Can anyone help me with me 3 1/2 y/o boy who...

[momsuz123]

is a LOT of action all. the. time. He is a bright little boy - he loves to sit down and be read to, he is even trying now to read (memorized) books to me. He loves his legos, cars, trucks, Superstructs.

 

But... lately, his very active/aggressive/sensory seeking side is really coming out. By the way, I had two girls first, then him.

 

He loves to hit anything, all the time. Wrestling, tackling his sisters when they are trying to do school, etc.

 

Any suggestions? Today it is rainy and cold here, so we are trapped inside. We have an indoor and outdoor tramp.

 

An example of his behaviour is he loves to dump everything he can get his hands on and "play in it" seen here. He isn't trying to just be a little naughty boy - he just has an over abundance of energy (compared to my friend's boys). Today, I put together an obstacle coure in the basement for him, had him make cloud dough, and use his "tools" to chip out his little army guys from a chunk of ice. Great, but I need more time to do school with my girls.

 

Thanks.

Edited May 31, 2012 by momsuz123
added some info

[edeemarie]

I have a 3.5 year old boy too- they can be crazy at times! I have found it best to get him involved with school work as much as I can (or as time allows). If you have time to commit to teaching him that may help. With my son we are doing some math, using the ABC preschool series, and PAL reading. He is loving all of them and asks for them daily! I find that if he gets some individual attention from me (even if it is just reading books for a while) his behavior is so much better. We also have an iPad that I will let him play if I am doing something with the others that requires my full attention. He also really enjoys puzzles and look and find books. Some days definitely are easier than others! But really I just try to keep him as involved as he can be for his age because he loves to feel like he is a big kid too!

[FairProspects]

He loves to hit anything, all the time. Wrestling, tackling his sisters when they are trying to do school, etc.

 

An example of his behaviour is he loves to dump everything he can get his hands on and "play in it" seen here.

 

Um, this is probably not much help, but all of that is completely normal boy behavior here. Did your girls not dump toys? That is modus operandi at our house. Suggestion is to just go with it or find an out of the house preschool a couple of days a week. IMHO, there is a reason preschools are frequently filled with little boys. :D

[momsuz123]

Um, this is probably not much help, but all of that is completely normal boy behavior here. Did your girls not dump toys? That is modus operandi at our house. Suggestion is to just go with it or find an out of the house preschool a couple of days a week. IMHO, there is a reason preschools are frequently filled with little boys. :D

 

:tongue_smilie:Yep, I was kind of afraid of that. He is my first and only boy. My girls were active, but they didn't dump stuff at his age anymore - and my best friend's kids are all pretty, quiet. And, yes, I did find a preschool that he is going to go in the fall for 3 mornings a week. I actually had him there for a little while one day this week - he loved it.

Thanks. I think I will do some drop off care this summer, and maybe put together some tot things at home for him. 1+1+1=1 has some good ideas I found.

[Tanikit]

My nearly 5 year old girl dumps stuff like that (and not only toys - she also pulls all her clothes out of her cupboard!) I just make sure that at clean up time she is there helping and stays for the entire clean up time so that she knows how much time it takes to clean up and is less likely to do it again (well that is what I always hope but it seldom works)

 

To be honest I would let him continue to dump his toys and just find an easier way to clear up - get a big box and dump it all in there so it can just be in and out all the time. He looks like he has quite an imagination on him and is having a lot of fun. When the weather is better is there any way of getting him safely out of doors to go and dig in the mud - this was great for my 4 year old and could keep her busy for ages - yes she was FILTHY afterwards, but that was easily remedied with a bath (have old clothes!)

[Dory]

is a LOT of action all. the. time. He is a bright little boy - he loves to sit down and be read to, he is even trying now to read (memorized) books to me. He loves his legos, cars, trucks, Superstructs.

 

He loves to hit anything, all the time. Wrestling, tackling his sisters when they are trying to do school, etc.

 

Yep! Sounds like a boy. I grew up with 5 brothers and I have two boys of my own and that is how they function. It seems to be their way of getting the contact they need and the attention they need. I regularly will send my boys out to do laps around the house just to wear off some energy.

