Help, how can I disipline my 3 yr old, who I am sure is ADHD

[khogue]

I am 90% sure my 3 year old has ADHD. Having been in education as a teacher, I have seen the signs, and my son shows many of those signs. He just recently started at a private daycare, and has been nothing but problems every since. He has been attending 4 days a week for the last 8 weeks probably. I have had 2 notes from the principal that he was sent to her office, and countless notes from the daycare provider about his frequent unappropriate behavior. He is a very aggressive child, and has been so since he was old enough to walk and talk. He hits and pushes other kids, he wont listen to you, runs out in the street when you leave a store, does not sit still until he is sleeping. I feel I am at a crossroads. I have always said I would not want to put my child on medication to control for a disorder such as ADHD, but experiencing it first hand has made me feel otherwise. I want to be able to control his disipline myself, but time-outs, taking away outside play and tv, hasn't worked. I need some real advise.

[allmymarbles]

Maybe he shouldn't be in day care. Many children age three are not ready for it. And I think he is too young to be classified as ADHD.

[Sandman2]

  Good ideas by both of the above posters.  I would like to add my own two cents.  Basically, you need to use both of their ideas.  
   Rewards are nice because they are positive.  But for a 3 year old, they would have to be very immediate.  Timeouts are not a negative consequence.  They are a consequence.  At this age, any reward or consequence has to be immediate.  Thus you have to separate home, from daycare, from school.  Each has to handle their own situation.
   The other thing that is extremely important is consistency and structure.  On the ADHD forum where I post a lot, I always recommend the book, "The ADD/ ADHD Answer book," by Susan Ashley.  I think that you would find it very helpful now and in the years to come.
   And as Specialmom has also suggested, there are things that you can work with him at home, that will translate into actions at school.  I am not talking consequences for doing things bad at home.  But actually training or modifying his behavior.  You need to pick only one or two things to work on.  Beware that it will take a good 3 weeks for a behavioral modification to happen.  This can be true even for using very consistent timeouts.  
   My last piece of advice is that after you have bought the book, tried our various suggestions, and things are still not working.  Don't go to see a pediatrician.  Seek out a psychiatrist that specializes in children.  As the other two posters have noted, there are other things besides ADHD that can seem like ADHD.  Most pediatricians are not equipped to find them or deal with them.  Best wishes!

[3boysmyjoy]

Go visit a child psychologist, then go visit two more.  ADHD is very difficult to diagnose in a child so young, and really should be avoided, since an inappropriate label may stick for a different underlying issue.  Difficult child behaviors can be due to sensory issues, visual tracking problems, food allergies and many other impotuses.  As far as dealing with the behaviors, I suggest a positive behavior reinforcement system for a three year old.  Negative consequences are of little use with a child so young because they do not have the same level of rationality as you or I. I have three very challenging boys that I do this with.  Each has targeted behaviors they may earn stickers for.  When their chart is full, they pick a positive reward from the list.  The rewards aren't huge or expensive, but mean so much to them.  Some examples of what they include are a date with mom, a pick at the video store, or money for their bank.  Btw, I have a masters degree in educational counseling and ten years of teaching experience. I hope this helps.

[specialmom]

Hi.  My son has sensory integration disorder which looks very much like adhd and also affects the nervous system as adhd does.  It is treated differently through occupational therapy and we've had a lot of success with it.  Google it and see what you think.  

When a child is dealing with more than the usual such as a developmental delay like adhd or sensory integration disorder, I think of it more as teaching and guiding than discipline.  My son does a lot of wacky things because his nervous system tells him to.  He's a sensory seeker so he plays roughly, touches everything, craves things like bumping into a wall.  He also has a hard time judging where he is in space--- so bumping into others happened a lot.  To punish him for it was insult on top of injury---- so I took the approach of teaching him.  Teaching him personal space boundaries with other kids and safe and appropriate ways to get input into the nervous system was my goal.  I've not had a complaint at school yet in two years (he is now 6.5 and in first grade/diagnosed at age 4).  

I'd work with choices for him in the daycare or school setting.  He may need that little bit of control to comply.  I don't know what they do to discipline there------- time outs?  But discipline needs to be immediate at that age and discplining upon returning home is way too late to have any effect.  

Google sensory and see what you think.  I have lots of suggestions if you think it fits at all.  How is your son's speech, by the way?