Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Frustration

I know tons of parents go through the terrible 2's. Do they ever stop? M is having issues at school with frustration, and anger. Jeff & I work with him every day, hoping just hoping that he will catch on. We even started a sticker chart to help him see his good choices during the day, and when he makes a bad choice we talk about it. "We don't hit our friends", we don't yell at the top of our lungs when we are mad." Miss S even started the 'squeeze my hands when your mad' to help him get some frustration out. The other day, another little boy A was playing with a toy with M, and then he took it away. Of course M will get upset, what 4 year old boy wouldn't? He tried to take it back, and then he was pushed against the door by A, and smacked in the head. Adding to that insult, A also told him he didn't want to be his friend. I've read about this, M told his teacher what happened, A was talked to and he apologized to M. However, M also told A "I'm going to kill you". Tell me about it. For the last few months, we have limited his intake of cartoons to only include positive role models to him at his age level. Spongebob was just too brash, and Squidward was not treating him with respect. It seems so simple, but it's not at the same time. Last week he wacked his teacher on his back with one of those red bats (the ones that come with that white ball, and make an awesome sound when you hit a homer). It ended up leaving a raised mark and concerned the director because it was the teacher. If it was a student, I shudder at that thought. We had a meeting on Friday and we are all on the same page about working together and we need to all keep communication. He wacked another little boy J today on his back. When I asked him about it, he said it was because J didn't want to play with him. He felt rejected by J. That's the constant I believe. If the teacher, myself or daddy say no then it's not what he wants he gets frustrated. He was told by A that he didn't want to be friends. J didn't want to play the way M wanted to. Miss S wanted him to clean up centers, he didn't want to. Mr. S asked him to come inside after recess and he didn't want to. Rejection, rejection, rejection = frustrated little boy.

*sigh*

2 comments:

ellenjane said...

For what it's worth I think that you and Jeff are doing a spectacular job working with him on this.

Anonymous said...

I gotta give your sis a "ditto" on this one. It sounds like you two are taking the right steps to turn this around now before it gets worse.

If only patience came in pill form!