We take on some strange projects around here for them too. We collect second hand lego at every garage sale we find it and the boys create giant structures like forts and such. They seem to like things that are BIG and hands on. This summer they are building a couple different full size siege weapons with their dad and that should keep them busy. Last year they worked on a treehouse. During the winter I keep a stack of large blankets for them and 'Create-a- Fort' stuff for them to 'make' their things. It tends to keep them out of my hair for a little while. I've also learned to get tackle them once in awhile and play a little rougher as it's just simply what they need, then they do it less to their sister.

[Holly]

The little monster costume is so fitting...I need one for my 2yo! :lol: I have 4 very active kids...the funny thing is my boy is the calmest! My 2 and 5yo girls are the worst at making messes. We moved into a big house a year ago and it's been so hard to keep track of them. :blushing: I'm working on setting up a schoolroom in one of the few rooms with only one door (most of the possible rooms have 2 or 3 escape routes...I mean doors.) ;)

 

I'm spending the next couple weeks getting rid of 90% of our toys and I think it will help. I made a list of 8 toy categories to keep in the schoolroom (little people, puppets, Lauri stacking pegs, cars/car mat, etc.). I'll have a few other toys downstairs, but the majority are going. I spend way too much time picking up after my DC. :tongue_smilie:

 

I've heard time outside helps, but I swear it just makes them more active! It does at least keep them from messing up the inside of the house. We try to spend at least 30-60 minutes outside each day.

 

Another thing I've been doing is giving the younger two a craft (I have a bunch from Oriental Trading Co). The older 2 DC get theirs after school is done. It keeps the littles busy during school (for a few minutes anyway) and gives an incentive for the older two to finish.

Edited May 31, 2012 by Holly

[meggie]

Cabinets that lock. We have filing cabinets that lock because we don't have room for a big tall one. Only letting them have one thing out at a time helps although it's still really annoying when he takes the 250 pieces of wood pattern blocks and throws them all over the room. :glare: Better that than the blocks AND the rubber bands AND the crayons AND the paper clips AND the lapbooks.

[PeterPan]

Well I wasn't sure what you wanted till I saw your pictures, hehe! If I could say (and I assume this is what you're already thinking), it's very possible this dc is going to end up with an ADHD label a few years from now. Whether he does or not, it would be wise to go ahead and start reading things in that vein. It's probably where you're headed. (Ok, somebody flame me. That sounds out of the blue, but she hangs out on the SN board and has probably already thought about it.)

 

I can see where you're so tired from the day! So what's happening is he's having time to himself, being given nice things that he ought to "play" with, and the result is a horrendous amount of work for you in the end. I can tell you what I'm doing with my ds3, and you see if anything clicks. One, I'm making more effort to work with him first. When he was smaller I could work with him *while* dd worked. Now she has to work on her own for a couple hours and I have to sit and work with him. That fills up his bucket. His energy is extremely high in the morning (raising eyebrows), so I get the disaster thing. Dd was that whirlwind. Ds isn't so bad, but he has that sensory-seeking and the punching, sigh. I actually sit down with pillows and let him crash into me and punch. I basically let him do it till *I'm* worn out, lol.

 

With my dd, who was that tornado, I put all the toys up in laundry baskets out of reach. I kid you not. EVERY SINGLE TOY was out of reach. And there were NO toys in her room, none at all. Boom, no toy problem. My ds3 doesn't have a toy problem, and he actually understands the concept of putting away. My dd never did. So when I look at your pictures, my first reaction was to counsel you to put every single thing away. Restructure his world. You're not taking them away. You're just making it so he has structure to how he accesses them, if that makes sense. Create more structure. Do the other kids and you wake up at a consistent time? So people do, some don't, just asking. If you do, then you could actually go so far as to have a time routine. 9 am ds3 gets mom time for an hour while the girls do school work from their list. 10 am snack. 10:15 he picks out a basket and goes to the play area and gets gated in. Set timer and show him when it goes off he may ask for another basket (10:30, 10:45). 11 am start videos. He may have a basket while he watches videos. 12:00 lunch. After lunch is mandatory quiet hour with him locked in somewhere. During that time you get quality uninterrupted time with your oldest.

