5 year old biting furniture

[GrandmaT]

A grandson (my husband's son's son) is coming to live with us very soon.He will be leaving his Mom and Dad to do so as they cannot care for him right now.Recently,we understand that he acts inappropriately in preschool and is being sent to the Child Center Director.In that office he bit a chair and was sent home.When he arrived home he was placed in a timeout situation where he began to bite a table.There are concerns obviously about him coming to live with us and start a new preschool and having troubles adapting to his new environment.I don't know if biting furniture at this age is extremely abnormal or if he is trying to deal with issues. He has been told that he is coming to live with us for a while (which is about 3 hours away from his home) and has seemed to be looking forward to it.In reality, however, he doesn't know us hardly at all and his life up until now has not been ideal. He has lost in the past year his paternal grandmother who was close to him (she died),he was taken out of his mother's home and has been staying with a step-grandfather until we agreed that he should come to live with us (we are working out custody arrangements). His father has had some legal issues that he needs to resolve before he can begin to even think about taking care of his son. Thoughts? I want to make sure that we start out by giving him what he needs.

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

For such a young child to have gone through the transitions he has and not to be displaying some regressive behavior would be very unusual. His world has been turned upside down, and it's about to be turned upside down again. It's very normal for behavior in such circumstances to be unstable for a while, until he settles into his new environment and routines. Try to implement as much rote structure and routine as you can, and try to limit for now the out-of-school experiences to which he is exposed. Pre-school and home are all that's needed.

[jerseymom]

You might also want to talk to the local school district and see if there is any counseling available for him. I'm sure this will be a big adjustment and perhaps a professional could make it easier for him.