home by acting like a peer.  By this I mean------- don't give him his way. Make him share some things with you.  Make him let you go first sometimes in a game. Don't always let him win.  Take turns choosing what to do.  Etc.  Five year olds can still be persnickety about their things--------  hence his issues with his cousin-------  so you need to help him out of that.

Also, try to identify someone that you can set up a one on one play date with in which you supervise his play time and guide him if needed.  I think that will help his overall classroom behavior.  good luck

[dee771]

Thank you very much, there are some strategies there that I can take to his teacher at school that may be very helpful at school like the apology wall. His teacher does have an award system in the classroom, I will talk more about this with her this week when I meet again with her. I know she had him read a whole book to the class during the week and he was so proud about being able to do that. I was going to suggest that maybe she give him extra jobs to do around the classroom as I feel boredom may have something to do with his behaviour.

As both my children dance we are usually very busy most weekends and he doesnt get to spend alot of time with neighbourhood children - he does occasionally play with the boys next door without incident. He does clash with his 4 year old boy cousin though, if his cousin comes to our place my son has huge issues with him playing with his toys or playing on his swings - we have always instilled that he needs to share his things but he has great difficulties with this.

I will read "Love and Logic" thank you for the suggestion. We are really saddened by this as all of last year when he was still at daycare all he wanted to do was go to school and have friends. He was so excited when starting school but things just went downhill from there.

[specialmom]

Oh, this is a tough one.  My son is completely different at school than at home but he has sensory integration disorder.  I am not thinking that is the case with your child just from what you've written here.  You can google it if you are interested though.

What do they do in the classroom to address this?  My son's classroom has a neat strategy called the apology wall.  There are 6 choices up there--------- if you do harm to someone then that person gets to pick one of the 6 things for you to do for them.  They include such things as "write an apology note", "play a game of my choosing with me", walk me to the bus", etc.  The one who does the wrong has to do the fixing and I think it is brilliant.  My son's teacher also instituted what she calls "class room consoler" and this person is to cheer up anyone hurt or upset.  She talks the job up like it is wonderful.  What if your son became "classroom consoler"?  

Do they use any reward charts for your son in school?  Schools that handle kids with disabilities such as aspergers, extreme add/adhd use these routinely with great success.  Working for a reward can work but it has to be immediate.  YOur approach of following up once home has too much down time in it.  

Read "Love and Logic".  It talks a lot about natural consequences.  

How are his social skills when he plays in the neighborhood with kids?