Friday, September 28, 2007

Watch Out, My Kid will Clobber Yours

After a really nice time with friends tonight, I come home and google "aggressive preschooler behavior" and "preschooler hitting behavior." So now I am feeling quite helpless. Apparently this is normal behavior, par for the course. The advice is much the same. Don't scold. Explain how the other kid feels. Remove your child from the situation. Help them with words to express their feelings. Blah, blah, blah. The truth is, yes, all preschoolers probably exhibit behavior like this from time to time...but again and again, it is my little gem who stands out, heads and shoulders, above the other kids with his behavior. It is no consolation that he will simply grow out of this, especially as his language skills develop. Some of the stuff I read even highlighted the merits of aggressive toddler/preschooler behavior.

Max is not on the accelerated end of the spectrum for verbal expression. I'm sure he gets quite frustrated with his inability to express surging emotions. He definitely expresses himself with his physicality.

But like I said, "blah, blah, blah"...none of that helps while you wipe a tear off of the other childs face. None of that helps when you see the expression of anguish on the other parents face. It doesn't help the guilt or the responcibility I feel for my inability to prevent these acts from happening in the first place.

1 comment:

Ginger said...

OMG I am sooooo there with you!

We just spent the past several months having to leave play gps early because of hitting and I served mainly as a punching bag at home. I spent weeks worrying about how I ended up creating a bully child. It was horrible and I was convinced there was no end in sight. But over the past 3 weeks since we started preschool there has been a huge difference!

I wish you luck!