Speech delayed and child behavior

[Mherl]

Hi,

I have a 4 years old son, he is a kinder right now.  He can speak sometimes fluently and sometimes I can't understand what comes out in his mouth, very strange in my part. In school the teacher communicate him in English and Filipino so that he can understand.  His teacher told us that he has sharp memory and he is a fast learner the only problem is he has this behavior that it can irritate the teacher and sometimes even me.  He insist what he wants.  When the teacher told him use the black crayons to color that object he doesn't follow he just insist to use another color, the color what he wants. Even at home you cannot force him to do what he doesn't want or else he keep quiet until you get angry with him.  Sometimes I told my self, is he poor in listening or in understanding? or  is this normal to a child like him.  My other colleagues told me to bring him in speech therapy to improve his speech.  My son knows what he want to say the problem is he has problem to deliver the speech.  during my pregnancy I always talk to him in english, german and french very often to speak in filipino that's why when he grew up he has difficulty in speech. the nanny talked to him the filipino dialect and his playmates talked to him in Tagalog and we talked to him in english sometime his father talked to him in Chinese.  
The other problem is he is moody.When he asked something what he wants and the nanny didn't give what he asked my son go to his room and quiet crying and don't want to talked to anybody. so I better hug him and kiss him to subside what he feels.

Doc, can you advise me what is the proper way of handling this kind of behavior and what are we going to do to enable him to speak fluently.

Thank you and best regards,
Mherl of Philippines

[April2]

It sounds like he wants to be independent. He doesn't want to be told to do something or controlled. I don't blame him. I know he has to listen to his teacher, nanny, you and other adults but can you let him make his own decisions in other ways? Let him pick out his clothes for the day, what he'd like to eat. Let him go to the grocery store with you and pick out his favorite things to eat. When he is at home, let him color a picture any way he wants. Just let him be able to make little decisions so that maybe he won't mind so much when he can't make big decisions.
You can try the speech therapy but I don't think it's all about his speech. I think he just wants to be heard and let people know he has a mind of his own. That's kind of what I got from what you wrote. I could be wrong. I think he sounds like a very smart little boy. I wish you both well.
April

[margypops]

I would suggest you get him into Speech Therapy, he seems to be sensitive so if he goes to his room when he gets upset thats okay let him express his feelings ,it is possible on reading your Post he has a lot of Languages to handle and if you are speaking to him in so many, a 4 year old ,whilst they do pick up languages well, could find it overwhelming.So he is talked to at 4 year old in English, chinese ,Tagalog,German and French, I think this is too much and you need to cut back.