 

That's a way to do it with a schedule and baskets. I don't think the need is for MORE stuff so much as restructuring how you use what you HAVE, kwim? Anyways, it's just a suggestion. I use laundry baskets for all my ds's stuff. With him I made a checklist of what we can do together. That's not really what you need, because our students are at different ages/stages. I do the daily video thing and I do (now, learned the hard way) the mandatory quiet time. I've become ruthless about it, because frankly we all need that after a little too much high energy boy.

 

My boy enjoys hammering with nails into wood. It might be your options are still a little too girly. He enjoys going for walks in the yard. I throw out toy plastic animals for him to "hunt" with his stick "gun". He'll do that for an incredibly long time. I try to take him for a nature walk daily in addition to just regular play time. That nature walk is part of his special time with me. I let him lead, but I'll try to help him notice the birds singing, the moss, things he'd miss just flying by.

 

A ped suggested I get my ds into gymnastics for the tone and sensory.

 

It's hard. I guess keep rethinking how you're using stuff. If my ds were in that room, he would have done no better. He's not on the spectrum or anything, but he's just wouldn't have played with any of those toys the way they were meant to be played with. He would have been jumping on the furniture and banging and rearranging and throwing. Little store toys just don't interest him the way they theoretically do some other dc I guess. He's more real, more physical, more imaginative. If you take out everything except the chair (good for the cushions), but a tent with a sheet, and then give him one basket at a time of something he likes with the knowledge that he can ask for a new basket, that might work. And if you do some things with him first for an hour, that might help. Surely your girls can read and do things on a checklist to make room for that.

 

Keep working on it. He's going to grow and change. :)

 

Inserted: I don't know if you have room or the right floors for this, but my ds enjoys riding his trike indoors in the basement. He also has a plasma car which he will tie to the trike. Then *I* sit on the plasma car and he drives the trike, pressing and working hard to pedal and pull the weight. Lots of sensory and energy burning, hehe. He also has some large dump trucks and cranes. The big dump truck came from walmart for around $25. He'll haul things with hit, pull, dump, etc. He has a shovel he uses outside. I dug up a bush by my door and now he has this awesome spot just to go dig, dig, dig. Then he can load that dirt into his dumptruck, move it around, and put it back. Great things when you're a 3 yo boy, haha.

Edited June 1, 2012 by OhElizabeth

[*Jen*]

I have a 3 year old and a 20 month old sons who are just like your DS.

 

A few things I have done to help our school day go smoother

 

-We go to the park first every day that we can. Giving him time to run around and get his energy out helps keep him from all the hitting/tackling. If we can't go to the park we do a lot of running into the couch, bouncing on the bed etc. On my wish list are a few scooter boards for him to race around the house on.

 

- I took away almost all the toys. The only things they have free access to are our wooden trains, a bin of play food, some puzzles and a small bin of duplos. The rest of the toys are packed away into 5 bins. Each bin holds 5-6 toys in it. The little boys get a bin as soon as we start school work and that will keep them occupied for at least an hour. The 3 year old know that in the afternoon he has to help clean up his bin of toys. They all get dumped back in so it's easy to have a race to clean it all up.

 

- I also have bags of quiet activities that he can do at the table while I'm working with the older two. Things like pattern blocks, a magnetic dress up boy, c-rods, lacing beads, foam blocks and a spray bottle to stick them to our window etc.

 

- We are in a rental house with no yard at the moment, but when we are home he has a designated dirt pit to dig and play in. He will spend an hour just playing in the mud with his trucks.

 

- He really seeks large movements so even taking a five minute break and rolling around on the floor with him, swinging him up in the air, or just giving him a good tickle attack really help to keep him from bugging the other kids. He also really likes to be smushed so putting our large throw pillows or couch cushions on him and letting the other kids roll across him makes him so happy.