What can I do with my 4 yr old?

[jaylupa]

I am at my absolute wits end with my son. I have been running the dc for 11 months now and my main reason for doing a day home was to provide a safe, loving, educational, place for my son and still earn some income. Now he causes me so much grief and heart ache litteraly I don't want to spend any time with him, and I am so stressed out by his constant bad behavior that I am sick to my stomach.

History...when I first started the dc he had the usual trouble of sharing, that was quickly remedied with simply talking with him and explaining that he needed to share some toys, and others were special for his room. Now, the group of dck I have all play nicely together, and for some reason my son has turned into the instigator of all the missbehaving. He is running, fighting, not sharing, not wanting to participate with the group and showing lots of anger. We have addressed the anger and he seems to understand that if he feels angery or frustrated to take a breath and count to 4 or even 10 if he needs to.

I hug him throughout the day as well as I do with the other children. I don't feel like it's a matter of attention. I have asked him to be a leader and the little ones look up to him, but if he is behaving badly then they will too. If it seems like I am all over the place I am. I am so upset, I have been trying everything to brib him to be good, take away his favorite toys, take away all his toys....I don't know what else to do with him. By the time nap time rolls around I am exhausted from constant reminders to him about his behavior, then he won't even stay in his room for nap time, so I continue to be on edge and not relax. Time out's don't seem to work. not sure what else to do...but I can't have him continue to mis behave and what bugs me the most is that he used to be excited every day and now all he does is complain about everything. I don't want this for breakfast, I don't want to color, I don't want to paint...Please help with any advise! I am ready to send him to another day home, but that's not what I want to do.

[playfelt]

When he says he doesn't want to do something if you ask him what he would prefer to be doing instead what does he say? A lot of boys do not like arts and crafts for instance or having to sit for even very short periods of time and need to be just on the go. I had three boys in care last year nearing age 4 and I found things like circletime often got derailed in favour of something else so I had to revamp my program to include the learning I wanted to accomplish in other ways such as giving them coloured rolled up construction paper rocks to put in the dump truck while we named the colours they dumped out or collected. You mentioned that you started the daycare to provide an education for your son. Be careful that you are not demanding too much adult directed time for him in the day. If he feels that he has to cooperate and go along with what he doesn't want to do just because of the daycare the purpose of it all becomes an issue.

The age mix of the children in the daycare could also be part of the problem if there are too many that are younger than he is he is missing out on peer interaction. This is often when many caregivers consider giving their child a chance to go to preschool a couple mornings a week to be with peers.

And of course our own kids will always be the worst behaviourwise because they know us very well and how to push our buttons. It is just more annoying when we have other kids to watch too.

[Crayola kiddies]

My 3.5 yr old son is also the worst behaved in my daycare .... I don't allow tv at all in the daycare but I bribe him with the opportunity to watch a show for the first half hour after the dcks are down for their nap.... Some days he's terrific me he's so helpful other days he spends a lot ofit upstairs away from everybody. He does go to preschool one morning a week .... I wish it was two .... He needs it (I need it) but he goes to full day jk in 152 days ..... Yup I'm counting ; )

[Skysue]

Mine was the same for quiet time, refused to stay in her room. So I changed things up a bit, I made the family room dark and offered her to stay on the couch for the full 2 hours of quiet time. If she was good during the day she was allowed to pick a quiet time movie. If she didn't behave it was my choice, I would turn on music and she disliked that too much. She actually looks forward to quiet time and some days asks "is it quiet time yet"?.

For time outs what method are you using? With my daughter she goes to her room, It's hard keeping them there but if they don't stay in there room then they need to loose privileges. If toys don't work would loosing t.v time work? You need to follow through on discipline and no bribes.

[gcj]

Oh, I feel your pain. My son was a huge challenge for me as well. And on top of it because of when his birthday falls, he was almost 6 before he started kindergarten (in Quebec). His last year he did 3 mornings/week in preschool and the year before it was 2. We both needed it...badly!

I would try letting him spend more time on his own in his room. He doesn't have to always be a part of daycare. That's one of the benefits of having daycare in his home. You already mentioned his toys in his room...that's important. He's also old enough that perhaps he doesn't have to "nap" like the others, but have some sort of earned quiet time as oppose to sleeping. If he still needs the sleep it can be less time with some earned quiet activity as well.....

You'll get through it! You both will. One day soon he'll be off the school and your daycare will be yours! Until then breathe, compromise. Remember that he is not an equal to the other kids. Like it or not there will double standards all the time having your own kids there, and it's ok! Once I gave up on my kids being equal to the others, it got easier. And I'd just say to the others, it's his home. He already shares his home, his toys, his food, his mommy....so yes, he gets x special treatment!

[Fun&care]

Having our kids as part of the daycare is soooo challenging. You mentioned time outs don't work, have you tried the counting to three method of time outs? When he does something "bad", explain to him why he is not to do this, and that if he does it one more time he will get a time out. If he does the bad behavior again, count to three, at three if the behavior hasn't stopped, time out in a corner, or on a step for 4 minutes. I find this method works best. First couple of times is hard, but after you have done it a few times, you probably won't get to counting to 2 and he will stop. Works for my kids.good luck. I know it's hard.

[playfelt]

Be careful in treating your own child different than the daycare children in the sense of timeouts in their room. The others don't have to go to their room so why do they have to. For sure this should be the last resort option and mostly they do time outs in the same timeout spot as the others. We can sometimes be the one escalating behaviour because they are truly angry with what they feel are injustices and favourtism. Especially if your child is an only child they haven't learned group dynamics any more than if you took an older child into care because Grandma no longer wants to cater to them and we all know how annoying they can be.

[jaylupa]

Oh my goodness, thank you all so much for your advice! . I truly balled my eyes out most of the evening (time of the month makes me more emotional too). I just felt like I was doing something wrong, and I don't want to label by own son as the "bad boy". He is well beyond his 4 yrs in pre-school type lessons, and not just because I teach him things, but he is truly wanting to know everything about everything! He is highy exhausting as a result. So yes he wears me out.

There is some great tips from so many of you. Thank you!

With time outs he sits in the same chair and place as any other dck, and I will let him watch tv sometimes upstairs for nap/quiet time because he doesn't always need a nap.

My biggest concern is the preception or example the other kids see because if he is always in a time out, I don't want them to act out and have a room full of caos. Is that crazy?

[Fun&care]

My biggest concern is the preception or example the other kids see because if he is always in a time out, I don't want them to act out and have a room full of caos. Is that crazy?

I think you are looking at it the wrong way around. By seeing your son in a time out the other kids will see that there are consequences to bad behavior. If you are CONSISTENT with your son, put him in a time out EVERY time he acts out, he will snap out of it and start listening. If you give him ANY chances, he will continue to act out because there is not always a consequence to his behavior, so why not try to get away with it? Get what I'm sayin?

[gcj]

I agree with fun&care. They'll see how NOT to act....that there are consequences and they can see that he's not having fun. That would not be a huge concern.

I too, cried many times going through these challenges.

I didn't mean using his room as a time-out, but as his own place to go...his escape. His own hangout away from it all with his own toys doing his own thing. Don't know if someone misunderstood me or if I'm the one misunderstanding.

Hope you're having a well-deserved glass of wine!