5 year old child. Overall a good child. Is repentant for some bad behavior.
Bad parts: Too quick with his fists, and a LOT. LOT of energy. Too much. He never walks; he runs, literally.
So, we are making no headway in keeping him in check oftentimes for his bad behavior.
Strange telling example: For Christmas we got him a Kindle. Before the day was out, we had to take it away for his bad behavior. Time limit: 1 week.
1 week later, he came to his father and said “Dad, can I have my Kindle?” Time was up, so, his dad said “Sure son. But you know, if you don’t behave, we’ll have to do this again. OK?” Son’s response: (reflects a moment) “I don’t know if I can do that.” and hands the Kindle back! Parents’ mouths dropped.
Does this ring a bell for any type of behavior/personality types?
What is bad behavior? If he is acting like a five year old, that’s not bad. A kindle for a five year old boy? Inappropriate gift. Bad parenting, not bad child.
Seems normal to me. And kudos to the kid for having enough self-awareness enough to recognize that he wouldn’t be able to hold up his end of the bargain. And even more, for giving back the Kindle.
And I agree about the appropriateness of the gift. If the kid has that much energy, the last thing he probably needs to be doing is playing on a tablet. And giving a five year old an expensive toy like that without watching him like a hawk seems like a waste; a family tablet, yes. A five year old kid owning a tablet? Recipe for destruction.
Agreed that this is a very impressive five year old to recognize that no-can-do and hand it back.
His doing that makes his appropriately being labelled ADHD pretty unlikely. He also does not seem to be oppositional. High energy, sure. Possibly being subject to unrealistic and/or inconsistent expectations. Easy to do with high energy kids especially if that energy level is not a good match for parental temperments.
The description is not enough to go on other than that. It is more suggestive of unrealistic adult expectations than anything else, but again, not enough to really say.
A five year old boy runs always? Some do. That is not misbehavior.
Hitting is another story.
As for basic principles for somewhat difficult kids let’s use that Kindle example:
The fundamental idea is to be focus more on what he is TO do and rewarding for it than focusing on what he is NOT to do and punishing for that. So to use the Kindle (or some other high value reward, albeit a Kindle to a 5 year old might not be that) you try not to set it up that it will be removed for “bad” behavior but that he can earn time with it in exchange for tokens or points he was able to earn by doing desired behaviors, such as expressing anger or displeasure in more socially appropriate ways than hitting, or walking instead or running when asked, or waiting his turn to talk for 30 seconds … so on.
The other tactic with more challenging kids is choosing the battles with great thought. Some things are non-negotiable (hurting others or risking harm to yourself, for example), some things are better just ignored as not important enough to enforce every time so therefore not to be enforced at all for now, and some things can be negotiated by way of giving choices and engaging the child in contracting.
I question why you label the thread “Problem child behavior”? It doesn’t sound very diplomatic. To answer your specific question, for me it sounds like me as a small child - probably not really a good thing, I am not a particularly successful adult and was a disappointment to my parents. I thought it was interesting how he gave the Kindle back, I was that way too when young, very disciplined in that sort of way. Maybe they might find it more fruitful to focus on him as a person, and try to be more empathetic to a certain degree and look for what they can appreciate about him. I think some people are difficult, but it doesn’t mean they’re bad - if they’re too tempted to put labels on a kid they might not get the best results.
BTW Don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not being judgemental. I think parenting is always full of challenges, I’m just sharing my thoughts.
More exercise is what I’d try first. Perhaps when he’s older electronics will be captivating enough to hold his attention and work as currency to improve his behaviour, but not yet.
Some kids need lots of exercise, and without it they simply cannot help but misbehave as they have so much unused energy. Oh, and more parental attention, freely given without the need to misbehave to get some, probably wouldn’t hurt either.
Most excellent input, all!
Thank you very much.
My thoughts went along these lines, but, I was shocked by the child offering the Kindle back to Pop. I guess I was comparing him to my inconsiderate, selfish uh, self, at age 5.
It reminds me of a recent article I read about Janni Schofield, which was written by her father. Janni has child onset schizophrenia. When she was five, she too was uncontrollably energetic, sporadically violent, and also smart and self aware (although not really understanding schizophrenia, she knew that she saw “imaginary” things and said that her imaginary friend rats could bite and scratch her, hurting her in the her head.)
Here’s the article -
None of that means this child has early-onset schizophrenia, of course. He probably just needs more exercise.
Actually, I didn’t need to be diplomatic, Dad was here with me, and he was amazed/confused by the child’s behavior, so he wanted answers, not courtliness.
Also, ‘Problem child’ in the sense there is a child who is a problem. Not hated, just a bit of a problem. More acute than chronic.
Reading further in your post, thank you for expanding. I am grateful that you said "…sounds like me…’ because I, personally, despise and mistrust most child psychologists/counselors(present company excepted, of course), and it gives me reassurance that the child can grow up properly without the dark ones putting in their evil claws.
Amusingly, I, who have no children, believe that kids ought to be able to pretty much run rampant, screaming like maniacs (no sarcasm intended) from sun up to sundown, because they are kids, and kids like to do that. Not the hitting part, but, the chattering, yelling, screaming, etc…
Sounds like a case of bizarre-parental-expectation-itis, coupled with a very severe case of Never Positive Syndrome.
There is no mammal - not a dog, cat, horse, monkey, child or adult - that responds well when constantly punished and never rewarded. How much do you like a boss who constantly finds fault? To change behaviors, the parents need to focus on rewarding their child for positive behaviors (small, immediate rewards). Constant penalties are established as the least effective training method, and, especially if the punishments are somewhat attenuated in time from the misdeed.
Slightly off-topic - sounds like a pretty typical 5yr old to me, but anyway:
First, I don’t have a Kindle, so I might be wrong on this, but I’ve seen people with them on trains, and as far as I can tell, Kindles are purely for reading text, in black and white. Do Kindles do picture books, in color? Do they do multimedia books? If not…I can’t imagine why a parent would give a 5yr old a Kindle.
Now iPads, on the other hand - my 4yr old son is an oh-so-typical 4yr old boy, with seemingly endless energy. He’s allowed to use our 1st gen iPad that we don’t use anymore, and the multimedia books & coloring books and children’s games on their are *amazing. *He will happily sit down quiety going over the various ebooks on dinosaurs, space, sea animals, etc. Books with audio, songs, and movies - hell, when I sit down to read with him *I’m *impressed. At 4 years old my son knows - on sight - more names of sharks, whales, trees, birds and fish then I do. After watching the new Cosmos series he now opens up the space book to play the comet video. It’s pretty damn cool.
I’m not saying the parents’ problems will be solved by giving the kid an iPad; I just thought a Kindle was somewhat of an odd ‘toy’ for a 5yr old…
He needs a release for all that energy. Join the YMCA, sign him up for sports and swimming programs, etc. Go bicycling with him, ride to the playground and let him run around there, before riding back home.